3.5 The 90's: going back to where we never left

Computer ads built in movies are now more often than ever before. And today they not only sell the product, but also sell the film. Jurassic Park and Mask did swim in money promising high emotions and...the best special effects in the world, powered by Silicon Graphics! Far more headlines spoke about the FX, rather than the plots.

Michael Crichton, author of the book that originated "Jurassic Park", is known by the research made before starting a project. Recently he took part in a project that Hollywood makes and remakes from time to time : the state-of-today's-art film. SOTA films synthesize the state of the art of technology (plus a few hopes) of a determined history point. Shown with pride while not outdated, the SOTA films are very useful for future archeology studies, the science of the past's futures.

In a sense, each film quoted in this work is a SOTA film. Since the men-only crew of "Forbidden Planet"'s flying saucer up to HAL 9000 emitting a perforated card (it is true! check it out!!) and the newborn son of Proteus with a copper wire umbilical chord, all the films were very striking at their release.

Opening shots from Disclosure. Note how the SGIs define the character's social position.

So we reach the SOTA film of our days : Disclosure. In this film, the computer & communications gadgets roll the plot forward. Few months before release a new game console, a boss sexually harasses an employee (an old former lover). If he doesn't accept the proposals, he is fired. If he does, he is also, and without home or family.

While intensively "wired", in no moment the computers plot or carry out personal revenges. The source of all evil in the film plot is the greed and envy. These factors continue to make the man the wild wolf of himself. Since Shakespeare, only a few things have changed.

The VR immersion in "Disclosure" is very similar to that in TRON, only the state of the art has changed. The computer is no longer a villain, but indeed the user uses the VR to get to a point. Check out the immersion in TRON. All the elemente shown in Disclosure are there: laser beams, etc...

Perhaps the only new idea in Disclosure is expressed by Demi Moore's character, Meredith Johnson in a DIGICOM business meeting. The promise of a digital reality as a way to zap the barriers and differences among persons. A really optimist view of our future, perhaps our days' utopy.