Computers in TV/Film - Why? Why? Why?

dulpit · 02-05-2008 11:04am #1

Does anyone else get pissed off when they see computers being used in a way that is nothing like they are used in real life? I saw Iron Man last night (which is class btw), there was some wonderful use of computers in it that was nothing like the way anything i've ever used...

I can't think of many films where they show computers with something like Windows or OSX or Linux or whatever installed, they always have these fake-ass gui's with all this nonsense type file structure and stuff...

It wrecks my head every time i see stuff like this, why? Everyone uses PC's in this day and age, so why don't they portray them (computers) in a realistic light?

TerrorFirmer · 02-05-2008 11:06am

Yeah, I hate the GUI's they use in movies...few strokes of the keyboard, big flash messages 'DOWNLOADING FILES/UPLOADING VIRUS/ACCESSING TOP SECRET PENTAGON FILES'. Classy.

mordeith · 02-05-2008 11:19am

What's worse are the little beeps and noises that accompany every keystroke! And no-one ever seems to use a mouse!

aidan_walsh · 02-05-2008 11:22am

CSI: Miami rapes the technological side of my brain on a regular basis whenever I have to watch it.

Biro · 02-05-2008 12:59pm

And they can keep guessing passwords without ever locking the account out, despite it being the most important account in the world!

AlmightyCushion · 02-05-2008 1:05pm

Was it The Core that had that guy (he looks like a rat if I remember correctly) who had to control the whole internet and stop news about what they were doing getting released. He also picked up someone's phone, then made a wierd wistlely sound into it and then told the guy he had free long distance calls. I love that whole hackers can do anything with a piece of technology type stuff. Die hard 4 was riddled with it as well.

Sherifu · 02-05-2008 1:06pm

I never see a windows autorun box when they insert a usb stick.

rrpc · 02-05-2008 1:07pm

Most of it is because (at least I guess so) any of the normal GUI's are too small to portray on screen. Imagine the log in box for Windows in any of the scenes on any movie you've seen and you'd realise that it would be practically unreadable unless they did an extreme close up which kind of defeats the purpose of involving actors

Hence the huge password boxes that take up the whole screen and very large (DOS 2.x style) text on the screen.

Icons with 8pt descriptions suffer from the same problem, hence no mouse.

But I have seen Windows desktops in the background of some scenes in films, just not in the forefront being used by the actors.

Boom_Bap · 02-05-2008 1:08pm

There are never any typing errors either. BackSpace doesnt exist in HollyWood.

FYI - I've used it 3 times writing this.

dulpit · 02-05-2008 2:32pm

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Die hard 4 was riddled with it as well.

Oh that annoyed the hell out of me, they had all these lovely scenes of people typing for 5 minutes to get something to run, why not create a shortcut on your desktop???

Boom_Bap wrote: »

There are never any typing errors either. BackSpace doesnt exist in HollyWood.

FYI - I've used it 3 times writing this.

7 or 8 times here...

aidan_walsh · 02-05-2008 2:52pm

Die hard 4 was riddled with it as well.

True, but at least it had the somewhat realistic social engineering scene in the BMW (?) to show someone with a bit of knowledge may actually have been consulted at some stage.

AlmightyCushion · 02-05-2008 2:58pm

aidan_walsh wrote: »

True, but at least it had the somewhat realistic social engineering scene in the BMW (?) to show someone with a bit of knowledge may actually have been consulted at some stage.

What was that. I can't remember that bit.

Hobbes · 02-05-2008 3:45pm

Sure everyone knows if you want to hack heavy encryption you only need 9 monitors all with rotating 3D cube interfaces. (guess the movie).

Or my favourite: "This is a Unix system. I know this."

DonalN · 02-05-2008 5:01pm

Hobbes wrote: »

Sure everyone knows if you want to hack heavy encryption you only need 9 monitors all with rotating 3D cube interfaces. (guess the movie).

Or my favourite: "This is a Unix system. I know this."

oh oh oh..I know this....but for some reason the only other scene I remember is yer man getting a bj whilst completing some big hack, plus he had a gun to his head!!...(well so did the brid, but anyways!:pac:)..

ah, swordfish !

aidan_walsh · 02-05-2008 6:52pm

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

What was that. I can't remember that bit.

McClaine and I'm A Mac were in the car trying to get it started, but were unable to hotwire it. So I'm A Mac calls up the company in control of the remote starter (!) of the car and starts giving this story about how he is with his father and the father is having a heart attack and he needs to be able to get him to the hospital but can't find/has lost the key. Haven't seen the film since it was first out, so thats how my bad memory recalls it though not all details may be entirely accurate.

Sherifu · 02-05-2008 6:56pm

aidan_walsh wrote: »

McClaine and I'm A Mac were in the car trying to get it started, but were unable to hotwire it. So I'm A Mac calls up the company in control of the remote starter (!) of the car and starts giving this story about how he is with his father and the father is having a heart attack and he needs to be able to get him to the hospital but can't find/has lost the key. Haven't seen the film since it was first out, so thats how my bad memory recalls it though not all details may be entirely accurate.

Yep, that was pretty much the scene. Social engineering ftw.

I'm a mac - lol

Ruu_Old · 02-05-2008 6:57pm

The only thing that bugs me is the digital photo or photo editing stuff that happens. I want whatever photo packages they have.:pac: Zoom in, I want that face!

aidan_walsh · 02-05-2008 7:01pm

Ruu wrote: »

The only thing that bugs me is the digital photo or photo editing stuff that happens. I want whatever photo packages they have.:pac: Zoom in, I want that face!

Not to mind that the photo was taken on a 0.001 megapixel camera and consists pretty much of the colour grey, you can still get a completely perfect photo ID of the bad guy.

-annex- · 02-05-2008 8:28pm

Ruu wrote: »

The only thing that bugs me is the digital photo or photo editing stuff that happens. I want whatever photo packages they have.:pac: Zoom in, I want that face!

Enemy of the State rings a bell here. They were looking at a paused security camera feed and someone asks to rotate the camera angle to see behind something. Which they then do bullet time style. Cracks me up every time I see it. Wish I had a shop that had cameras to cover every conceivable angle.

Capt'n Midnight · 03-05-2008 8:29pm

I just love the film sneakers for all those reasons. (OK the bit about hooking it up to the modem and instantly connecting in was plot device)

Walt Disney's the blackhole used wireframe graphics on screen because they felt people would not believe computers could do rendering :rolleyes:

And the 3D interface on the desktop in Jurassic Park was real, 1993 and was 3D in a way Vista still isn't
http://nooface.net/3dui.shtml

FSN - Produces a 3D rendering of a file system. This was the original 3D file system navigator shown in Jurassic Park ("Hey, this is UNIX. I know this!").(

Redisle · 03-05-2008 10:26pm

Great Thread

I actually feel like hitting the tv whenever something like CSI comes on where they have transparent touchscreen lcd's floating in front of them and ridiculous UI's where everything is done with one click. Its like the computer just reads your mind to find out what you want!
There are other shows too that do my head in. Smallville for example, I have started watching that again recently and its a goodish show. But good god.. the computer related bits are terrible. Take one of the most recent episodes as a casing point. A guy is given the task of spying on someones computer. He inserts his huge flash disk and "Uploading Adware" appears in huge writing on the screen. Then the computer owner comes back and wants to know who is spying on her and with one mouse click she has the full name and address of the person that installed this adware!! It really goddam wrecks a show!

There are sooo many other examples I could think of too.. Nearly every movie and tv show which uses computers in some way does a terrible job of it.

zod · 04-05-2008 8:36am

RoyalMarine · 04-05-2008 6:39pm

never laughed so much in a long time..

love this thread.

Andy27981 · 05-05-2008 6:56pm

Independece day, when will smith and yer man fly into the mothership and upload a virus. Mmmmm Just like an alien ship from millions of years away is running windows ffs and ipv4 lol

Soundman · 05-05-2008 11:02pm

Andy27981 wrote: »

Independece day, when will smith and yer man fly into the mothership and upload a virus. Mmmmm Just like an alien ship from millions of years away is running windows ffs and ipv4 lol

Though they were in one of the alien ships themselves and would have hooked straight into the Mother Ship's mainframe when they docked. They would have been able to design the virus based on what they knew from the computer on board the smaller ship used. Duh.

Khannie · 06-05-2008 10:41am

What I wondered was how apple had such good penetration in movies. Very high percentage of macs v's real life. Dell and HP seem to be making some inroads there, but overall the amount of macs in films seems very high to me.

I realised that only a true geek can immediately tell the brand of computer they're using in tv / film.

Boom_Bap wrote: »

There are never any typing errors either. BackSpace doesnt exist in HollyWood.

Oh YEAH! Madness. Never noticed that before.

zod wrote: »

<dilbert>

Loomis · 06-05-2008 10:55am

-annex- wrote: »

Enemy of the State rings a bell here. They were looking at a paused security camera feed and someone asks to rotate the camera angle to see behind something. Which they then do bullet time style. Cracks me up every time I see it. Wish I had a shop that had cameras to cover every conceivable angle.

Well I know the camera didn't capture that angle but he asks "can the computer take us to the other side" to which Jack Black's character says "the computer can hypothesis". Which is kinda alright since they're not trying to pass it off as the camera picking up something it clearly didn't

dulpit · 06-05-2008 1:45pm

Just thinking about it 24 is another brilliant one for the computers.. Able to do some fantastical stuff with those devices... I mean like it takes Chloe like 2 seconds to type something that gives her all the cameras in the city, and another 1 or 2 seconds to be able to grab the exact photo she needs, and then she can magically access details such as the licence plate number from a camera pointing at the roof or something stupid...

Blowfish · 06-05-2008 2:13pm

Minority Report. Waving your arms about like that has to be one of the most unpractical input methods in existence. Within 30 minutes, your arms would be practically falling off, I'm not sure exactly how you are supposed to be able to use it for longer periods.

beerbaron · 06-05-2008 2:52pm

Sherifu wrote: »

I never see a windows autorun box when they insert a usb stick.

Floppies ftw

A floppy was good enough for Sandra Bullock in The Net

MunsterCycling · 06-05-2008 3:20pm

Ahh but it wasn't floppy for long

beerbaron wrote: »

Floppies ftw

A floppy was good enough for Sandra Bullock in The Net

Soundman · 06-05-2008 4:02pm

MunsterCycling wrote: »

Ahh but it wasn't floppy for long

External Hard drives FTW???!!!

Thomas_S_Hunterson · 06-05-2008 4:17pm

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

He also picked up someone's phone, then made a wierd wistlely sound into it and then told the guy he had free long distance calls. I love that whole hackers can do anything with a piece of technology type stuff.

Funnily enough, it used to be more of less that simple in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2600_hertz

Capt'n Midnight · 06-05-2008 11:27pm

Andy27981 wrote: »

Independece day, when will smith and yer man fly into the mothership and upload a virus. Mmmmm Just like an alien ship from millions of years away is running windows ffs and ipv4 lol

actually he was using a MAC, and back in them days getting MACs talking to windows or anything was serious

BTW: the Russians at one stage had a ternary computer, with three states, instead of binary which has two. A later commercial decision to copy IBM mainframes meant that they copied and stole from the west. In fairness most of the western compaines were copying IBM at the time and there was a lot of software off the shelf. Who knows what aliens would use ?

MAC fan boys will tell you that the reason they use MACs in films is because they don't crash mid way through an expensive scene

What I love is the way they scroll stuff up the screen to show data transfer, except they don't use enough and it keeps repeating - look at the hexagon in Star Trek with Scotty typing in the formula for transparent aluminum, though full marks for having him speaking into the mouse.

Or the way that if you stop a file transfer at 99% then the other person won't be able to rescue any data from the part they have received already, especially if it's a list of names.

Of course shooting the screen always works.

Gadgetman496 · 07-05-2008 1:13am

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

MAC fan boys will tell you that the reason they use MACs in films is because they don't crash mid way through an expensive scene

You mean like this?

TerrorFirmer · 16-06-2008 6:07pm

Recently in Superhero movie, all the computers had XP, and the villian even uses a program called 'Microsoft Genocide 2007' or something similar, complete with the paper clip guy asking questions 'Looks like you're planning mass murder!'. Provoked a few laughs

Computers in TV/Film - Why? Why? Why?

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