Hacker Cinema
Scanners
1981 · Film · 103 min
Directed by David Cronenberg
A scientist trains a man with an advanced telepathic ability called 'scanning' to stop a dangerous Scanner with extraordinary psychic powers from waging war against non-Scanners.
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4 comments on Hacker News
Off-topic, but the title made me think of that scene from Cronenberg's Scanners [1], which has a pretty interesting backstory:
The head itself was made using a number of different materials. First, a plaster head was used, but it looked more like an exploding statue. Then, they tried making a head out of wax, but it wasn't pliable enough and did not provide the desired effect. Eventually, the team settled on an internal skull structure formed with plaster, with outside skin and facial features rendered using gelatin. From there, the team packed the skull with just about whatever they could find. They used wax and latex scraps, along with various stringy bits and anything they had lying around the studio that they thought would fly through the air a little better. They even used bits of leftover burgers from lunch that day.
From there, the plan was to blow the head up with explosives. The problem, the team found, was that any kind of explosive they used revealed sparks to the camera, which they didn't want. To portray a real sense of internal mental pressure resulting in the head exploding outward, they needed a different method. As the shoot wore on and nothing seemed to be working, special effects supervisor Gary Zeller told everyone to keep their cameras rolling, to get into their cars, and roll the windows up. He then lay down underneath the head with a shotgun, pointed it up beneath the back of it, and fired. The result is the exploding head scene in Scanners.
https://screenrant.com/david-cronenberg-scanners-movie-exploding-head-effect-explained/
1. Probably don't watch this at work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI3NoBeNwfk
I have to wonder whether the "SCANATE" name was inspired by the film "Scanners".
Keanu Reeves in the former, Willem Dafoe in the latter. I'll give both a whirl, thank you.
From what I can tell nobody brought up David Cronenberg either. I liked his works [1] when I was younger (not sure if I still would now). I especially liked eXistenZ, but also Videodrome, The Fly, and Scanners.
I just started binge watching The Man In The High Castle and it exactly underlines my statement in my previous post: great storyline (IMO), but not depending much on CGI. I think if the story lacks, all you got going for it is CGI (or not if there is none). CGI may impress you when you're still young, but as you grow older you see through the façade. Especially when its overdone. Because older movies lack it, and therefore are rather limited (take for example old Star Wars which heavily used costumes, models, and camera tricks). It might feel a bit dated, if not just from the hair models. Yet sometimes the nostalgia hits the nail (such as in Black Mirror's San Junipero episode). Not exactly sure why. While I'm thoroughly enjoying The Man In The High Castle series my partner hates anything related to WWII so thats yet another series we cannot watch together.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cronenberg#As_director
I agree. Networked computers were totally part of the popular imagination. Job's quote is after Wargames, Scanners, Tron etc.
The part of Job's quote that can be said to be innovative is he said "for the home" when most at the time were assuming "for the office".
I recently watched a BBC Horizon documentary on microprocessors filmed in 1977 and was very impressed with how they described the world we live in today. They clearly stated the exciting bit was enabling information networks so I don't think the possibilities of internet-like-things was ever in much doubt.