I just saw that there is an upcoming movie called "Source Code".
I got all excited because I thought it's a movie about coding. A real coding movie, not one where two teenagers type for 15 seconds and hack into the Pentagon. Or where the protagonist lands on a borg-looking alien mothership from light-years away and finds a convenient USB port.
I thought that maybe in the movie "Source Code", the characters would be solving some challenging problem. Maybe first they are stuck, then they come up with a solution. They start to celebrate, but it turns out be O(N^3)! They get discouraged, and shout at each other. One of them leaves in anger to take a walk by the river, where he sees a leaf fall onto the ground. The leaf inspires him to come up with a O(log N) solution! Then he races back just in the nick of time and presses "i" in his vim editor in order to start typing the code. I want a big close-up of his fingers as he types that initial "i".
Anyway, this is the description of the movie "Source Code":
When decorated soldier Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes up in the body of an unknown man, he discovers he's part of a mission to find the bomber of a Chicago commuter train. In an assignment unlike any he's ever known, he learns he's part of a government experiment called the "Source Code," a program that enables him to cross over into another man's identity in the last 8 minutes of his life. With a second, much larger target threatening to kill millions in downtown Chicago, Colter re-lives the incident over and over again, gathering clues each time, until he can solve the mystery of who is behind the bombs and prevent the next attack. Filled with mind-boggling twists and heart-pounding suspense, Source Code is a smart action-thriller directed by Duncan Jones
WTF! What a huge letdown! This has nothing to do with source code!!!
I think Source Code is a stupid name for the movie as well, but it's been getting great reviews - 92% fresh!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/source_code/
The name is terrible, but... this is from the director of "Moon"! I think "Source Code" automatically gets some credibility just because "Moon" was so good.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I'm glad to hear it's getting good reviews.
Source Code shows him as more than competent at delivering a taut and entertaining thriller that isn’t based on any existing property, and deserving of a chance to write and direct more original work. And it deals with a lot of potentially weighty topics, but does so with great swiftness as to deliver an entertaining action ride with the ability to leave an audience thinking.
ReplyDeleteMaybe this how the Matrix represents the bellman-ford algorithm. It ends with Captain Stevens scrawling "It must be faster than O(|V||E|)" on the walls his cell after learning the shortest path to finding the bomber takes 9 minutes.
ReplyDeleteFor internal conflict half of the movie could be a flame war about vi vs emacs..
ReplyDeleteWith a twist at the end in which the Emacs and vi users must unite against the Eclipse users? I would pay to see that movie.
ReplyDeletemaybe Masi Oka will become a producer someday and do something like you dreamed
ReplyDeleteI saw the movie and liked it - pretty entertaining!
ReplyDeleteMuggles won't care about what code editor like vim or emacs sort of things... They don't even know how source codes look like ;) And IMHO the director is a muggle, too! As long as the movie entertains people it wins!
ReplyDeleteps. I like your assertion of the script a LOT!
Saw it on Friday and was pretty disappointed. The critics must be technologically challenged because it deserves a 60% rather than the 90% it received from RT.
ReplyDeleteSo the title wasnt a good one, but the movie was good!! So...I wonder what the film should have been called?
ReplyDeleteEven semi-big budget movies are tested for potential audiences. Random people assembled and asked "of the following titles which one would you most likely go see: Solitaire, Source Code, Beleaguered Castle, Quantum Mirror".
So...to me, it seems possible "Source Code" was chosen by the Studio as a way to get people into the theatre. I wonder if that was always the title.
I agree! I was severely disappointed as well.
ReplyDeleteYou know, a light year is a distance, not an amount of time... so the presence of the USB-port isn't really that wrong ;) .
ReplyDeleteI just watched this movie by checking it out of the Blockbuster Express kiosk in the Safeway on Shoreline in Mountain View.
ReplyDeleteSince the movie left me thinking, I Google(tm)d the movie name, wondering if I could find people discussing it.
And what do I find but this crazy thread by my friend Niniane!
To me, the movie was a fun combination of Memento and Ground Hog Day, so maybe a good title would be Ground Mentos. Or Momentous Groundhog.