Short Circuit (1986)
Directed by John Badham
After a lightning bolt zaps a robot named Number 5, the lovable machine starts to think he's human and escapes the lab. Hot on his trail is his designer, Newton, who hopes to get to Number 5 before the military does. In the meantime, a spunky animal lover mistakes the robot for an alien and takes him in, teaching her new guest about life on Earth.
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What critics compared Short Circuit to
Among her employees is a sweet, nerdy Indian guy (Dev Patel, marginally more believable, on account of being an actual Indian, than Fisher Stevens in Short Circuit) who dreams of instilling consciousness in these buckets of bolts.
However you dress up the movie, it really is a clunky mashup of Short Circuit (1986) and RoboCop (1987) — with large dollops of Mr. Dickens’ Oliver Twist thrown in.
Short Circuit's Johnny Five was one of those gentle, self-aware robots, inclined to tolerate humankind's failings rather than hunt us to extinction.
It’s idiotic, incoherent and downright punishing to sit through – unless you’ve been hankering for an ultra-violent remake of Short Circuit in which Steve Guttenberg and Ally Sheedy are played by Die Antwoord.
“RoboCop,” “Short Circuit” and even “A.I.” have been cited as inspirations for “Chappie,” but they’re so prevalent in parallels, it feels like elements are directly lifted.
Unfortunately, for me it is a movie that does not pay homage to previous films (“Robocop,” “Short Circuit” come to mind) but borrows liberally and directly from these and other movies.
In terms of design and performance, Jeff borrows many of the lovable elements of other well-known mechanical lifeforms – from Short Circuit (1986) to Wall-E (2008).
So we’ve got Short Circuit , WALL-E , The Road and The Quiet Earth as the most obvious reference points.
Article content Apple is the site for his newest, which combines elements of WALL-E and Cast Away , with bits of The Martian and Short Circuit thrown in.
It does, however, have Hanks, who delivers the mawkishness with an appealing level of wit, basically playing second banana to the adorable mutt and the oft-annoying robot, Jeff, a first cousin of the equally smarmy droid from 1986’s “Short Circuit.”
Well, in a strange way, I’m thankful that the folks in Cupertino saved a genuinely strange little film like this from its probable failure (and subsequent branding as a “bomb”) at the box office, because Finch plays like a bizarre mash-up of The Road (or insert your own post-apocalyptic film or book here, though it’s more The Dog Stars than A Boy and His Dog ) and Short Circuit .
As far as science fiction films go, Finch is not entirely new, where movies such as Short Circuit , Her , and Bicentennial Man have focused on the relationships of humans and robots.
I've described perhaps the first third of the film, and up to this point there is no dialogue; merely chirps, whizzes and beeps that will have you cooing nostalgically with thoughts of R2-D2, with the robot's inviting visual appearance recalling Johnny 5 from guilty '80s pleasure "Short Circuit."
Despite public outcry, WALL-E is nothing like the robot Number 5 from 1986’s “Short Circuit”.
I have to admit, though, that the initial trailers completely turned me off because the film looked painfully cute and the robot brought back bad memories of Short Circuit.
The filmmakers overtly acknowledge the influence of 2001: A Space Odyssey (one robot in the film is specifically designed to resemble HAL 9000's evil eye—cue the "Blue Danube Waltz"), and internet wags have commented on Wall•E's resemblance to Number 5 from Short Circuit , but the most interesting resemblance is to the "B" Ark plot thread from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.
He looks like an outtake from Short Circuit; you can only figure out what he's trying to say about half the time (though context helps) and he's rather single-minded of purpose.
Looking like a cross between R2-D2 and Johnny-5 from "Short Circuit", WALLâ?¢E most importantly has a lot of personality, which makes this "Hello Dolly!"-loving buzzing trashcan an instantly adorable creation.
It is in that space several folks, including the Cartoonist (Anderson regular Jason Schwartzman), the Story Editor (Fisher Stevens, “Short Circuit”) and the Copy Editor (Elisabeth Moss, “The Handmaid’s Tale”) have come to plan the obit and grieve for their fallen leader.
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In the hands of less inspired writer/directors, a concept like this would hit the screen like Short Circuit, the aforementioned Electric Dreams, or any other sci-fi film in which a man falls in love with a robot, and vice versa.
Wahlberg, on the other hand, has been cast as a brilliant scientist, and perhaps not since Steve Guttenberg in the trite 80s flick Short Circuit has an actor labored so mightily — and failed so miserably — at convincing us that he understood what the hell he was talking about when discussing eggheaded science stuff.
A clever blend of “WALL-E’s” warmth and “Short Circuit’s” spunk…
With Guy, Reynolds gets to greet every new situation with the kind of grinning enthusiasm reserved for Emmet from The LEGO Movie or Johnny-5 from Short Circuit .
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But the conversation happened all the way back in 1927 with “Metropolis,” again in 1951 with “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and then again and again with “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968), “Star Wars” (1977), “Tron” (1982), “Blade Runner” (1982), “Short Circuit” (1986), “RoboCop” (1987), “Star Trek: Generations” (1994), “The Matrix” (1999), “A.I.
The idea also spawned such flicks as "Short Circuit," "Terminator 2" and…