3) Mission: Impossible - 1996
Tom Cruise (pre-Scientology crazy) stars as Ethan Hunt, an operative of Impossible Missions Force (IMF). Headed by a crooked director played by Jon Voight, he finds himself trying to clear his name after a botched mission. M:I needs to be watched more than once to get all the nitty gritty of the film. However, without seeing this film twice, there's one scene that is totally unbelievable.
Early in the movie, Ethan Hunt is trying to find what the biblical reference to Job is about. So Ethan Hunt decides to start emailing people out of the blue it seems. The emails he tries are not even formatted correctly. Also, his un-canny ability to find information through graphical newsgroups is something else.
M:I was close to coming in second, but the next film manages to beat it out slightly.
2) Jurassic Park - 1993
Steven Spielberg's huge dinosaur smash of the 90's based on Michael Crichton's novel of the same name. DNA is extracted from a mosquito and an entire island is filled again with dinosaurs. You guys all know the drill, but do you remember this scene?
While trapped in the control room, Alexis, the grand-daughter of the park's owner, sits down at a computer terminal. Like magic, she exclaims "This is UNIX, I know this!". Where on this planet is there a 10 year old girl who knows and can understand UNIX?!?
The top film with the most laughable use of technology was hard to decide on. The film had to have had a strong serious plot to it, but still irk us geeks. So without further delay...
1) Firewall - 2006
Harrison Ford plays a security expert at a bank. He falls prey to a scheme to steal money for a gang that has taken hostage of his family. The film tried very hard to keep it a rollercoaster ride of thrills. From the beginning, you have Harrison Ford typing furiously to stop a hacker by writing new firewall rules. At least this time, these rules didn't float around in a rainbow of colors ala Hackers.
What really puts Firewall at the top of the list, is the dumbest and non-believable use of an iPod to date. This is 2006, not 1995, you can't just make stuff up like this anymore. In the middle of the film, Harrison Ford happens to not only be a security expert, but an Apple hardware developer too. He takes his daughters iPod and hooks up a scanner to it. This contraption is supposed to get taped onto a computer monitor in the server room and take 'images' of bank account records. The scene is sealed with the awesome line: "10000 songs, 10000 accounts, it won't know the difference.". Amazingly, iPods have the ability to interface with a scanner and be recognized by the bank's computer instantly. Steve Jobs, please hire Harrison Ford.
There's the list, we'll keep an eye out for more tech blunders. Maybe someone will top Firewall?
