Short Circuit
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| Short Circuit | |
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 Short Circuit DVD Cover |
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| Directed by | John Badham |
| Produced by | Gregg Champion, David Foster, Lawrence Turman |
| Written by | Brent Maddock, S.S. Wilson |
| Starring | Ally Sheedy, Steve Guttenberg |
| Music by | Marcella Detroit, David Shire |
| Cinematography | Nick McLean |
| Editing by | Frank Morriss |
| Release date(s) | 1986 |
| Running time | 98 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Followed by | Short Circuit 2 |
| IMDb profile | |
Short Circuit was a 1986 comedy sci-fi film starring Ally Sheedy and Steve Guttenberg and directed by John Badham. Fisher Stevens, Austin Pendleton, and G. W. Bailey co-star, with Tim Blaney providing the voice of robot "Number 5".
The story revolves around an intelligent and sentient robot named "Number 5" that is worth $11,000,000 (and 17 cents). The robot later takes the name "Johnny 5". A sequel, Short Circuit 2, was released in 1988. The film was originally concived as a dark sci-fi thriller, with Number 5 as a villain. After several script revisions it eventually became a family comedy film.
Taglines:
- Something wonderful has happened... Number Five is alive!
- Life is not a malfunction.
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[edit] Plot
Number 5 is one of five prototype robots proposed for use by the US military, although the scientist mainly responsible for creating them, Dr. Newton Crosby (Steve Guttenberg), is more interested in peaceful uses of their artificial intelligence, like playing musical instruments. A demonstration is under way in the grounds of the company that makes them and other robots, Nova Laboratories, in Damon, Washington. After a lightning storm shuts down the presentation of the prototypes, a power surge hits Number 5 while it is recharging and alters its program, causing a malfunction. An associated accident causes it to be taken outside company grounds and it wanders off, unable to communicate and not knowing where it is.
Number 5 ends up at the home of animal-lover Stephanie Speck (Ally Sheedy) who initially thinks it's an extra-terrestrial visitor, but then determines the robot to be built by Nova. She decides that the robot is sentient and subsequently tries to help it escape from its creators, who only see it as a very dangerous, expensive and wayward machine. At the same time, Number 5 develops an understanding about the value of life and, realizing that he himself is sentient, develops a fear of his militaristic programming and the disassembly that awaits him back at Nova, believing it to be the same as death for him.
There are several escapes made from a small army of armed guards and regular soldiers led by the head of security at Nova, Captain Skroeder (G.W. Bailey). He defies orders from Nova head Dr. Howard Marner and successfully destroys what he believed to be the wayward robot, though he does not realize it was only a copy and not the real thing. Number 5 (who renames himself "Johnny 5" after hearing the song "Who's Johnny?" throughout the movie) takes off to Montana with Stephanie and Newton, who has lost his job for siding with the robot.
[edit] Production
According to the commentary in the DVD, Johnny 5 was the most expensive part of the movie, requiring several parts to be made for sequences (almost everything else in the movie, however, was relatively low-cost, allowing them to pump as much money as they needed into the robot's making in other production problems). He was also voiced in real-time by his puppeteers, the director believing it to give a more realistic interaction between the robot and the other actors than putting in his voice in post-production (though a few of his lines were redubbed, later). During Stephanie's impromptu news interview, you can see a cameo appearance by director John Badham as the news cameraman.
[edit] Inspiration
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It was thought that this movie was inspired by E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, though some believe it was also used as a defiant change from most other 'living robot' movies of the time (in which the 'living' robot was originally designed for benign purposes, but becomes murderous upon gaining 'life'), ironic in the fact that, originally, it's rumored that the movie had a story similar to that of The Terminator. According to DVD commentary, however, the movie's inspiration is far more complex: While studying other movies with robot characters in them, the director noticed how in each one of them, the robots were treated as if 'living' machines were the norm. Instead of repeating that time-honored cliché, the director decided to take a more realistic approach to his film, and explore the obvious question raised by the other films: what if a robot really did come alive? How would people really react? The natural answer would be that no one would believe it for a second, hence the attitude by the movie's antagonists towards Number 5. The story is also reminiscent of Robot AL-76 Goes Astray, a 1941 short story by Isaac Asimov, in which a tightly programmed robot is lost and finds itself in an unfamiliar environment which it can't understand.
[edit] Video Game
A video game for ZX Spectrum[1], Commodore 64[2] and Amstrad CPC[3] was also made based on the movie. It featured two parts, one arcade adventure where Number 5 had to escape from the lab and one action part where Number 5 runs across the countryside avoiding soldiers and bunnies.
[edit] Sequel
The movie has gained a cult following, and spawned a sequel, Short Circuit 2 which was largely criticized by fans as being the weaker of the two.[citation needed] Rumors indicated that there was a possible third movie in the works, but that it was subsequently scrapped after the poor performance of the sequel film.[citation needed]
[edit] End credits
One feature in the first movie is the ending credit sequence which features snippets of scenes cut from the final product, a gimmick that predated the explosion of director's cuts and deleted scenes DVD options of recent years. The scenes shown in the credits include an extended SAINT demonstration sequence (which would have included the robots flying remote-controlled airplanes), an encounter with a white commercially-made Omnibot 2000, and a close encounter with 'death' at a scrapyard (these last two were from a cut sequence set between Number 5's theft of the Nova van he was being carted back in by Ben, and his second arrival at Stephanie's house; in that sequence, the Nova van would have run out of gas near the scrapyard, and is forced to abandon it and look for another suitable mode of transportation. The Omnibot in the former of the two scenes would have belonged to the children of the scrapyard owner, who were to frighten Number 5 away with their comparisons between him and the Omnibot).
[edit] Trivia
- The Three Stooges short that Johnny 5 watches is their very first one, Woman Haters (1934).
- Stephanie's house is located at 197, Hume Avenue, Astoria, Oregon.
- Stephanie's house was also used as The Walsh's house in The Goonies.
- In the beginning of the film, where Number 2 makes his cocktail for Dr. Marner, whenever you see a close up of his arms, you can see them resting in their default position, yet he's making the drink at the same time.
- When Stephanie opens the door of her house, she is holding a ferret. The same species features prominently in Kindergarten Cop, which was also filmed in Astoria, Oregon. A Ferret armoured car can also be seen at Nova Laboratories at the start of the film.
- When Newton is sent to hobnob he is programming using a Macintosh 512K, which appears to have a color display. In reality though, only B&W Macintoshes were available at the time.
- The ZIP code given for the fictional location of Damon, Washington is 98615. This would put it in Southern Washington. However, this ZIP code could not be assigned to Damon as it does not fall alphabetically between Chinook (98614) and Cougar (98616). It would likely be assigned 98618 instead.
- In the scene when Newton is playing the keyboard for one of the robots, his tie is tied and untied during scene changes, a continuity error.
- Short Circuit was referenced in the English translation of Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII- when the fifth model of the robot Cait Sith, previously thought destroyed, is discovered still working. If you shoot the corresponding memory capsule and finish the game, you can access the event viewer which has the scene named 'Number Five is Alive!'.
- Some of the computerized sound effects heard in the film were also heard in WarGames, another Badham film.
[edit] External links
- Short Circuit at the Internet Movie Database
- The Johnny Five Fan Website
- Input-Inc.com, a fansite where the recreation of Johnny Five is happening.
- TeamRobotics.co.uk, a Short Circuit fansite.
- House from "Short Circuit" in Astoria, Oregon fro GoSleepGo.com
- Film locations within the Astoria, Oregon
- Short Circuit Read-Along at Photobucket
