Occasionally, I’ll rant about a film I’ve seen, and the portrayal of IT in it.
There are several ‘classifications’, or levels, which a film can attain:
- E - Exemplary. Cannot be faulted, and provides a perfectly accurate portrayal of computing.
- U - Understandable. A few deviations here and there, but only understandable - they may be using custom programs or components.
- PG - Pretty good. Just enough deviations to be fun, and still believable to a geek watching it.
- ER - erm… a bit iffy. On-the-go high speed internet connections. Everything done at either a command prompt or an über-friendly interface with standard 20pt font size.
- 18 - probably hallucinated by an 18-year-old student on LSD. Throws in and misuses jargon and technical terms to look impressive. Does not follow UI conventions. Text only scrolls past and is generated only fast enough for the user to read. User does not use spacebar.
- X - Gives computers extracomputational abilities. Computer can speak. Computer understands plain English commands. Computer echoes user’s input with a voice that sounds like a human imitating a synthesiser, only with a ring modulator applied. Every command takes up the whole screen.
- EX - Exempt. This is when something doesn’t use computers as a relatively important plot point, but has something interesting to mention anyway.
The films listed below are in alphabetical order, from A to Z:
- Bourne Identity, The. By Robert Ludlum, Tony Gilroy and William Blake Herron. Starring Matt Damon, Franka Potente. 2002. PG.
- Bourne Ultimatum, The. By Robert Ludlum, Tony Gilroy, Scott Z. Burns, George Nolfi and Tom Stoppard. Starring Matt Damon and Joan Allen. 2007. U.
- Core, The. By John Rogers and Sean Bailey. Starring Aaron Eckhart and Hilary Swank. 2003. 18.
[...] found the film so boring that I almost can’t be bothered to rate it on the Crashed Pips Irritatingly Implausible IT Classification System. However, after little consideration, I decided that it fits the ‘18′ rating quite [...]
Pingback by Crashed Pips » The Crashed Pips Guide To Irritatingly Implausible Computers In Film: The Core — Sunday, June 8, 2008 @ 11:25
[...] found the film so boring that I almost can’t be bothered to rate it on the Crashed Pips Irritatingly Implausible IT Classification System. However, after little consideration, I decided that it fits the ‘18′ rating quite [...]
Pingback by Crashed Pips » The Crashed Pips Guide To Irritatingly Implausible Computers In Film: The Core — Sunday, June 8, 2008 @ 11:25