Work

What? Oh, okay.

Basically, I was saying that equipment and devices in movies these days just doesn't seem as memorable or unique as it used to. I mean, for me, the stuff out there nowadays just isn't as, well, iconic, as things back in the 80s. Like the Delorean in Back to the Future, and the gear in Ghostbusters. It's instantly recognizable. But really, that's not true anymore. Who would recognize the hovercraft from Matrix or the weapons for Men in Black? Now, of course, everyone remembers the 'Squeaky Cricket' but that was because of the joke, nothing about the device itself.

I think part of it is that they can create just about anything these days with CGI, so they don't have to put the same amount of thought into it. One particular effect doesn't get the attention it used to, because they can throw up a dozen effects at a time. You can create a room full of guns for something like MiB (and they do). Now, some people I talked to about it thought this is a reach; for them, the Pod Racers in the Episode I were just as memorable as any of the ships in the original trilogy, but again, as I said, there were a dozen different ones, how can one really stand out as iconic and representative of the movie itself, as, say, an X-wing?

I suppose part of it, too, is that I was younger then, and things just seemed more impressive. Nostalgia's always a big thing in cases like this. But it's also that there's a lot less original stuff in the sci-fi milieu these days. Everything's a sequel, or based on a book, or whatever. And I made these points yesterday, but I didn't think my argument was persuasive enough. I just wasn't getting the point I wanted to make across.

And so today, I started thinking about "well, what did I mean, 'memorable' or 'unique' when I said it?" What made these things different than the devices in movies these days? And I think I figured out what it is, for me, as an engineer. It's partially related to the fact that there aren't as many 'present-day' scifi movies, I think... Those devices in those movies of the 80s, like the ones I mentioned, and even lesser stuff like Short Circuit and Explorers, they were the last time that movie technology still had stuff like heatsinks, and resistors, and capacitors, and servos. Now, it's form over function; things just have to look cool, since in most cases you don't even have to actually build them. So you get sleek lines, shiny surfaces, and so on...but to me, it was imagining the purpose of all the real tech parts that made those props special.

So, uh, there you have it.

But I don't see what this has to do with getting this person a job.