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Comment by mcphage | Hacker News Reader

* Wargames

* Hackers — it doesn’t get the software too right, but it nails the feeling

* Sneakers — a great introduction to social engineering

Wargames is a great hacking movie. The ending is a little meh, but the old-school tech is fantastic. It inspired the video game DEFCON.

Sneakers is another great movie. It seems a lot more faithful to how hacking works in real life: as you said it's mostly about social engineering, not how fast you can type. And the device in the movie is at least somewhat plausible. A mathematician could in theory discover a critical vulnerability in cryptography and build it into a standalone electronic device.

Hackers is awful. I don't get the appeal at all. I'll never understand why this movie is so popular. I'd put it right up there with Swordfish in terms of nonsensical computer voodoo.

> Hackers is awful. I don't get the appeal at all.

1. It has a great soundtrack. 2. Fisher Stevens is corny as hell.

"Type 'cookie', you idiot."

Plus you get a young and beautiful Jonny Lee miller and Angelina Jolie.

Hackers had a lot of influence from the scene and the vibe from 2600 meetups and even one of the characters is named Emmanuel Goldstein. The soundtrack was so good they released a second soundtrack with songs which were not even in the movie.

and after that they released a /third/ soundtrack, with songs which were not even in the movie.

> Wargames is a great hacking movie. The ending is a little meh, but the old-school tech is fantastic.

There were a few great things about that movie: the technology was grounded in reality, rather than fantasy (except for the WOPR); the hacking was plausible, rather than magical; not only was there commentary on the geopolitical situation of the time, but it was plausible.

The end was incredibly disappointing, but I do not know how I would improve upon it since it is pretty much the consequence of the fantastical WOPR. It would have been a much darker movie if the WOPR was replaced with a more realistic computer.

Yeah, you pretty much have to accept that you have this somewhat fantastical scenario simulation computer running your production nuclear missile controls. But if you can get past that, it has a real feeling to it and was a lot of fun besides.

> Hackers is awful. I don't get the appeal at all.

Angelina Jolie's bare breasts. I'm confident that's the appeal.

Everything else is just dancing around the issue.

Otherwise, it's a very annoying movie.

Sneakers works great for the era, if you just imagine the "magic box" as a fast DES cracker. It even makes the comment at the end about how "it only works on US crypto, not Russian" make sense !

The Matrix

The Matrix has one huge plot hole: There is nothing sacred or special about the way humans extract energy from food. You can do the ATP cycle in a vat and get the same results but you never break even or get a net energy gain. If a post-singularity AI needed to assure a continuous energy supply, that has to be among the worst possible ways to do it.

I'm not sure I'd call it a plot hole but it's a pretty weak explanation. Something like using humans for processing capacity or something like that would have made more sense at least in a handwavy SF context.

> Something like using humans for processing capacity or something like that would have made more sense at least in a handwavy SF context.

ISTR reading that that’s the original explanation, and it is what the depiction of the programs-as-people (and agents specifically actively replacing people) is grounded in. The exposition—but just the exposition—was changed at studio direction based on test audience feedback.

(Personally, I think the change to in-character exposition is an improvement, not because it is plausible, but because it foreshadows and underlines that the “free” humans understanding of the Matrix is ultimately grounded in deception intended, as later made explicit, a system of control.)

Of course, I don't accept the reality in which the sequels exist :-) I admit I was pretty much in the school that The Matrix was a cool film and didn't really dive into the sequels and what they meant too deeply.

The explanation given in the 1st movie is quite the interpretation of the humans and far from the truth. In the 3rd movie the Architect explains why the humans are bred and why Zion exists.

As long as we are talking about Keanu Reeves and Minidiscs let me add "Johnny Mnemonic"

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