3. Computer characters in the movies

Authors like Asimov followed different roads. Asimov always built his robot characters with a striking coherent personality, creating the famous three laws of robotics, today considered something to be taken seriously. Asimov transforms an android into human in the short story "The Bicentennial Man", that happening through the character's death. Very believeable, but Asimov are the exception - and not the rule.

On the other hand, movies are both industry and fantasy. Because of that, one can say as much nonsense as wants, since the movie is a hit. Once the movies are made to please $350 million and not the readers of BYTE or WIRED, we should agree that the computer characters' role in the plots are closer to the common sense than to the high-tech audience.

Shots from Forbidden Planet

Movies also mirror the anxiety of its times. After the World Trade Center bombing in 1992, many US towns were blown to small pieces on the silver screen. When something out of a "Die Hard" plot met reality, as in the Oklahoma bombing, the whole world saw that blood does not fades away as fast as in the movies.

Computers are always linked to futuresque plots. As the futures changed from the 50's to the nineties, the visions of computers also...let's say...rebooted ;-). Read on!