Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/11/20/watch-hackers-1995-for-free.html
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With, of course, the usual caveat: not available outside of the US
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And Bio-Dome! What a treasure is YouTube Movies.
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Not in the UK though.
It’s a shame. I was looking forward to a documentary on footballers who kick the opposing player in the shins, and not the ball.
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Once more not out side the usa, unless you use a vpn…
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Hack the world! Ah, “Hackers” you got so much so wonderfully, wonderfully wrong. Also, what was up with the Spock cut Angelina was sporting?
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While at the same time getting so much right. Almost all the words are right, and almost all the visuals are wrong… it’s a conundrum.
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Hey, if you’re going to make a movie about teenagers who hack computers, you can’t make them look like, y’know, teenagers who hack computers. Ain’t nobody buying a ticket to that show.
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Eh, have you ever seen War Games?
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Free, you say.
Too expensive.
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Man - this is weird, I DID just rewatch this like two weeks ago. Then RedLetterMedia did a re:view on it, with Macaulay Culkin! Now this. What is going on? Glitch in the matrix?
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Many times! That one they got the look right, but a lot of terminology wrong. Still, always nice to imagine the world being destroyed over 600 baud. For the purest 80’s tech teen cheese though, my go-to is always “The Manhattan Project” from 1986. Hack the missile defense system? Kid stuff. I’m going to build a nuke from stolen fissionable materials! In my garage!
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Too true. Once time is spent, you can’t get it back.
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Great 80’s teen flick! Couldn’t find the clip, but I love Lithgow’s incredibly arch overacting when he says, “Now, who wants to play?”
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Here is another thing they got wrong.
You can’t get a building sprinkler system to come on by hacking the alarm. Fire suppression sprinkler heads are plugged with a glass cylinder designed to melt at a predetermined temperature. So sprinkler heads only go off in the presence of flames. Not by hacking the alarm system. Even during a fire, they only spray water where the heads have been exposed to flame. Its not like one goes on, and they all go on.
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VPN your way to glory
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It’s a great movie. There’s a ton of stuff in it that gets nerd and hacker culture wrong, but it’s done in such a way that it’s enjoyable to poke fun at in retrospect (rather than being insultingly wrong).
Hack the planet! 
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Yeah, can’t run a VPN right now, otherwise I would.
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It is absolutely a great movie. The nerd and hacker culture weren’t even all that wrong, just very over-the-top. A lot of the geeks and hackers I knew at the time were into everything the protagonists were, but didn’t have underground clubs and parties so much as Dew-and-Cheeto meetings in someone’s dorm room. Really, it was just leaving the reality of geeks behind for the fantasy of what geeks themselves wished they could be.
Re-watching it, the only cringe-worthy parts I find are the fractal images while hacking, the singing and dancing virus, and the whole “you’re closest to the virus - type this!” line.
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I can forgive the over-the-top aspects of the movie, even the hacking because honestly real world hacking is rarely exciting to a spectator. The stuff they say sometimes is just so wild, correct or not it makes me laugh but what i appreciate most about the movie is that despite how campy it is there’s some earnestness in its attempt and i respect that.
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