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Comment by geichel | Hacker News Reader

This is also true for Enemy of the State. Watch it again. Your jaw will hit the floor: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120660/

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I also recommend watching Coppola's 1974 film The Conversation, which was a heavy influence for Enemy of the State: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071360/

The technology presented is obsolete, but the film is far more haunting because it's a deeply psychological experience.

You are right. I just watched it the other night and I was blown away by the accuracy at which the movie portrayed surveillance and even wondered if that movie was giving out more information than what the government wants out nowadays compared to back then. We were more skeptical that these things existed back then, but now that we know they do it makes that movie dead on.

I remember watching this film, just a few years after it came out and thinking, "All of this is technically possible ... but they probably wouldn't go that far, or have the infrastructure in place". Now I know better.

I was indeed recently pondering I should watch it again, just to see what my reaction would be.

Heh, I watched it when it came out and thought it was mostly the typical hollywood computer sci-fi they put into computer films to make it more exciting for the average viewer. Sadly I was wrong.

It is strange how in the US we really do get many of our issues out in film, both propaganda and progression. Movies are great and let people experience an issue through a story.

Movies are America's original pressure release valve to deal with issues and dream, could be one of our secrets to success over time. The internet is also one of those releases, the whole world needed it. Books weren't used or pop enough to really be the cultural tracking. Movies really do tell our history.

Enemy of the State also had lots of starting actors, yes Jack Black was a NSA agent linking your transactions, Jamie Kennedy, Seth Green also agents.

Enemy of the State is a still a Michael Bay film though. A bit restrained, but still a bit too explosion-ey.

Nope. Tony Scott. But, I get what you mean. Still, it's got this thin film of political intrigue / thriller across the top that really holds the plot together. Bay would have skimmed that right off.

Also, I'm not a fan of Tony Scott at all, but boy can cast the hell out of a movie. He's got great actors in every tiny role.

Sorry, they all looks the same to me. Those directors, I mean.

Bay did The Island, and it suffers from the same thing, it could have been awesome with other director.

It's based on The Conversation (or vaguely related to it?). I remember being mildly entertained when Gene Hackman turned up partway through the movie.

Hmm, that film was on my watchlist, I'll take a look.

I'll have to rewatch. My family and I were also discussing this same idea in relation to Minority Report. Are these instances of life imitating art?

Minority Report is (good) SF, remote precognition seems far-fetched at best (hence the 'F' in SF). Enemy of the State is more of a 'could happen' scenario, it contains no technology that wasn't present when the movie was made afaik.

We're not to Minority Report yet, but we're laying the groundwork: collecting massive data-sets that will someday be used for Bayesian predictive algorithms to determine pre-crime.

While the current population would vehemently reject such a scheme, it's quite feasible that public perception will shift after a particularly shocking crime/terrorism incident which "could have been prevented".

> This is also true for Enemy of the State.

Uh, no? None of what happened in the movie is based on a real story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_of_the_State_(film)#Real...

Who said anything about "based on a real story"? Did you read TFA?

Dr. Strangelove's plot is not based on a real story either.

It's about getting the details right, not about being based on any particular real life story or persons.

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