MovieChat Forums > Hardware (1990) Discussion > here's the thing about the movie ***cont...

here's the thing about the movie ***contains spoilers***


i certainly am NOT trying to offend anyone who enjoyed this movie, however, this movie is pretty bad, and when i say bad I mean bad taste.

is it really necessary to have the pervert talking about, and i quote from the film itself, "the Hershey highway"? i don't need to hear what sick stuff turns him on. how does that move the plot along? that there will be an ever increasing amount of perverts and sexual deviants in the future? it was disgusting.

it's like the movie was intended to be a porno, but was changed right before production to try to appeal to a mainstream audience.

Hardware could have been so much better with the whole idea of Government sponsored population control, although by the time the movie takes place in, it seems a bit too late for population control to make much of a difference.

the movie portrays such a bleak existence then why not just have suicide centers (a la the film "Soylent Green") where people can volunteer to end it all? give people the option.

while on the subject, a much better B movie about a desolate future is "Soylent Green".

reply

Grow up.

reply

[deleted]

The movie wasn't in bad taste, but it was certainly touching upon some uncomfortable themes.

Why the perv did not strike me as a gratuitous thing to include? Part of the very effective future world-building atmosphere, which provides some IMO well informed social commentary. Any doubt that surveillance plays more of a role in todays society than it did in 1990? And even if people clamor for personal security, and elites claim that it deters crime and helps with social order - the ones at the screen are only human. Do you honestly suppose that people stationed at surveillance detail don't ogle and check out those who they find attractive? The creepy thing is that the only difference between perfect protection and the ultimate stalking tool is the intentions of the user, which are often rather suspect. The psychology of porn addiction meets the panopticon.

As for Soylent...

Why I found Hardware more bleak, and also clever, is that there aren't just suicide centers. The center is everywhere. It's not about a few morose individuals who try decide to end it all. Rather we have normal people trying to live their lives in a culture which has become so machinistic and destructive to life, the it appears that human civilisation is itself subjecting us to the throes of its suicide. Whereas SG struck me as a warning about how the benefits of a technocratic utopia would create abundance while robbing life of its meaning. I'd say that their dystopias are nearly polar opposites. Though it's scope was far more modest, I feel that Hardware suggested more food for thought through economy and ambience, and was for me a better movie.



reply


Go watch Bambi then.

reply

i dont think it was intended to move the plot along. i think it was intended to show how that character really was.

__________________
think for yourself

reply

Interesting.

reply

The perv lines were improvised by the actor. He played Porkins in Star Wars, lol.

reply