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Saturday, September 27, 2008

James Bond and evil hackers...

Totally off topic blog today, but it's a Weekend, so I feel like that's not a bad thing.

I watched "Tomorrow Never Dies" this evening, a 1999 James Bond movie starring Pierce Brosnan. I swear, I thought I'd seen most, if not all, of the James Bond flicks, though I guess this one had slipped right by me. It wasn't the best Bond movie I'd seen, but it was amusing enough for a Saturday night without a televised hockey game.

On my evening walk with the puppy, I got to thinking about who I'd be if I were in a Bond Movie.

Clearly, I wouldn't be James Bond himself - I leave that to my older brother who probably is the Canadian James bond. At least, I always picture him that way. (Though, I don't usually picture him in a tuxedo, and I seriously doubt if martinis are his drink. I'll have to ask him next time I see him.)

I figured, based on my physical prowess, I probably wouldn't be any of the action heroes. I'm a little too clumsy for that sort of stuff. (You can ask any of my lab partners from undergrad about how well glassware and I get along.)

Which leaves me with two options: the guy who gets run over during the car chase (which isn't too flattering) or one of the generic assistant genius characters that hacks computers or develops bio-weapons in the pay of the truly insane evil world domination plotter. Well, since the glassware and I probably wouldn't get along on the set any better than in real life, that probably leaves the assistant hacker role.

And that brings me to my next observation. In most films these days, the hackers are either the fat slob (in the style of Dennis Nedry in Jurassic Park), or the twig thin socially inept hackers(Neo from The Matrix). Instead, The evil American techno-genius computer hacker in this particular flick was made up to look like none other than Richard Stallman. (Considering how they lampoon Microsoft in this film, I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case.) Both the shot at Microsoft and this are geeky jokes, but an interesting comment on society from Hollywood's perspective. Anyhow, judge for yourself.

On the left, evil American techno-genius Henry Gupta (A very prescient name, considering the techno-expert Gupta that works at evil American corporation SCO...) played by Magician Ricky Jay, and Benevolent Genius Richard Stallman (as himself!) on the right. What do you think?

Evil Genius GuptaBenevolent Genius Richard Stallman

1 Comments:

Anonymous Josiah said...

There's a definite resemblance there.
Nice find.

September 30, 2008 6:29:00 AM PDT  

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