The girl with the ANSI tattoo • Hacker News Board

Re: The girl with the ANSI tattoo

#61

Post by antidoh » Thu, May 31, 2012, 3:49 PM UTC

ralfd wrote: post #14

jeffool wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Social Network was good about it. Someone online actually reedited the scene where he was grabbing images from frat sites and edited in scenes from other films, like Hacker's "virtual skyscrapers", and suddenly it was like a real Hollywood film again!

We recognize when movies dumb computer stuff down, but the truth is they do it always! Imagine sitting beside a big horse nerd and every time a horse is on the screen and makes this typical horse noise they would comment "the horse didn't make the sound" or white walkers are killing the night watch behind the wall and "this horse is not really frightened but relaxed and listens curiously" or every time there is a mig…

I don't think they dumb down on purpose, I think more often they just don't bother to talk to anyone knowledgeable.

Re: The girl with the ANSI tattoo

#62

Post by nsmartt » Thu, May 31, 2012, 3:51 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #17

Please nobody let Hollywood see this blog. Somebody's going to say, "Man, we went to all that trouble to make it look realistic. But it doesn't work. Fuck it. Bring back the guy who did the interfaces for Jurassic Park. And the guy who writes Wesley Crusher's dialog." --- Update: I love that my comment mocking excess nitpicking now has triggered triple-redundant nitpicking.

I was just happy to see SQL used at all.

Re: The girl with the ANSI tattoo

#63

Post by cantankerous » Thu, May 31, 2012, 3:52 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #7

klez wrote: post #4

I'm happy that, finally, people are not shoving 'movie-os' in computer scenes anymore. The first time I saw real stuff in movies was in Antitrust, then in Tron: Legacy and finally here.

bin/iostat in Tron Legacy returns: SolarOS 4.0.1 http://tron.wikia.com/wiki/SolarOS [NB I have the relevant screenshot as a desktop background]

Did I just now get that SolarOS was just a pun on Solaris?

Re: The girl with the ANSI tattoo

#64

Post by famousactress » Thu, May 31, 2012, 3:55 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #17

Please nobody let Hollywood see this blog. Somebody's going to say, "Man, we went to all that trouble to make it look realistic. But it doesn't work. Fuck it. Bring back the guy who did the interfaces for Jurassic Park. And the guy who writes Wesley Crusher's dialog." --- Update: I love that my comment mocking excess nitpicking now has triggered triple-redundant nitpicking.

The Jurassic Park stuff wasn't done by a "guy", it was done by a team of folks, of which my mom was a part. (Specifically she helped pull together some of the spinning 3D xray skull stuff, wrote some c-shell scripts and was part of the sales team that sold the Sun systems to the movie). Also, the UI that you're probably talking about is this thing, and it's (sadly) real: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fsn

Re: The girl with the ANSI tattoo

#65

Post by arethuza » Thu, May 31, 2012, 3:56 PM UTC

cantankerous wrote: post #63

arethuza wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bin/iostat in Tron Legacy returns: SolarOS 4.0.1 http://tron.wikia.com/wiki/SolarOS [NB I have the relevant screenshot as a desktop background]

Did I just now get that SolarOS was just a pun on Solaris?

I think the capitalisation and the "4.0.1" was a hint that it's really a pun on SunOS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SunOS

Re: The girl with the ANSI tattoo

#66

Post by monopede » Thu, May 31, 2012, 3:57 PM UTC

gravitronic wrote: post #31

archangel_one wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally sympathise, I have the same with archery in movies. I can normally ignore the typical Hollywood stuff in LOTR or whatever, but really can't take it when they pretend to be modern + realistic (current worst case: Blade Trinity).

Did you watch hunger games, and how did that archery look? Apparently the actress spent 6 months+ practicing but I'd be interested to hear an informed point of view.

Actually, she just spend a few weeks practising with an Olympic competitor, i.e., nowhere near 6 months. I'm not an expert on these things, but it seemed to vary from scene to scene. Someone commented on the trailer and explained how it's very accurate, but there were a few shots in the movie where what the expert explained seemed missing (like "kissing" the string).

Re: The girl with the ANSI tattoo

#67

Post by jlgreco » Thu, May 31, 2012, 3:58 PM UTC

mikecane wrote: post #55

Let me just say that after seeing the original Swedish movie and then reading the book, I was crushed to learn there was no hacker tool called "asphyxia" in the book.

There is in the English translation of The Girl Who Played With Fire.

Re: The girl with the ANSI tattoo

#68

Post by bitwize » Thu, May 31, 2012, 4:02 PM UTC

shrikant wrote: post #49

klez wrote: post #4

I'm happy that, finally, people are not shoving 'movie-os' in computer scenes anymore. The first time I saw real stuff in movies was in Antitrust, then in Tron: Legacy and finally here.

The overall premise was a little over the top, but WarGames (the older one) got some of the detail correct. In 1983, no less, so it's replete with dial-up sounds and everything!

WarGames was a marvelous movie! With the exception of WOPR, all of the computer usage was fairly accurate, with a few fudges such as that speech module being audible everywhere, when it clearly says that he bought it for his home computer to read terminal output. Everywhere else a computer is shown being used, it's fairly mundane, e.g., a librarian doing searches for books on Falken. There's no "computers are magic" crap-ola that goes on in later hacker-themed films.

As for WOPR, he is based on a real cold-war program called SIOP (Single Integrated Operational Plan), under which the President could tentatively select nuke targets and run computer simulations of what might happen. WOPR, unlike a lot of movie AIs, is not even particularly malicious; he is just running what he thinks is a simulation, blissfully unaware of the stakes, as any computer program without sufficient "common sense" would be.

Probably the biggest exaggeration in that movie was the shots of the NORAD command center, which NORAD officials at the time stated was what they wished they had rather than what they actually had. The filmmakers were not permitted access to the insides of NORAD so again, they had to make shit up.

Re: The girl with the ANSI tattoo

#69

Post by nhebb » Thu, May 31, 2012, 4:04 PM UTC

mibbitier wrote: post #20

sophacles wrote: post #15

I really don't understand why people need to nitpick stuff like this. I mean, it's a movie -- the point is to tell a story not impart technical knowledge. Yeah, the query someone came up with on the fly isn't perfect, we get it, but in reality, this happens at the sql command line all the freaking time, it's a one-off, who cares? And yeah, the returned results are a bit incorrect for the query, but given that a bunch…

Thing is, if you're "good" at something, and a movie gets it wrong, it can ruin the movie for you. My pet hate is people playing the piano, but playing the wrong notes (While the soundtrack is playing something different).

Exactly. My pet peeve is military depictions in movies. I can't recall a movie that's gotten even the basics right. I may be nitpicking, but it does detract from the viewing experience.

Re: The girl with the ANSI tattoo

#70

Post by dredmorbius » Thu, May 31, 2012, 4:11 PM UTC

ralfd wrote: post #14

jeffool wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Social Network was good about it. Someone online actually reedited the scene where he was grabbing images from frat sites and edited in scenes from other films, like Hacker's "virtual skyscrapers", and suddenly it was like a real Hollywood film again!

We recognize when movies dumb computer stuff down, but the truth is they do it always! Imagine sitting beside a big horse nerd and every time a horse is on the screen and makes this typical horse noise they would comment "the horse didn't make the sound" or white walkers are killing the night watch behind the wall and "this horse is not really frightened but relaxed and listens curiously" or every time there is a mig…

Movies do things for visual impact.

And audio impact.

They're not reporting fact. They're weaving a fantasy.

Whatever your field is, if you want to got stark raving mad, watch a movie made about it.

At the very least, the people writing, acting, and directing your world have little or no idea of what it's really like. And even if they do, they're taking deliberate liberties to embellish or interpret the realm to make it more telegenic.

An interesting exception: movies looking in on themselves -- at movies, TV, and entertainment. There's frequently embellishment, still (people and events are more glamorous / beautiful / hip than they are in reality), but there's often a lot of real insight.