The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015. Remaining movies: 190 Days to go: 134
Movie #248: Short Circuit
Sometimes my mom sends me movies for the kids to enjoy. It’s nice. She generally picks things we all enjoyed as a family when I was a kid, and for the most part they bring back a lot of nice memories for me. Nostalgia is a big business for a reason. Short Circuit, however, is problematic.
On the one hand, it’s still a pretty cute rom-com within the realm of hippie Stephanie Speck (Ally Sheedy) and Newton Crosby, “PhDork” (Steve Guttenberg) and the strictly robot-centric “Need Input” comedy still works for the most part. On the other, 1980s-based technology films have not aged well, and at least 70% of Short Circuit‘s jokes are centered around Fisher Stevens’s grossly ill-conceived performance of Ben — a programmer of Indian descent — that is one miniscule step up from brown face, complete with many outdated stereotypes of accent, mannerisms and broken English. It’s really, really bad. (Seriously, if I were Michelle Pfeiffer, I’d point to that exactly as the reason for our divorce.)
Short Circuit is about a robotics nerd (Guttenberg) who works for a military contract company called Nova. He invents the SAINT prototype robots and his boss Howard (Austin Pendleton) is attempting to sell them as advanced weapon technology. One of the robots is struck by lightning while charging on the generator (because why not do that outside) and it ends up wandering off the company grounds as it curiously inspects everything around. It’s a malfunction, see, so the Nova crew goes on the hunt to track the robot down, hopefully without the destroy-first, capture-later tactics of military officer Skroeder (G.W. Bailey). (It’s probably not a coincidence his name sounds like “scrotum.”)
The robot, meanwhile (Number 5, voiced by Tim Blaney), has stumbled upon the Snack Shack of one Stephanie Speck, a hipster so ahead of the curve she had a food truck twenty years before they were cool. She has a habit of taking in every stray or injured animal she comes across, and when she comes across Number 5, she assumes he’s an alien because I guess robots were too far-fetched a concept in 1986. When she discovers the truth, she calls Nova for them to come pick up their war machine, but by then Number 5 has soaked up all sorts of pop culture input and convinces Stephanie that he’s alive. It’s then a matter of convincing Newton before Skroeder and his trigger happy clan swarm in and blow Number 5 to smithereens. What’s a childlike robot to do?
Apparently, the trick to differentiating between a computerized machine and a living thing is whether or not it laughs at your jokes. Kind of diminishes the importance of the whole Turing Test, don’t you think? Best Picture my ass, Imitation Game.
Viable Option 