Right up there with the cowboy, the samurai, the knight, and the Goth, the archetype of the hacker will live forever in history, hilariously misconceived and tragically misunderstood. But of all the historic archetypes, the hacker alone had the distinction of being born in the multimedia age, and hence was the only kind to be laughed at to his or her face. These cases in point: movies which try to get a handle on geek culture… and fail miserably. If you want to know anything about geek culture, start by not seeing these movies.

#1. The Matrix – I’m starting with this one because many who consider themselves pretty wired individuals even fell for this shameless pandering to the tech generation. This movie series pretends to be science fiction, while actually being pure fantasy with more plot holes than American foreign policy. No, don’t tell me about escapist fiction. Who wants to escape into a gutter?

Why do humans make better batteries than E Coli? Why do the tank-ridden not shrivel up physically while the minds stay sharp, which is how it works in real life human vegetables? Why did the computer create such a mundane fantasy world instead of an orgasmic cosmic amusement park that the humans would want to stay in? Why do the protagonists not make themselves into angels or Godzillas when they realize they can do anything they want? Why didn’t the computer just weld lids on the tanks so the humans could never get free even if they woke up? Don’t ask us – we’re the Wachowski brothers, and we couldn’t tell a story if we were witnesses in court.

#2. Hackers – The grimace of nausea with which any real-life hacker reacts to the mention of this 1995 turkey should tell you all you need to know about how stupid the whole production was. The only good thing there is to say about it is that Angelina Jolie managed to wash the stink of this bomb off of herself and go on to a better career.

#3. Takedown – 99% of the ignorant vilification of technology and the geeks who love it can be traced back to two idiots who are unfortunately still at large in the world: Tsutomo Shimomura and John Markoff. These failed authors needed a witch to burn at a time when Internet adoption was crucial to world industrial development, and they found one in Kevin Mitnick, a relatively minor system cracker who had the bad luck to be at the wrong place and time in history.

In a case in which the two authors participated in the busting of Mitnick and destroyed every rule of journalistic integrity in their “reporting” of the case, Shimomura and Markoff managed to cast the shadow of Ludditism over the world which is still felt today, at the benefit to them of a few million bucks in book and movie deals.

Is your grandma afraid to answer her phone for fear the cyber terrorists will get her? Is your boss afraid of open-source software? Does your public library refuse to make Internet access available to the public for fear some goth with safety pins in his face will start World War 3? Are you serving ten years in jail for accidentally downloading a $1.99 song? Did the airport TSA confiscate and destroy your laptop because you had SSH on it? Is your society massively ignorant and scared of technology in general? Then thank Shimomura and Markoff! They were to computers what “Reefer Madness” was to marijuana.

#4. Revolution OS – This movie was actually good – for its intentions. It is a film documentary of the free and open source software movement. However, it was made in 2001, when Linux and GNU weren’t household names around the world. Now they are, and with their adoption growing more every day, their story is just now beginning to develop. That’s what’s wrong with this movie, is that we should just now today be making it. As it stands, it was nearly a decade too soon, and only tells what we can now see was the tip of the Tux penguin’s iceberg.

#5. Jurassic Park – Sharing credit with The Matrix in the category of movies which are purported to be science fiction but are in fact hideously ignorant of even the science of the day. But Michael Crichton had connections, with Universal Studios paying him $2 million up front before a single word of the novel was even written, and so it got made. In case you missed it, the plot is that dinosaurs are magically conjured into today’s world. They get loose and chase the humans. They chase the humans some more. Then they chase the humans some more. The humans escape. The end.

Oh, wait, there was a sequel. It turns out the humans didn’t escape all of the dinosaurs. So some of them get loose and chase the humans. They chase the humans some more. Then they chase the humans some more. The humans escape. The end. Oh, wait, there was a sequel…

Anything to add in here ?

On to Part 2…

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