# Horrible Movie and TV tropes about computers

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/horrible-movie-and-tv-tropes-about-computers/1032852>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Tags:** movies\
**Created:** [September 6, 2026, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/horrible-movie-and-tv-tropes-about-computers/1032852 "2026-09-06T04:51:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 7

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**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\
**Post date:** [September 10, 2026, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/horrible-movie-and-tv-tropes-about-computers/1032852/121 "2026-09-10T18:10:02Z")

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> [@ZonexandScout](#):
>
> The first time I saw _Minority Report_, I thought, “That’s a heck of a lot of motion and physical effort just to select and move things on a display.” I’m a Luddite who still uses a mouse with my laptop, even when I’m siting on the couch. I can’t imagine waving my hands around in the air and shoving virtual objects to the side with huge sweeps of both hands.

I was going to mention that one. If a fly lands on Tom Cruise’s nose, Og help them.

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**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\
**Post date:** [September 10, 2026, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/horrible-movie-and-tv-tropes-about-computers/1032852/122 "2026-09-10T18:36:57Z")

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> [@ZonexandScout](#):
>
> “That’s a heck of a lot of motion and physical effort just to select and move things on a display.”

I thought it looked pretty cool, and even thought I’d love to try it… until I read an article saying that Tom Cruise had to rest his arms _a couple of times every minute,_ so those scenes are stitched together from many short cuts.

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**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\
**Post date:** [September 10, 2026, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/horrible-movie-and-tv-tropes-about-computers/1032852/123 "2026-09-10T18:56:12Z")

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> [@steepone](#):
>
> Text appearing on screen one letter at a time like it’s being typed, complete with sound affects.

No sound effects but I can think of two events where I’d see an unintentional “typing” effect. One was using Internet Relay Chat (IRC) on a slow dialup modem in the 90s. The other was decades later on the modern day where using a large enough local LLM model results in the text coming in one character at a time.

In both cases, I found some enjoyment in it for looking like a movie computer.

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