Thanks again to the wonders of Netflix, I re-watched the 80's classic Short Circuit. I remembered this as one of my favorite movies as being a kid, but (like The Goonies) re-watching movies you loved when you were nine is a weird thing when you're twenty-six. [By the way, I'm so going to re-watch Mannequin... loved that movie!]
Anyways, Short Circuit was not really as good as I remembered it, though I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for it. But, as I was watching it, one thing really stood out to me. The creator of the robot has a line where he says: "I don't like Nova* either... I originally designed these machines to be maids."
*Nova is the War mongering, weapon designing company for which the robots were created to be weapons of destruction.
This is a HUGE moment that the movie, being a silly romantic comedy, doesn't expand on. But I really which it would have. It highlighted a huge problem we have in America: our greatest minds are constantly put to work creating weaponry for destruction rather than doing something for the greater good of humanity. (Although creating maid robots isn't really saving the world, it is doing something that would help rather than hurt our society.) If we employed our smartest and brightest scientists/engineers to find a cure for cancer or to design a car to run on spit our world would no doubt be a better place. But instead, we have war mongering countries (like our own) and businesses that pull our best of the best into the career of making machines for war.
3 comments:
I think Mannequin is still good. I've watched it a few times since it was avail. instantly. My brother bought Short Circut and Adventures in Babysitting for me and my mom a few Christmas' back (and I bought the Goonies..all on DVD). I kind of agree about Short Circut, it's not the same (but I do still LOVE The Goonies and Adventures in Babysitting..and various other flicks I loved as a child).
It still kind of shocks me, though, that most of those movies have some really adult moments and such low ratings (usually PG to PG-13). Like, in Short Circut, the Indian guy says something about how the girl "creates a fire in his pants" or something (I haven't watched it in a while), and all swearing in The Goonies aside, it had frozen corpses, skeletons, threats to blend Chunk's hand, etc. Sure, when I first saw all of them I was too young to really comprehend them, but I'm shocked I didn't have more nightmares.
One more note: I recommend checking out the features on the Goonies DVD. There's nothing really spectacular, except if you play the movie with commentary, it has most of the main characters doing the commentary (16 years later!) and it's not just background noise, they have a camera on them while they're doing the commentary. They do sort of a Picture-In-Picture thing...It's worth a chuckle seeing all of them grown up watching the movie. I think it's pretty funny.
I just love it when Johnny 5 becomes a gang member...no matter how the movie has aged, i will always love that part.
another funny thing about short circuit and goonies is that they were both filmed in the same city... astoria, or... been there and took a picture in fron of ali sheedy's house.
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