Raise The Phoenix Shield!

Last night’s episode of 24 was excellent, except for one geeky problem. They fell into the classic trap of getting too descriptive with their technology. While explaining to Jack that they wouldn’t be able to hack into a suspect’s computers because he had technology that made CTU look “like an internet cafe,” they started describing the technology. In a completely wooden voice, Chloe started explaining about the “Phoenix Shield” which would encrypt all the files and delete the hard drive and blah blah. Any tech geek in the audience at this point is immediately kicked out of the previously immersive storyline, by this description. Allow me to break it down for any potential filmmaker out there:

No good can come from describing technology. One of two things will happen. Either your technology will be real and accurate (in which case it immediately becomes dated by the time the audience sees it), or it will be made-up and inaccurate (in which case geeks in the audience will be filled with contempt for your lack of understanding - “Firewalls don’t work that way!”).

For example, let me reference the two most grevious examples of this. First of all, we have the movie Hackers, which had all the characters drooling over a laptop. “Wow, a 28.8 Kilo-baud modem!” Now, while this is accurate technology, and was probably hot shit when the movie came out, it’s always good for a few laughs when we watch the movie now. The technology that the characters are crowing over is hopelessly dated.

Secondly, we have Independence Day, which has Jeff Goldblum saving the world by uploading a computer virus to the alien mothership. Ignoring for a moment the idea that the alien mothership runs a version of Microsoft Windows, how did he transfer the files? Did they get sent over the radio? Did the aliens just execute every file that appears on their computer? The technology is not accurate, which makes it harder for a geek to stay immersed in the story.

On the flip side of the coin, we have a perfect example of how to do it right - The Matrix. This film is all about computers and programs, and yet we are never shown a single example of a recognizable computer system. We see only two things. One, the GUI on Tank’s computer, which is a simple touch-screen system with big buttons - it’s not specific to any operating system or computer style, and it’s easy to see this kind of UI staying in use no matter what kind of computer is being used. Second, we have the matrix code itself. While we’re told in the movie that this scrolling green code is meant to represent the actual program code that is running the Matrix, it’s wholly illustrative. The code itself is meant to look like Binary (with Japanese katakana characters thrown in for good measure). Because it’s meaningless, we are left to fill in the blanks in our imaginations. It’s easy to imagine it as programming code like C# or even straight machine code. No matter what the future is like, code will exist, and this representation of code is not specific enough to get hung up on details - It’s like drinking out of a can labeled “soda.”

The worst part of this is that 24 is usually very good about this. All the characters work at fancy looking modern systems with very nice Dell flatscreens - but any shots of the operating system are running HollywoodOS - it’s not specific, it’s representative. And, most of the time, the things they’re doing are things we can actually do with computers - access satellites and security cameras, decrypt files, perform searches on database, and have videoconferences with the President. Hell, before they got carried away with telling us the specific technology, they actually did it exactly right last night - the analogy of CTU being an internet cafe immediately gave us the idea that the suspect had vastly superior technologies, and left the details to our imagination. But the lengthy description of the specific technology was too much. For me, it pushed the bounds of suspension of disbelief.