I second Jurassic Park. Let’s take an interesting premise, that we can clone dinosaurs and concentrate on the most uninteresting outcome – dinosaurs get loose and eat people (but only bad and/or boring people, not cute kids or hot babes).
Oh, and let’s throw in some random babble about Chaos theory, just so the audience gets it – science is Bad.
Are you looking specifically for movies where the characters are afraid of technology or a specific technological device (like Terminator) , or is it sufficient that the writer / producer / director is attempting to instill technophobia into the audience? For the second, I think The Andromeda Strain would be a pretty good choice, and possibly Coma as well, though I don’t remember it as well as I would like. Bladerunner might be a good choice, and Robocop too. You might also be able to get some mileage out of Rollerball (the original, of course), though it deals more with corporate paranoia then technological.
Even Poor Leo’s Computer Almanac has a bit of technophobia. Leo dressed up as a farmer/hayseed (not that the two are interchangeable, I just can’t decide which I mean to use), trying to separate himself from someone more technologically advanced.
BTW, say Hi to Pat and Leo for me (man, why don’t women like Leo’s Angels work in MY tech support center?)
eXistenZ is about a virtual reality game designer who may have anti-tech terrorists stalking her. That’s the plot. The theme is the nature of identity and perception in a world where people are connected primarily by technology.
Not to be overly critical (he’s a very good author) but Michael Crichton has made a billion or two with the following:
[ul]
[li]Man perfects new technology (space germ/androids/dinosaurs)[/li][li]Man exploits new technology (germ weapon/amusement park/amusement park)[/li][li]New technology overpowers and kills man (Andromedia Strain/Westworld/Jurassic Park)[/li][/ul]
Timeline, Terminal Man and Coma sort of fit in there somewhere too.
What about 1984? Its a political movie, but let’s not forget that it deals with technology that intrudes into every aspect of our lives. Not to mention its quite possible that Orwell’s idea for the telescreens came from the misguided belief many had when TV was first described to the masses that it was a two way device!
I doubt I’ll see them; they are usually gone by the time Call For Help goes on the air. I did bump into Megan Evilroni the last time I was there. She was very nice, and was wearing one of those funny t-shirts.
I am still gathering ideas. I like a lot of these suggestions, but I am still trying to find the right ones. I want movies that have paranoia in them, and are about paranoid subjects. Certainly The Matrix fits, as Anderson is very paranoid about these guys who can see everything he does, and the movie itself feeds a paranoia of machines and the dehumanization of mankind. Colossus does the same, but it’s not out on DVD, so I don’t know if we can use it. I have not seen GATTACA, but I bet it has the right idea. I’ll try to watch it in the next week or two.
I will third the suggestion about “The Net”…one company that with a secret backdoor can change your entire life?..Uh-huh, suuuurrre. Also along those lines, what about a more recent one…“Hackers” I think? I boy goes to work for a huge corp. and discovers that they are secretly spying on independant programers all over the world, stealing their code, and killing them. Oh, and let’s not forget they store and upload it all inside the childrens day-care center. :rolleyes:
Since Enemy of the State has been mentioned a few times, I’d like to mention its superior and far more paranoid inspiration, The Conversation.
It’s a character study/mystery thriller about a surveillance expert investigating a case. He’s introverted and, yes paraonoid, due to the nature of the job and the spy technology that he uses as a filter between himself and other people. Did he choose this job due to his nature or did his job make him that way? The final scenes where the watcher becomes the watched are absolutely chilling. Paranoia wins. Even if you don’t use it on the show you should definitely watch this classic and, yes, it’s on DVD.
Cool trivia: In Enemy of the State, when the evil gov’t agents look up Gene Hackman’s personnel file, the photo used is a still from The Conversation
What about A.I.. I don’t remember the exact line, but there was something said by Gigilo Joe, 'They made us too msart, too many. They hate us." and there is the Flesh Fair and the leaving David in the forrest because he seems to be dangerous and gives off a creepy, “i see dead people” vibe.
Well, your first two points fit. But I don’t think the third one does. With Robin Cook, the technology itself is always neutral, and it’s entirely the actions of the people who use it that determine whether it saves or destroys. In your Chrichton model, the third step happens because the technology itself has been given the power to destroy. In Cook, it happens because a corrupt person uses the technology to destroy. A subtle difference, but it leads to very different ideas about technology.