8 Shows and Movies That Make the Tech-Savvy Of Us Cringe

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8 Shows and Movies That Make the Tech-Savvy Of Us Cringe

Here's 8 examples of Hollywood failing at knowing how technology works!

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[Vendor-Lazarus]

Yup, it's bad.
I'm not good with words but it's reminiscent of how the focus on graphics in games overshadow everything else.
Almost like Hollywood/AAA expect below average intelligence users/viewers and have to shoehorn in a visual aid in the form of GUI for hacking in movies or cutscenes for story in games.

Also, I'm hesitant to point out that the image for Live Free or Die Hard is from Dredd(2012) since more people should definitely watch that superb movie.

 

[Major_Tom]

They got nothing on "Scorpion", that's got to be the dumbest "hacker" TV show ever. Look at this shit.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I can just imagine the direction from the Director for the scene in NCIS. "Just hammer on the keyboard to make it look like you're doing something."

 

[LTenhet]

What about the first episode of the new MacGyver show, where the "EDGY TECH EXPERT" shows them how to REALLY encrypt/hack a computer! By hitting it with a hammer, yanking out the laptops harddrive, and -exposing the disk platter inside of it-

WHY ARE YOU HITTING IT WITH A HAMMER

 

[RaikuFA]

I don't know jack shit about computers, but even I know the last two are not how tecch works.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Here's 8 examples of Hollywood failing at knowing how technology works!

I guess Michael Bay would be 8 entries on his own?

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I think the Hacker and Ncis ones were for comedy (I was certainly laughing when I saw them), but CSI's shit is just fucking ridiculous. I still can't believe those lasted as long as they did.

 

[Mortuorum]

FWIW, in the Jurassic Park book, it was a command prompt-based system and the way she struggled to get it to work seemed reasonably realistic (for a movie about cloned dinosaurs, anyways). Not that that excuses the movie in any way.

Otherwise, pretty much spot on. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever seen a movie or TV show that gets it right. I've heard good things about Blackhat (2015), but I've never seen it.

 

[animeprime]

The independence day one is really egregious, but apparently they had a scene in the original script where they how it would work. They had been reverse engineering the alien computer system since they recovered it in the Roswell crash. All of our computer technology had been based on it and slowly been trickled out overtime, so it would have been similar enough to interface with.

 

[Darth_Payn]

That screenshot isn't from Live Free or Die Hard, it's from Dredd. I typically give movies/shows/games set in the future a pass on how hacking works, because the technology's more advanced and it's for the benefit of we in the present-day audience.

 

[moosemaimer]

FWIW, in the Jurassic Park book, it was a command prompt-based system and the way she struggled to get it to work seemed reasonably realistic (for a movie about cloned dinosaurs, anyways). Not that that excuses the movie in any way.

Otherwise, pretty much spot on. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever seen a movie or TV show that gets it right. I've heard good things about Blackhat (2015), but I've never seen it.

Fun fact!

That 3D file explorer is a real thing that shipped on SGI workstations, like the ones they used to make the movie.

Supposedly the tech in Mr Robot is pretty accurate, I haven't watched it.

And under extreme circumstances you might need to open up a hard drive, like if something inside is broken. I have a secure flash drive that's made out of steel and filled with epoxy so you can't crack it open without breaking it.

 

[Zontar]

What about the entirety of CSI: Cyber?

 

[bjj hero]

The key issue is that hacking and working IT is boring shit we all have to do at work.

How fo you make this good TV? Add BS graphics with nothing to do with the work.

 

[Kinitawowi]

Also, I'm hesitant to point out that the image for Live Free or Die Hard is from Dredd(2012) since more people should definitely watch that superb movie.

Yeah, it's been too long since I saw Die Hard 4.0 but I knew it didn't look right.

Um.

1) The Core

Spoiler: 2) that awkward moment when you realise you're breaking a bomb with Excel on a Mac

 

[Renegrade]

"nfs" was never really popular as it was slower to navigate a system than using the command prompt that was still very much used to run anything back then.

Like the command prompt isn't still the faster and simpler way of doing most things in administration these days?

One crap temp job I had once was an administrative one, which involved updating software (mostly OS) for managed customer servers (amongst other things). I could patch ALL the Unix-based systems at once (a mix of RH and Debian derivatives), but only six Windows-based systems at once. My crappy potato-class cube-farm super-deluxe morons-in-IT-provisioned desktop would crawl to a snail's pace if I opened more than 6 RDP sessions at once.

sudo yum -y upgrade

or

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade --yes

Ignoring how slow and broken windows update is, those commands are fire and forget and take about ten percent of the time to set up vs. starting Windows Update (which isn't always in the same place. Genius!). Plus you can crontab the downloading portions for off-hours (for example, my service provider has unlimited free bandwidth for all users between 2am and 8am, so I set up downloads for that timeframe).

Want to find files that have been updated in the last five minutes in an installation?

find . -mmin -5

(there's ports of find for Windows CMD too, although I'd advise renaming it something like 'wfind' as Windows already has a 'find' which is more like grep)

Have some free time and want to fix some of the smugly rude hacks you put in your last large project, which were helpfully labelled with "XXX: ..." comments? Well, here's a list of said comments, with filenames:

grep XXX `find . -name \*.c`

Sure, there are things that are easier to do with a GUI...but for each of those, there's something that's easier to do on a command line. And remote desktop will never be as lightweight as a remote command line..ever. The early command lines were designed for use with terminals running at 50bps..that helps a lot when some douche from the networking department provisions the entire cubefarm LAN on a single 10Mbps port and then provides to distribute connectivity to it with passive hubs. I kid you not -- the non-switching variety of ethernet hubs. That was at that same place I mentioned before, and it was in 2015.

(there a Microsoft-authored Windows port of bash too, although installing it is a bit involved)

 

[Arnoxthe1]

"nfs" was never really popular as it was slower to navigate a system than using the command prompt that was still very much used to run anything back then.

Like the command prompt isn't still the faster and simpler way of doing most things in administration these days?

One crap temp job I had once was an administrative one, which involved updating software (mostly OS) for managed customer servers (amongst other things). I could patch ALL the Unix-based systems at once (a mix of RH and Debian derivatives), but only six Windows-based systems at once. My crappy potato-class cube-farm super-deluxe morons-in-IT-provisioned desktop would crawl to a snail's pace if I opened more than 6 RDP sessions at once.

sudo yum -y upgrade

or

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade --yes

Ignoring how slow and broken windows update is, those commands are fire and forget and take about ten percent of the time to set up vs. starting Windows Update (which isn't always in the same place. Genius!). Plus you can crontab the downloading portions for off-hours (for example, my service provider has unlimited free bandwidth for all users between 2am and 8am, so I set up downloads for that timeframe).

Want to find files that have been updated in the last five minutes in an installation?

find . -mmin -5

(there's ports of find for Windows CMD too, although I'd advise renaming it something like 'wfind' as Windows already has a 'find' which is more like grep)

Have some free time and want to fix some of the smugly rude hacks you put in your last large project, which were helpfully labelled with "XXX: ..." comments? Well, here's a list of said comments, with filenames:

grep XXX `find . -name \*.c`

Sure, there are things that are easier to do with a GUI...but for each of those, there's something that's easier to do on a command line. And remote desktop will never be as lightweight as a remote command line..ever. The early command lines were designed for use with terminals running at 50bps..that helps a lot when some douche from the networking department provisions the entire cubefarm LAN on a single 10Mbps port and then provides to distribute connectivity to it with passive hubs. I kid you not -- the non-switching variety of ethernet hubs. That was at that same place I mentioned before, and it was in 2015.

(there a Microsoft-authored Windows port of bash too, although installing it is a bit involved)

Well, there's just one small little problem with the CLI.

You need to know all the commands for what you want to do. Oh, you don't? That's just too fucking bad. As compared to a GUI. There it is. Very self-explanatory and easy to see and work with for people who don't have that level of aptitude with the CLI.

The CLI is for experts, and complaining that people keep avoiding it is not actually fair. Sure, IT techs should know at least a little CLI, but acting as if it's so much better for everyone in every situation is pretty arrogant. It's pretty much like learning another programming language if you think about it.

 

[Thurston]

When watching Hackers for the first time, and they show the Michaelangelo Virus, with all it's sound files and funky graphics, "I don't think my computer is powerful enough to run this virus."

 

[Nimcha]

For a good example, watch Person of Interest. Ok, the AI may be a bit more advanced than what seems possible but hacking is actually hacking and sometimes it doesn't even work. Oh, and they do things like send messages in morse code in a signal that only people under 40 can hear, that goes for the characters in the story AND the audience.

And they make a supercomputer out of PS3s. Yes, that's actually possible.

 

[Shannon Spencer Fox]

Really, no mention of... ugh, Christopher Pelant from Fox's 'Bones'? That character was so bad he personally made me quit the show with the almost magical-levels of bullshit he was pulling out of his backside to twart the main characters.

Of course, given the whole 'crossover with Sleepy Hollow' thing later, I suppose I should thank him for dodging that bullet...