Comment by bilekas

10 hours ago

Hack the planet. This is such a call back and what a nice touch to add the sound to it too. That whole OST is incredible, I still pull orbital and prodigy into my current work playlists. What a fun movie.

35 comments

bilekas

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kstrauser  6 hours ago

I took my kid to Def Con. We were walking up to the convention center and there were a few hundred people milling around out front. To embarrass my kid, I shouted "hack the planet!" loudly toward the crowd. Probably a good 50% of the bystanders shouted it back at me.

My people.

Zaskoda  10 hours ago

I hated this movie the first time I watched it. And the second. The third time I let go of the need for things to be realistic and took it all in as an artistic representation and snap... I loved it. One could argue that I loved it all along given that I watched it so many times... but there was a distinct moment where I let go and that's when I was able to see just how wonderful this movie really is.

  • kstrauser  8 hours ago

    I adore it. And some of the representations are the best I’ve seen anywhere. Kids exploring for the fun of exploring, not to hurt anyone but just to learn? The clock whirling at 4AM while someone hyperfocuses on code? The way they tease each other but genuinely respect their abilities? It’s beautiful.

  • hnuser123456  10 hours ago

    There are some niche 3D file system browsers/shells out there, but none as captivating as what's shown in the movie (or the linked "animated experience") that I can find.

    • T3OU-736  9 hours ago

      Not quite filesystem navigation, but SGI IRIX's Performance CoPilot software had an IrixGL (OpenGL's precursor) UI for monitoring things like memory state, CPU/storage loads, etc.

      The PCP is absolutely nowhere _near_ the graphical wizardry of the state of this app, and the overlay of executing code atop a given directory structure is quite beautiful (practicality be damned), but I can see the inspiration.

      I do wonder if, on a modern Linux system with SELinix, this model (code accessing a directory) is actually closer to viable? SELinux's contexts/labels for subjects overlaying with the same for objects can, I imagine, be visualized. The normal access patterns would be way too overwhelming, I think - but exceptions/policy violations? :ponder:

  • tptacek  7 hours ago

    I remember being at Summercon before this movie opened and Ericb addressing hotel conference room we were seated in talking about how Iain Softley had directed Backbeat and how happy he was that he was doing this movie and that you had to get in the right headspace to understand what it was going for.

    (I think the movie is wildly overrated just as a piece of storytelling; the hacker fan-service in it is just fine, they clearly got some tfile kids to consult with the script.)

  • browningstreet  5 hours ago

    Tried to watch it for the first time recently. Didn’t make it past 20 minutes… feel like I had to be there when it was fresh back in the day.

  • inanutshellus  10 hours ago

    I've flipped that switch for book adaptations.

    I let go of fanboying on what Hollywood "did to" the story and instead just decided to be thankful something I love was given a new medium / audience / interpretation... and voila! now I have two things to love.

    It's still fun to point out where things could've been done differently, but instead of actually disliking the film(s) because of those things, it's just another mechanism that lets me talk to my friends about something. Much more fun than riding home in silence in any case. ;)

    • BLKNSLVR  3 hours ago

      I actually really liked the live action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop, and was disappointed at it's cancellation.

      Unpopular opinion amongst those who grew up on the anime, but I was late to the anime so my childhood-integrity isn't dependent upon requiring a faithful one to one retelling (or whatever would satisfy those folks - possibly nothing).

      I enjoyed the "Hollywood" Ghost in the Shell as a stand-alone 'thing', unrelated to the manga / anime. The ending is quite on the nose; ultra-formulaic where formulaic has no place.

  • the_af  8 hours ago

    > I hated this movie the first time I watched it. And the second. The third time I let go of the need for things to be realistic and took it all in as an artistic representation and snap... I loved it.

    I never managed to reach your third time. Once was enough for me, at the time, to decide it was an awful movie which didn't have anything to do with hackers or computers and which was terribly overacted, and that was that. Filed under yet another "Hollywood just doesn't get it", subsection "so bad it's embarrassing".

    Much later I realized I had missed a cult classic. Oh well. I still think it's a bad movie, but I'm ok with other people loving it... maybe that's my growth moment.

    • BLKNSLVR  3 hours ago

      I love it, but I know it's bad, but I also think it was intentionally what it is, which makes it good or even great.

      If you can unlock that teenage feeling of wonder at the potential size and scope of the world and, at the right age at the right time, feeling like that world is your oyster, that's the feeling in which to watch this movie.

      I refuse, however, to get into that feeling-zone for other 'high school' movies; they're stupid...

alexjplant  10 hours ago

I, too, have such a work playlist entitled "Hack the Mainframe." It's got this type of stuff along with 90s/early 2000s breakbeat songs that ended up shoehorned into car and techno thriller movies at the time. I know a lot of this music was reviled as sellout trash at the time but I was too young to know any better when I first heard it and think it still holds up phenomenally well.

  • GJim  9 hours ago

    > sellout trash

    A trifle offtopic, but.....

    In the 1990's and for us Gen-X'ers, the worst thing you could do was to sell out; to take the mans money instead of keeping your integrity. Calling people and bands 'sell outs' (sometimes without justification!) was to insult them.

    With the rise of 'influencers' the opposite appears to be the case; people go out of their way to sell out and are praised for doing so. This is a massive change in the cultural landscape which perhaps many born in the 2000's aren't aware of. (Being aware of this helps give some perspective to Gen-X media and films like hackers).

    • burningChrome  8 hours ago

      This is exemplified in Wayne's World product scene. I later found out none of the companies shown in the scene had paid for their products to be in the scene. Its also one of the most iconic scenes from the movie.

    • riffraff  9 hours ago

      This is insightful. But I'm not sure it's completely true, I think people just have shifted their perception of what selling out means.

      Content creators on YouTube, for example, get criticized when they literally sell their brand to a larger conglomerate. It seems people do not complain if they do sponsorizations tho.

      4 replies →

  • dualogy  9 hours ago

    > 90s/early 2000s breakbeat songs

    Can recommend such a mix, too. Gather select works of The Chemical Brothers, The Dust Brothers, Bassbin Twins, Crystal Method, DJ Krush, Dub Pistols, Lunatic Calm, Meat Katie... and you're Somewhen Else during it. Works for commutes/trips, too.

    • Fluorescence  3 hours ago

      > The Chemical Brothers (a), The Dust Brothers (b)

      I had a couple of Dust Brothers (a) cassettes before they changed their name after getting a call from the other Dust Brothers (b).

      Still can't believe they knowingly copied another band's name "because it sounded cool". Isn't coming up with a shit name half the fun? "I need a handle man".

RobRivera  10 hours ago

Discovered the Hackers ost on a /mu/ thread. So many bangers.