Conference noted::sf

339.0. "Short Circuit" by PROSE::WAJENBERG () Wed May 28 1986 16:36

    I recommend the movie "Short Circuit," part of this summer's fantasy
    and SF crop.  It is a cinematic version of a particular SF sub-genre,
    the first-sentient-machine story.  The movie is a little over-cute
    in places, but otherwise sound and generally enjoyable.
    
    Our hero is #5, one of five prototype robot soldiers.  While out
    on trial manouevers, it gets struck by lightning, with the improbable
    result of becoming conscious and volitional.  It rolls off the company
    grounds to see the world, leaving its (erstwhile) owners scrambling
    madly to locate it.
    
    By a slightly strained piece of luck, its first human contact is
    with a young lady who takes in stray animals and runs a health-food
    lunch wagon.  She takes the robot for an extraterrestrial at first,
    and tries to explain Earth to it as well as she can.  It digests
    every book in her house, watches an inordinate amount of television,
    and spends the rest of the movie speaking in quotations from TV
    shows and the dictionary and encyclopedia.
    
    The bulk of the movie is a chase scene with the robot and the girl
    trying to elude capture.  The remaining gender is represented by
    the robot's designer, who spends the first half of the movie becoming
    convinced that the robot is sentient and the second half defending
    it against the company, who only know that it is behaving erratically
    and is armed with a tank-killing laser.
    
    Special effects were good, overall.  The laser beams were
    instantaneous, not like the painfully slow phaser and blasters of
    space opera.  The robots must have included a fair bit of REAL
    robotics, as well as ordinary remote control and stop-action.  The
    only implausibilities I caught were that #5's eyes glow in moments
    of intense emotion, and they were unable to resist a voice-syched
    blinky-light for a mouth (for no good reason).  Also, #5's voice
    is a little too cute for my taste.
                                                      
    But on the whole, I recommend it.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    There is a note on this in BISON::MOVIES (hit KP7 to add it to your
    notebook). What I said there, basicly, was that I thought it was
    really dumb, but I laughed all the way through it, and I can recommend
    it for light entertainment.
    
    --- jerry

        You won't get a whole lot of insight into the issues of
        artificial intelligence or the meaning of life from Short
        Circuit, but it's very well done, and really amusing.  One
        of the better humor movies in a while, although calling it
        "science fiction" is probably stretching things a bit.
        
        By the way, anyone notice that the robots sound remarkably
        like DECtalk (including #5 until he assimilates all the data)?
        
        	/dave

    Re .0:
    
    > The robots must have included a fair bit of REAL robotics, as well as
    > ordinary remote control and stop-action. 
    
    The film used a robot hand which Digital had on display at DecWorld
    (from Ed Cetron at some university whose name I've forgotten).  The
    hand is driven from an RSX system.
    
    
    				-- edp 

    I acknowledge that the movie doesn;t get very profound, but how
    profound do you have to get to be "real science fiction"?  It seems
    to me that "Short Circuit" does about as good a job as an Adam Link
    short story, though in a lighter vein.  At least they work on the
    standard SF moral that persons must be respected regardless of the
    kind of body they have.
    
    Yes indeed, I noticed the DECtalk accent immediately.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

Lots and lots of technical problems (16 pin plastic IC's for brain, limitless
energy for the laser, etc), but it was thoroughly enjoyable as a comic book
type story.

    re:.5
    
    I resent that remark about it being a comic book. I liked the
    movie, but it's not nearly as good as a good comic.
    
    --- jerry