"You mean this isn't real?"

[mikailborg]

I suppose it's because I know a little about technology, but I tend to get quickly annoyed by "sucked into the computer / Internet" stories. To start with, there's no "there" to be sucked into, mainly - it's all numbers, words, and pictures constantly copied from A to B and back; and there's no technology on the horizon that can copy & paste your consciousness like an MS Word file. Moving the story ahead several technology levels helps a bit, as does tossing in blatant magic (if a character is sucked into a painting, no author ever tries to convince us that it's a glitch in the painting). Still, to simulate *everything* about a world, one needs information storage, processing, and display greater than the sum of the information to be simulated. If you plan to build an virtual planet with a convincing ecosystem and 6 billion people, that can be a heck of a challenge.

Ironically, one of the movies that did the best jobs of this was actually Tron. The hero was sucked into the computer by a device specifically designed to suck physical objects into computers - there was no "I put my cell phone on my low-bandwidth acoustic modem and I suddenly ended up here!" crud. And the simulation he arrived in was clearly crude and basic - there was no pretense of complete realism. Maybe the plot and characters didn't hold up, but at least there was some underlying logic.

On the other hand, a compelling plot and interesting characters can easily make up for technological BS. The world of the Matrix movies is extremely technologically suspect, but at least during the first movie, we didn't mind. Just be aware that if you have an "in the computer" story you have to tell, make sure something's distracting us from the technology, please?

Comments

[rattrap.livejournal.com]

That's one of the reasons I've always liked Reboot. Since the story only involves character native to trhe digital world, it's easier to deal with the world, since we assume we're seeing it through the "reality filter" of the characters. I somehow have less trouble believing it that way.

Well, that and the fact that Dot Matrix is a major babe.

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

"Getting sucked into the Internet" stories are right at the top of the list of Stories Editors Hate To See.

They rank right up there with "An AI Got Loose On The Web / Into Real Life Even Though It Was Unplugged!!!" stories.

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

The world of the Matrix movies is extremely technologically suspect, but at least during the first movie, we didn't mind.

Speak for yourself... I despised that movie with a seething passion. :)

I would say that the one movie that does this sort of dystopian story and link it with technology and make the whole thing not unpalatable is Dark City. I totally didn't hate that movie.