An artificial intelligence echo

I watched four movies on a projector in my garage yesterday for Australian Father's Day, and I may be able to get two posts out of it. Actually three now that I think of it. Which is good, because I've been in a bit of a creative slump lately when it comes to this blog.

The first one has to do with a coincidence, and it's a lot more interesting of a coincidence than the coincidences I usually waste your time with.

How about a full half of the four movies containing a computer that asks someone how they feel?

The first one might not surprise you: John Badham's 1983 classic WarGames, which is currently #32 on my Flickchart. An obvious all-timer for me.

The second wouldn't have been something I even thought of until the moment in question actually occurred in the movie. That's Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, another top 100 film on Flickchart (#85) that I hadn't seen in way too long.

When David Lightman (Matthew Broderick) first finds the back door password to log into the WOPR, otherwise known as Joshua, the interaction begins with the question "How are you feeling today?"

It surprises Jennifer (Ally Sheedy), who asks how a computer can ask that. "It'll ask you whatever it's programmed to ask you," David offers helpfully.

The echo in Star Trek IV was kind of astounding. You may recall that before he leaves Vulcan following his rapid regrowth on the Genesis planet (events covered in Star Trek III), Spock (Leonard Nimoy) undergoes a computer assessment of his mental acuity. He nails the answers to such rapid-fire questions as "What is the molecular formula of yomium sulfide crystals?" and "What is the electronic configuration of gadolinium?", but this one stops him dead in his tracks:

"How do you feel?"

And then, because he doesn't respond:

"How do you feel? How do you feel?"

His (human) mother comes in to try to contextualize this part of the assessment that Spock cannot compute, and it leads to a discussion of how his crewmates acted in opposition to their own collective interests when they risked so much to retrieve him from Genesis. 

"Humans make illogical decisions," says Spock.

"They do indeed," says his mother.

The reason I include that last part is that it is also an echo of WarGames. When Joshua asks David, who has logged in under the profile of Stephen Falken, to offer an explanation for the reports it received that Falken was dead, David types in:

"People sometimes make mistakes."

Joshua, in his perfectly creepy synthetic voice, responds "Yes they do."

I'm glad to report that the viewings firmly reinforced these films' entrenched position in my top 100 of all time.

The movies shared some more minor things in common, like both involving U.S.-Russian relations regarding nuclear material, both ending on scenes of cheering control rooms, and even both featuring scenes involving spilled garbage cans. But I won't bore you with those today.

More on my Father's Day mini-marathon tomorrow.