Why are computers in movies never like real life? (Another example is ''Mission Impossible''). First we have the Jackal dictating to a bank's computer as if he was talking to a person. (Obviously there are security issues here too, both for him and the bank!) Later he's in a internet cafe and is able to get into immediate - and presumably secure - contact with a Russian mafiosi in a matter of seconds. None of the screens shown are recognisable from any computers I've used...
shareWell voice dictation and recognition software did exist in 1997, I remember the IBM "Aptiva" computers were the first to have a Voice Dictated Word Processor, but it was still pretty rudimentary stuff.
I'm not sure how well it worked and how good the recognition was, but that technology was certainly around in 1997. (Though I don't remember Macs having it).
So while it's plausible, it's a ridiculous notion that a secretive assassin would just order machine guns from a Bank's computer, when it could be very easily traced.
As for his online chat at the cafe, well again that's entirely plausible too, but the immediacy of it is a bit preposterous. I mean 56K Modems were the norm back in 1997, and they were no where near that fast.
When the Defecation hits the Oscillation.
I'm not talking about minor technical issues - though I know people on these boards love them!
Even with highly sophisticated voice recognition, the fact is '''he is talking to the computer like a person''', for instance, telling it to "transfer funds in the usual way". It is one thing to give spoken commands, another to expect the computer to read nuances, implications, assumed information. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a computer that acts like an intelligent manservant is still very much science fiction.
With the Internet cafe, my issue wasn't with the speed of the connection but the fact that he got an immediate response. Even today I think it is exceedingly rare to get a response to an email or similar within 15 minutes but he gets a response straightaway - and he expects this. In fact seems to be in some kind of chatroom, presumably secure, which makes it even more unbelievable that he would get a response immediately. It's as if his contact is just sitting at his computer waiting to chat. In fact, the '''Internet works exactly like the computer illiterate think it works''' (and incidentally how it works in ''Mission Impossible''): someone jumps on a computer, types something in, and - hey presto! - the person that they want to contact replies. And the computer looks 80s vintage with a blue or black screen and command prompts. Obviously no one in Hollywood uses computers...
Would it be more interesting if he opened Yahoo messenger, waited 10 seconds to sign-in, then had to reboot because windows ME froze, before getting a reply from his contact? :)
shareI thought they were just using voice recognition to type / software..and something like it to read the incoming text..
communicating with something like Windows chat..
I swear the 'voice' he was talking to sounded just like the Bonzi Buddy text reader..
Well here is my take on the whole computer thing. I'm 42 and I saw this movie when it was at the theaters in November 1997. At that point many many people still did not have a PC and they weren't on-line. Hell cell phones were still something of a rarity for the average person.
So the movie made some cheats in how it depicted the technology because the filmakers knew much of it's audience would not be real tech savvy. They played fast and loose in order to advance the story. It worked, but it ages the movie very badly in 2010.
I just watched this movie today. The last time I watched it 9/11 had occurred just a few weeks before so it's been almost nine years.Still didn't catch the cheat back then. But today I also found myself focusing on the marvelous computers and Internet connections. But alot has changed in the past 13 years.In many different ways.
as far as his internet connection speed..
It's been several years since I saw this movie..
But was using the Computer from an Internatoinal Bank..
While I never had dealings with T-1 or T-3 lines (I assume 2 things)
1) A T-1 back then is still faster than a cable connection is today..
2) International banks had them...
You're all so silly. Internet chats were very snappy back in 1997. I actually went to this movie in 1997 with a girl I met online! Very taboo back in the day!!! I remember when when Bruce Willis went to the internet cafe and asked "Can I get online with this?" we both looked at each other and smiled and laughed a little.
I think most computer screens look odd probably because they either don't want to pay the rights to use Windows 95 screen shots (in this movies case).
A T-1 is not faster than a cable connection. Cable can reach speeds of 20Mbps, but a T-1 is rated for 1.5Mbps.
shareHate to tell you, but USA isn't the "world" ;)
The whole internet bloom started around in early 1993 in Europe. Hell I bought my first PC with internet in late 93. Not sure what you mean by "cell phones were still something of a rarity for the average person", again Ericsson bloomed in 1996.
Also what's sad is that USA is still about 10 years behind in networking technology, the fact that a lot of your ISP charges for bandwidth per hour is still a bad sign of just how obsolete systems you're using.
This movie did NOT cheat in any way of technology.
Just so you know, I had broadband in 1999. I can get 200mb easily here for less than 10 dollars, and no retarded "you pay for bandwdith limit" bs.
"Wait!" "Worry" "Who Cares?"
www.alienexperience.com
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millenniumgroup
Hate to tell you, but USA isn't the "world"
The whole internet bloom started around in early 1993 in Europe. Hell I bought my first PC with internet in late 93. Not sure what you mean by "cell phones were still something of a rarity for the average person", again Ericsson bloomed in 1996.
Also what's sad is that USA is still about 10 years behind in networking technology, the fact that a lot of your ISP charges for bandwidth per hour is still a bad sign of just how obsolete systems you're using.
This movie did NOT cheat in any way of technology.
Just so you know, I had broadband in 1999. I can get 200mb easily here for less than 10 dollars, and no retarded "you pay for bandwdith limit" bs.
Why are you being so confrontational? Did you understand that I was talking about the "average" movie goer circa 1997 - not the cutting edge techie? You are obviosuly an exceptional person when it comes to having all the technological bells and whistles, but in 97 many ordinary people didn't. I would say this was true in Europe and the United States. And I reviewed my post. I don't refer to the United States as being "the world". I lived in Germany from 93-96 when the Internet was beginning to become familiar and I don't recall seeing cell phones being used by everyday Germans as if they were common everyday items. Cell phones were not as common fifteen years ago as they are now. They were still something of a curiosity and not everybody was as up on what the Internet was capable of. The filmakers could get away with more in 97.
I remember the Ericsson commericals from 96 and I recall listening to radio shows from a couple years earlier.I'm well aware of the fact that things were taking off by the mid 90's But it was still just starting in terms of how familiar the general population was with it. Doesn't mean that everybody was suddenly carrying around cell phones like they were car keys. It takes awhile for new technology to work it's way into everyday usage. I recall listening to radio shows in which they went on and on about e-mail and the Internet. Terrific.
I also know that in the early 90's I had a couple friends who were on the Internet in the U.S. Once again they were serious techies and were not representative of the bulk of the population. Okay. Advertising and the beginning of a new way of doing business and communicating does not mean that everyone has it right at the beginning.You know money, how easy is it to access the new technology ect.
I was simply offering an opinion or perhaps a hypothesis. I did not say anything about the United States being the world or that the infrastructure of the United States is the infrastructure of the world. You're acting like I insulted a family member or came into your house and spit on something that is imporatnat to you. This is a message board where we can discuss thing in a civil way. You dn't need to attack me. I wasn't attacking anybody with my post was I?
The hell?
How on earth can you deduce my post as "attacking" you?
Did you notice my smiley in my post...or?
You didn't say USA, but you're once more talking like Internet was mainly for a certain group of folks in the 90's.
Our schools had internet access in 1993, we downloaded doom on their server, demo.
No no I wasn't exceptional at all, listen, in sweden most of had access to internet or a computer. I'll grant you that PC were VERY expensive, especially the early 486+. But we all could use computers in school or at the library.
Around 96-97 HTML was a standard common folk learned to make webpages, it wasn't hard.
My "irritation" stems from obsolete ISP's that are still in the past. The fact that there's still "WARNING 56k" threads on the net is just silly. I don't understand how USA can still be so far away in networking, when you're very ahead in other sectors.
Like I said I wasn't in any way "attacking" you, but regardless i'll give you my apologies.
Thanks for sharing your point of view.
Germany, were you in the military?
"Wait!" "Worry" "Who Cares?"
www.alienexperience.com
tiwwa.info/
The smiley face? Oh okay sorry I'm used to the markups that imdb supplies.
Well this goes to show how communications can be very unpredicatable - especially on the Internet. Easy to misunderstand.
Yes I was in the U.S. Army and stationed in Germany. Bavaria to be exact. Between Nurenburg and Regensburg. Small village called Hohenfels. We are going to go back next summer. To revisit and show the kids where they were born and we used to live.
Once again no big deal. And I apologize as well.
No worries, you're right sometimes it's easy to misunderstand a post, and sarcasm is even more difficult to use :)
I wish you and your family a good time in germany!!
And thanks for your service.
"Wait!" "Worry" "Who Cares?"
www.alienexperience.com
tiwwa.info/
Just re-watched this movie last night (nothing better was on) and was unpleasently surprised by all the plot holes - including the technical ones.
A lot of scenes are obviously included for our benefit. Like Willis talking to the computer. With voice recognition being what it was back then, why would he do that? Simply typing his requests and reading answers off the screen would be much more reliable/error-proof and also a lot faster.
From a technical POV what struck me as even more implausible than all the PC/online-scenes was the sighting solution on his cannon.
Let's see if I can recap it correctly: He's using a (digital?) camera and a zoom-lens to get a sighting picture. This picture is fed to a regular, mid 1990s cell phone. On the receiving end he has another cell phone and some sort of home-made/customized laptop with integrated joystick to process the video-data, calculate ballistics/sighting picture and transmit commands to the gun. The whole setup is fast enough to track a moving target (Jack Black) in real time.
Now, I'm not a telecommunications expert, but I have owned and used cell phones since 1995 - and I'm fairly certain that a 1997 cell (especially one designed for the then current U.S. network) had nowhere near the data-transfer-rate to transmit a live video feed.
S.
Re: computers and age.
I'm over 50 and remember when the '91 Gulf war was going on I used to dial into "Prodigy" nearly every day and get updates on how the war was going; I even was able to pull up the weapons and ammunitions used by the opposing sides and seeing their specs listed (manufacturer, caliber, muzzle velocity, effective range; speed of mobile devices (eg. tanks)).
That was 1991 and using a 56K dial up modem only took about 2-3 seconds for a page to load. I also remember getting into chat rooms and usenets and it was not rocket science to learn how to do any of this and, yes, it was just about as quick as noted in the movie.
Never touched voice recognition (eg., DragonDictate) until the late '90s though, so cannot voice an opinion on that part of the movie plot.
Keep in mind that browsers were just beginning back then and a lot of access was via "Prodigy" type connections for those of us desiring graphical GUIs and Compuserve type connecitons were available for those who desired more "command line" user interfaces. The early browsers didn't move or display nearly the amount of material (bandwidth) they do today and even with 256 color displays that was cool for those of us who preferred text and images rather than text displays like news readers.
I will say that I liked the movie upon initial release but the more I see it, it does seem more and more unbelievable and unlikely. Declan is just a bit too lucky and I seriously doubt a careful planner, as the Jackal character was depicted as, would have left Lamont's warehouse so "dirty" - leaving behind the plans for the remove station device, etc. to be found later.
Whatever doesn't kill me only makes me stronger. How strong are you?
You're all focussing on the speed, which is only one aspect.
I think the voice recognition is way too sophisticated. And the sequence is silly. Why do it in the bank? And why would the bank let him?
In the Internet cafe the weird thing is that the communication is simultaneous, as if his contacts are just waiting at a computer for him to contact. That's nothing to do with Internet speed.
I was watching this net cafe scene just now.
One explanation is that he is getting chatter information like off a hacker network or something. He types something and the hackers chatter bot responds with relevant info? If you assume they are hacker groups who help the intelligence community etc with insider info etc. The "bot" idea becomes more valid.
So he is talking to a chat bot. He types for instance..
"Police?"
And the bot relays this (identifiers relevant chatter) answer immediately..
"Hi-jackers"
Watch the sequence again with this in mind. Afterall the intelligence would have been gathered before the hijackers actually showed up on his tail. It said something like "shipment compromised" meaning the hijackers had hacked into the manifest and assumed based on dimensions and weight, and where it came from - that it was a gun. Then they camped out at the delivery point. The jackal just hadn't checked his chatter sources before doing so.
"I even was able to pull up the weapons and ammunitions used by the opposing sides and seeing their specs listed (manufacturer, caliber, muzzle velocity, effective range; speed of mobile devices (eg. tanks)).
That was 1991 and using a 56K dial up modem only took about 2-3 seconds for a page to load."
No.
In fact, everything you said ... "No. Bad memory. It did NOT work like that"
Actually with those crappy Compuserve/Prodigy services it did in fact work just like that. It was raw information without all the stupid advertising today's web has. I had IBM's Global Net with their first browser and even it worked better than today's web.
shareI can't give alot of stats on the computers of the late 90's...but I would like to point out a few misconceptions. The bank manager was more like a handler..he even gives the Jackal his mail in one scene..he knows which accounts to send the money to, where to dig up and create false credit cards i ncertain names and where to send them- so its not just a bank, its a secure point for him to work from.
Second- the guy that the Jackal contacts...from the bank and from the cafe was his gun contact, not the Russians. His work with the Russian mob is on a contract basis- they would not be his weapon source.
[deleted]
You thought he was dictating to a bank computer? I thought Stephen Hawking was selling him a gun.
shareFriend
Im new at the computers and such, but try my best on youtube and the internet
But I agree
In 97 even in Tokyo Town cellphones are not common
What I want to know is what chat software was he using in the cyber cafe
And it is possible to make an order from a private bank - these banks keep secrets
Take care friends
im tokyo joe and i know tokyo
http://www.tokyojoe.tk
I don't get how you think watching someone sit and wait for a 56k modem to connect to the internet would make for a good scene. The voice recognition software is a bit farfetched, but I don't think someone prattling on a keyboard for 90 seconds is good entertainment either. The bank was obviously willing to play ball with his shady business as they were setting up accounts and laundering money for him to offshore accounts. Being a high end client, a bank would probably let you murder someone in a private office and even pay for the clean up.
shareI thought he was on a Skype call to Stephen Hwaking
share