Sci-fi movie identifiaction
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Can't seem to track this one down through Google.
A sci-fi movie that might have been a made-for-TV movie. Billed itself as one of those "before the Matrix..." movies. ie: the world isn't what it seems. People don't realize they're walking around with VR gear on to cover up a desolate world.
Leaned HEAVILY on The Treachery of Images (Ceci n'est pas une pipe) as a metaphor.
Was not very-- uh-- good? But the name of it's been bugging me.
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@lorne-kates Do you have like... any more information on it?
Did it come out before the Matrix (in which case how could it be billed that way?), or was it made afterwards and like billed as "what caused the Matrix"?
Your post is highly confusing.
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Well, you inspired me to try to look up a sci-fi movie that I'd been trying to identify, and I think I may have actually found it this time. Strange Days... but I don't think it's the one you're looking for.
As far as your search goes... you were pretty vague, but any chance this is it?
Also, I've been trying to come up with a movie that I remember seeing. I remember it had a plot very similar to Johnny Mnemonic... at first, I thought I was thinking of that, but I'm pretty sure it's not. Actually I think I might be mashing up some components from Johnny Mnemonic, and some from another movie, that I can't remember...
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@lorne-kates Sounds like They Live
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What I mean is: it was made slightly before The Matrix, and possibly released slightly before or slightly after. But certainly AFTER The Matrix took off, the advertised with a "before there was the Matrix" tagline.
I checked a bunch of people's "top X virtual reality / simulated reality / like the Matrix" movies, and it wasn't on any of them. So no, it isn't They Live, or 13th Floor, or Brainstorm or any of the other movies that are good enough to be on a Top X list.
Don't have much other details, since I'm just going off a memory. For the Canadians, I did see it one evening on CityTV.
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@anotherusername Not Mind Warp. I would have remembered if it had Bruce Campbell in it.
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Also, the people in the movie don't know they're in a VR simulation. At some point, the main characters figure it out (or the main one is guided by someone else I think), and they reach up to their faces and remove the VR masks. I think they WERE in a library, then were in a dusty, burnt out library.
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@lorne-kates Febreze commercial.
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@lorne-kates said in Sci-fi movie identifiaction:
Also, the people in the movie don't know they're in a VR simulation. At some point, the main characters figure it out (or the main one is guided by someone else I think), and they reach up to their faces and remove the VR masks. I think they WERE in a library, then were in a dusty, burnt out library.
Sounds like Virtual Nightmare 2000
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Saw the title and was instantly interested for the typo.
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@el_heffe said in Sci-fi movie identifiaction:
@lorne-kates said in Sci-fi movie identifiaction:
Also, the people in the movie don't know they're in a VR simulation. At some point, the main characters figure it out (or the main one is guided by someone else I think), and they reach up to their faces and remove the VR masks. I think they WERE in a library, then were in a dusty, burnt out library.
Sounds like Virtual Nightmare 2000
That's a candidate. I'll see if I can get it and check.
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Reading all this made me wonder when eXistenZ came out, but the ending has nothing to do with a desolate world.
That wiki page linked to this though where they don't appear to be aware of all the VR:
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@jbert There was a time some years back when my cable company offered three free pay-per-view movies to get you to start using the service. I took advantage of the offer and only after I'd watched all three did I realize I had chosen three with the same underlying premise: eXistenZ, The Thirteenth Floor, and Dark City.
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@jbert Really weird that Thirteenth Floor, Dark City, and The Matrix all came out around the same time. Like three vastly different takes on basically the same concept.
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@el_heffe sounds interesting, but based on what I'm reading, in that movie they aren't wearing VR gear... there's a signal being broadcast directly into their brains.
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@anotherusername said in Sci-fi movie identifiaction:
@Lorne-Kates it's on YouTube
Does a pretty good job with its budget.
I like how everything's labeled in the VR, you could imagine this being accidentally seeing a debug mode.
The VR is like a Truman show "mix of 1950s and today" thing.
EDIT: ok I'm 45 minutes in and this has to be the movie Lorne is thinking of. The only difference is people don't wear VR gear, the VR is some kind of mental transmission from a central satellite dish.
EDIT EDIT: You thought this movie was bad? I'm really enjoying it. I mean it's a TV movie, but it has pretty clever writing, the acting's adequate and even the FX are pretty good for a TV budget.
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@anotherusername said in Sci-fi movie identifiaction:
it's on YouTubeCool. The version on YouTube is much better quality than the copy I have.
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@Lorne-Kates Have you asked here? They're really good at it.
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@marczellm CLOSED OFF TOPIC UNCLEAR WHAT THE QUESTION IS TOO MANY DOWNVOTES CLOSED OPINION BASED CLOSED CLOSED
There, I just simulated the StackOverflow experience for you.
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@marczellm You're welcome. I should have added a "DELETED WITHOUT APPEAL" to the end, too.
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@da-doctah One time we watched the first three Alien movies back to back, and then a couple days later Comcast sent us a coupon in the mail for a free movie as thanks.
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@blakeyrat @marczellm Also you're banned forever from all Stack Exchange sites.
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@lorne-kates Is it eXistenZ ?
Also, you should watch Dead Ringers, starring Jeremy Irons as twin Canadian surgeons.
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@blakeyrat said in Sci-fi movie identifiaction:
The only difference is people don't wear VR gear, the VR is some kind of mental transmission from a central satellite dish.
Yeah, I was mistaken about the VR gear.
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@captain said in Sci-fi movie identifiaction:
@lorne-kates Is it eXistenZ ?
Yes, it absolutely is eXistenZ, because eXistenZ uses Treachery of Images as a plot point, has people living in a world they don't know is VR, isn't on anyone's top 10 lists for best VR movies, and also I would have mentioned video games. :/
@captain said in Sci-fi movie identifiaction:
Also, you should watch Dead Ringers, starring Jeremy Irons as twin Canadian surgeons.
Seen it more than once. Ironically, was JUST looking it up yesterday. Still have the tab open...
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@lorne-kates Almost any outcome would have been better than ending up at the one with a Z jammed at the end of the title to accentuate the extreme capitalization, may you suffer the karmic debt of increasing my karmic debt by forcing me to remember one MORE time the human race has failed itself.
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@lorne-kates said in Sci-fi movie identifiaction:
@captain said in Sci-fi movie identifiaction:
@lorne-kates Is it eXistenZ ?
Yes, it absolutely is eXistenZ, because eXistenZ uses Treachery of Images as a plot point, has people living in a world they don't know is VR, isn't on anyone's top 10 lists for best VR movies, and also I would have mentioned video games. :/
So it was eXistenZ?
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@lorne-kates Hmmh. The only one around that period of time I remember was eXistenZ.
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Wait wait WAIT!
Was it eXinstenZ?
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@zecc
Can I just add I never heard of a movie called eXinstenZ?
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@captain said in Sci-fi movie identifiaction:
So it was eXistenZ?
@zecc said in Sci-fi movie identifiaction:
Was it eXinstenZ?
@luhmann said in Sci-fi movie identifiaction:
Can I just add I never heard of a movie called eXinstenZ?
No to all of the above.
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Maybe it was The Lawnmower Man 2: Lawn Mower
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@anotherusername
Anyhow I feel a new forum meme brewing about this movie called eXinstenZ
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@luhmann said in Sci-fi movie identifiaction:
Anyhow I feel a new forum meme brewing about this movie called eXinstenZ
No.
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@anotherusername You've done it now. Is the refusal to amplify this protomeme real, or simulated? Did it start happening already? Wasn't that the actual name of the movie in the first place?
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@blakeyrat said in Sci-fi movie identifiaction:
@marczellm CLOSED OFF TOPIC UNCLEAR WHAT THE QUESTION IS TOO MANY DOWNVOTES CLOSED OPINION BASED CLOSED CLOSED
There, I just simulated the StackOverflow experience for you.
That's not really how the sci-fi one works. Especially for a movie id question with the amount of detail that Lorne gave.
Low effort troll 0/10
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@gribnit Wait, wasn't the meme that for any question about eXistenZ, the answer is "no"?
(No)
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@luhmann Don't you mean Sandstorm (Darude)?
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@magus I'd be willing to bet no, and that no-one has in fact, ever meant that.
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@magus said in Sci-fi movie identifiaction:
@luhmann Don't you mean Sandstorm (Darude)?
No, I meant eXistenZ
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@magus Not sure how well that turned out for the miners in The Expanse (which is worth a watch IMO)
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@pie_flavor Not sure how well that turned out for the miners in The Expanse (which is worth a watch IMO)
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@gribnit said in Sci-fi movie identifiaction:
@anotherusername You've done it now. Is the refusal to amplify this protomeme real, or simulated? Did it start happening already? Wasn't that the actual name of the movie in the first place?
Just so you know, your link to http://localhost:8080 is showing a server crash stack trace.
Whoever's maintaining that site is an idiot.
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Hey did we ever figure out if it was eXistenZ
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@captain said in Sci-fi movie identifiaction:
Hey did we ever figure out if it was eXistenZ
No, it was eXistenZ.
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@gribnit said in Sci-fi movie identifiaction:
Wasn't that the actual name of the movie in the first place?
Wait, how did you find out where Master Server is!?!?!
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Haha, when I started reading this thread today I was going to suggest it might be eXistenZ. I was on a VR bender in 1999, and so I was one of the 5 people who saw it in the theater during its brief run; I had to go seek out the one indie theater where it was playing. It technically came out after The Matrix, but so close to the same time that clearly both movies were being made at the same time.
And then I read the whole thread and saw there were ninjas everywhere. And hi, all of the other 4 people who saw eXistenZ.
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@devjoe That was a bloody weird movie.
Then again, it's Cronenberg. 'twas pretty much a given.
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@rhywden said in Sci-fi movie identifiaction:
Then again, it's Cronenberg. 'twas pretty much a given.
I've given up watching his stuff. It's too weird for me; I get sidetracked into making sense of it and stop enjoying it because of that.
Mindwarp (1991) ⭐ 5.2 | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
The Thirteenth Floor - Wikipedia
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