The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago • Hacker News Board

Re: The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago

#141

Post by linsomniac » Fri, Sep 16, 2022, 5:07 PM UTC

alisonatwork wrote: post #93

shadowgovt wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often tell people that if they want to see a fun movie, see Hackers, but if they want to know what hacking is like, see Sneakers. ... though the all-nighter scene in Hackers where they just "flow" out some code while techno plays over the montage is also pretty accurate.

I tend to describe Hackers as depicting what coding feels like on the inside. All those great visuals, the pumping music, it captures the emotion of getting your teeth into a really gnarly problem, and the exuberance of eventually coming up with a solution. People watching over the shoulder of a developer at work are just going to see a bunch of scrolling text and tedious iterations of red, red, red, green, reload, a…

Very much agree, many people I've talked to about Hackers don't seem to get this "it shows what it feels like", and get hung up on interpreting details literally, like the favorite complaint "screens don't project a sharp image onto the wall behind you".

I also like Swordfish for this. Him dancing at the keyboard while programming is very much what it feels like when you have a good hack going.

Re: The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago

#142

Post by onychomys » Fri, Sep 16, 2022, 5:09 PM UTC

kloch wrote: post #138

Everyone knows Angelina Jolie, but did you know Jonny Lee Miller (Zero Cool) has had a prodigious acting career after Hackers? https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001538/ My favorite character of his was Sherlock Holmes in "Elementary"

He's also the owner of the all-time worst American accent, in the not very good movie Mindhunters. Here's a clip from the middle of the movie showing it. There are spoilers for the movie in the clip, but you should probably never see it, so spoiling things isn't such a terrible thing.

https://youtu.be/UACodohFhPs

Re: The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago

#143

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Sep 16, 2022, 5:11 PM UTC

alisonatwork wrote: post #93

shadowgovt wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often tell people that if they want to see a fun movie, see Hackers, but if they want to know what hacking is like, see Sneakers. ... though the all-nighter scene in Hackers where they just "flow" out some code while techno plays over the montage is also pretty accurate.

I tend to describe Hackers as depicting what coding feels like on the inside. All those great visuals, the pumping music, it captures the emotion of getting your teeth into a really gnarly problem, and the exuberance of eventually coming up with a solution. People watching over the shoulder of a developer at work are just going to see a bunch of scrolling text and tedious iterations of red, red, red, green, reload, a…

[deleted]

Re: The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago

#144

Post by kloch » Fri, Sep 16, 2022, 5:12 PM UTC

Hackers was released September 15, 1995. The newest version of Netscape you could have been using the day it came out was 1.22.

Netscape 2.0 came out three days later (September 18, 1995) and included first support for javascript, java, and plugins.

The Dot-Com craze was just getting started but nobody knew how big it would become. Few worked for Internet startups and nobody had been to a launch party yet. I had registered my first domain name just two months earlier.

What an amazing time (1994-2000) to be alive and just out of school. It was our "Roaring 20's"

Re: The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago

#145

Post by derac » Fri, Sep 16, 2022, 5:12 PM UTC

motohagiography wrote: post #126

derwiki wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes please! Bet it would have a killer soundtrack too

Would recruit Richard D. James and Max Richter (former FSOL) and maybe Nils Frahm to score it. Floria Sigismondi to direct or at least DP, or Jolie to self direct. Writing team members from For All Mankind and Mr. Robot. Cameos by everyone. Easter eggs by Parker Warner Wright. It's so close to reality already it becomes an ARG pretty fast.

Definitely needs Underworld and Orbital on there. That movie had such a beautiful soundtrack.

Re: The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago

#146

Post by ryandrake » Fri, Sep 16, 2022, 5:12 PM UTC

linsomniac wrote: post #141

alisonatwork wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to describe Hackers as depicting what coding feels like on the inside. All those great visuals, the pumping music, it captures the emotion of getting your teeth into a really gnarly problem, and the exuberance of eventually coming up with a solution. People watching over the shoulder of a developer at work are just going to see a bunch of scrolling text and tedious iterations of red, red, red, green, reload, a…

Very much agree, many people I've talked to about Hackers don't seem to get this "it shows what it feels like", and get hung up on interpreting details literally, like the favorite complaint "screens don't project a sharp image onto the wall behind you". I also like Swordfish for this. Him dancing at the keyboard while programming is very much what it feels like when you have a good hack going.

I suppose it all depends on when you grew up and got into computers. I always thought Hackers feeling/vibe was kind of clowny and not representative of computer enthusiasts and hackers. The hackers I grew up exposed to (mid-80s, early-90s) were not cool kids riding rollerblades with wacky hairstyles saying "duuuuuude" and listening to techno. Wargames and Sneakers were a lot closer to the actual vibe. Normal clothes, quiet, careful and a little paranoid, typing into monochrome terminals, and so on. Maybe the scene changed later, but it just seemed like Hackers was too focused on coolifying and popularizing an activity that wasn't really cool or popular.

Re: The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago

#147

Post by actionfromafar » Fri, Sep 16, 2022, 5:13 PM UTC

claudiulodro wrote: post #34

Between Hackers, Masters of Doom, and other rad 90s hacker-coder media, software development really seemed like a much more awesome career than it turned out to be. If I had a time machine I would warn young me that it's really more like a combination of Office Space and Wolf of Wall Street. It would be awesome to listen to Prodigy or Megadeth while hackin' with the gang though. I'm still down for that if it exists s…

I think many of us believed that for sure we are going to be the cool ones but we actually turned out more like Office Space people. Not everyone is Crash Override.

Re: The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago

#148

Post by derac » Fri, Sep 16, 2022, 5:16 PM UTC

eddieroger wrote: post #86

itintheory wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hackers shows the career guys as lame and high strung, but the hobbyists (or as Razor and Blade put it, those hacking as a survival trait) as cool and having fun. I think The Plague was having fun.

He was only having fun when he was playing cat and mouse with the hackers (or just playing with Lorraine Bracco). When he was in his office being a boring IT guy, he was not enjoying it, nor was Penn Jillette when the Gibson was under attack and his boss was breathing down his neck. The Plague was having fun, but Eugene Belford was not.

Yes, the whole plot of the movie is his plan to ransom money and get out of the rat race.

Re: The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago

#149

Post by racl101 » Fri, Sep 16, 2022, 5:16 PM UTC

kloch wrote: post #144

Hackers was released September 15, 1995. The newest version of Netscape you could have been using the day it came out was 1.22. Netscape 2.0 came out three days later (September 18, 1995) and included first support for javascript, java, and plugins. The Dot-Com craze was just getting started but nobody knew how big it would become. Few worked for Internet startups and nobody had been to a launch party yet. I had regi…

I was just entering my teens during those years. Few things I remember vividly were

- Hackers (1995)

- Mortal Kombat the Movie (1995) (both of these movies used Orbital's Halcyon +On +On) song and a bunch of other electronic music

- And I remember the Windows 1995 release. That was a HUUUUUGE software release.

Re: The movie Hackers was released 27 years ago

#150

Post by racl101 » Fri, Sep 16, 2022, 5:18 PM UTC

kloch wrote: post #138

Everyone knows Angelina Jolie, but did you know Jonny Lee Miller (Zero Cool) has had a prodigious acting career after Hackers? https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001538/ My favorite character of his was Sherlock Holmes in "Elementary"

He was great as Sick Boy from Trainspotting.