Best line in the movie. At least, the one I use the most.
My favorite was always,
“I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said… ‘I drank what?’”
I use that one a lot too.
He was also Napoleon Dynamite’s Uncle Rico
1985 was one of those weird confluences of movies of the same ilk all getting a near-simultaenous release. But while we only got two asteroid movies and two animated bug movies in 1998, 1985 gave us Weird Science, Real Genius and also My Science Project (arguably Back to the Future could come under this umbrella as well). Real Genius was obviously the cream of that crop, but I liked My Science Project a lot as well…gotta love any high school that has textbooks descibing how time warps work, and Dennis Hopper as a science teacher. Weird Science, despite the always-genius Bill Paxton getting turned into a (literal) big pile of shit, was…not great. Problematic even by 1985 standards.
Yes, Michelle Meyrink, but also that bizarre coveyor belt roller coaster to Lazlo’s lair, hidden behind the dorm wall (the plot logic is baffling…who built it and how did they keep it a secret?), and magnificent use of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” under the closing credits. Jeez, I need to find the movie and watch it again…
Their version was obviously over the top, but I think it was basically a reference to MIT’s steam tunnels, which were a subject of urban exploration before it was cool. Sort of a form of hacking from a nerd’s perspective. I’m sure many of them thought it would be cool to build a train system or something else in these tunnels.
Though I’m not sure why a college in Southern California would even have steam tunnels.
Probably actually a reference to CalTech’s steam tunnels rather than MITs.
We also had them at Rice in Houston. And yes you do need steam even in Southern California or in Texas. Though mostly they are regular utility tunnels (water, electricity, network), and they aren’t formally called ‘steam’ tunnels.
Wherever there are interconnected bits that grant access to unusual places, smart students will find a way to gain access and explore. What else are they going to do? Study?
Of course, for reasons of liability and safety, most universities have now heavily restricted access.
Pacific Tech was obviously a stand-in for CalTech, but I always got the impression that the culture in the movie was something of a blend between CalTech and MIT. I guess CalTech has steam tunnels too, but I think MIT’s were always more famous (and probably more comprehensive).
Probably just CalTech. Several CalTech folks were involved behind the scenes.
The thing is - MIT isn’t unique for having smart students or steam tunnels. If you get a bunch of smart kids together and they get bored or need a break from the academic pressure, they’re going to do a lot of the same (often stupid but also often hilarious) things. We had them at Rice, as well. And I may or may not have pulled similar pranks in my day (and some may have actually involved a quantity of liquid N2 surreptitiously obtained).
…and that leads me to my favorite scene, in the montage of everyone cramming for exams. One guy stands up, freaks out, and runs from the room … and then someone else who was sitting on the floor just takes his spot at the table, and everyone just keeps studying.
Yeah, that’s only slightly exaggerated for effect. The main plot is really dumb but the student life bits are eerily close to real life. They really make the movie.
It’s not that; I mean, I think of CalTech as being more elite than MIT, though maybe that’s my California bias showing. It’s just that, while they certainly exist on California campuses, the tunnels are undoubtedly bigger and more comprehensive in a cold climate. I know they existed at UC Davis too, and people explored them, but there was never the impression of them being some giant underground complex, like something out of Zork.
I loved the movie! As a fan I wish Michelle Meyrink had a longer movie career, but she’s probably happier out of Hollywood. She’s in another favorite of mine “Nice Girls Don’t Explode”.
I was in physics grad school when the movie came out, and I thought it had nice details. For example, Mitch is studying from this book - a real textbook! https://www.abebooks.com/first-edition/Gravitation-Charles-Misner-Kip-Thorne-John/30840326024/bd
For as long as I can remember, my wifi network has been named “this is it.”
One of my favorite movies.
We could probably use Ik and his invention capable of starting another Ice Age.
It wasn’t just steam tunnels. Probably because of the Boston winters (and weirdness like the winds around the Green Building), MIT also has lots of interconnected basements, allowing you to go from building to building without going outdoors in totally unrestricted space. It also has lots of above-ground “gerbil tubes” connecting buildings. You can literally walk for miles through the MIT corridor system and steam tunnels without retracing your path (although you’ll cross it several times).
The University of Rochester also has such a basement corridor system, but it’s nowhere near as big. But their steam tunnel system is pretty big – you can walk from the U of R campus across to Strong Memorial Hospital and places like Helen Wood Hall through the steam tunnels.
Huh. All of the stupid things I’ve done with liquid nitrogen, I my procurement of it was perfectly open and above-board:
Me: "I want some liquid nitrogen to do <stupid thing>
Guy in charge of physics department supplies: “Sure, sounds great, is two liters enough?”
Not just a real textbook; it’s THE standard definitive textbook in general relativity, that everyone else, even the other textbooks, all refer to.
I have had the dubious honor of spending several different weeks at the Rochester, MN Mayo Clinic in the winter, where – in the immortal words of the Boomtown Rats – “I rode those tunnels like a six-foot mole.”
I think it’s exceedingly cool, if you can get past the oppressive meteorological reason behind it 
… that even with a wind chill factor, ‘minus zero’ makes no sense. (Less egregious though, than Geordi saying the temperature on a planet is -291°C in a ST:TNG episode.)