MovieChat Forums > Short Circuit 2 (1988) Discussion > RANT: Short Circuit 2

RANT: Short Circuit 2

posted 19 years ago by Jack_Behopper
19 replies | jump to latest

Ok I can see at least 5 things wrong with the plot-line of Short Circuit 2:

1. There seems to be a sub-plot missing from this movie. I notice when Fisher Steven's character and Michael McKean's character unpack Johnny 5, two rainbow stickers appear on Johnny 5's shoulders. Johnny 5 is also wearing a bandana around his neck. Are we being led to believe he is gay or gay-friendly now?

2. Johnny 5's 500 hour charge time on his lithium-argon liquid portable battery seems highly dubious.

3. The technology behind an all purpose satellite or terrestrial radio beam broadcaster that has the power to control any solid state or CRT electronic device is still years away on the drawing board.

4. Johnny 5 weights perhaps 200 to 300 lbs, it is not possible for Johnny 5 to be able to grab a moving car and bring it to a dead stop. Johnny 5's magnet-on-a-cable would magnetize to the vehicle, yet the weight (2,200 to 2,800 lbs) of and the momentum of the vehicle (going at minimum 22 to 28 Mph) would pull Johnny 5 down the street.

5. Johnny 5 may be "alive" in the sense of artificial intelligence, but he incapable of feeling physical pain. The scenes were the two thugs beat Johnny 5 with a crow bar and axe is a complete farce. I suspect Johnny 5 was just acting like he felt pain, but was not in any real danger.

[–] 19 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Jack_Behopper 19 years ago

Just trying out some new material. I geuss no one else is catching on.

[–] 19 years ago

[deleted]

[–] kma-12 18 years ago

MarcKal on Thu Aug 18 2005 13:07:55
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Sorry man. But really, it's all about the fun.

Sorry about the shut up thing. No offense. Just thought you were another troll.
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- Hey! stay off the trolls

[–] bigbadwolf666 17 years ago

well its not a film for accuracy if you catch my drift.

Suffering? You Haven't Seen Anything Yet!

[–] adidafboy 18 years ago

is it just me, or was Jack Mehoffer's comment a *beep* JOKE!

[–] Griezz 19 years ago

1) I don't think rainbow stickers and a bandana mean relate in any way to the gay community, just like having his own "Nike Swoosh" means that he's a Nike product.

2) Highly dubious? So would having an actual artificial intelligence-possessing robot in the 1980s.

3) So would the government having a robot as mobile assault platform that also has the computer capacity for artificial intelligence.

4) For this, maybe he used something else to anchor himself, like a grapple or something. I'd quesiton just as much the scene where he rises up underneath the car, lifting it, twirling it, and tossing it.

5) He also doesn't have eyes, so he can't see colors. However, he does have sensors that could be trained to perceive and differentiate colors. He also has diagnostic systems that, for whatever reason, may send signals that he might interpret as "pain", based on all the information that he has gathered. In some ways, he is simply mimicking biologicals, but if he thinks that he's feeling pain, who call tell the difference? It's no less ridiculous or plausible than artificial intelligence itself.

[–] efflux02 19 years ago

If you remember, the rainbow stickers are from the first movie. You can see the same sticker on the rear-view mirror of the van that they are driving.

[–] jedi-jones 19 years ago

None of that bothers me...

But how in the world did he fit down the manhole?

[–] techrat2 18 years ago

Actually they quoted the weight of number 5 at 780 lbs in the movie...

Short circuit 1 and 2 are a couple of my favorite movies, I was very lucky to find the special edition of short circuit 1 on dvd, It has in the special features a tour through the machine shop where they developed and tested their robots.
Being a mechanic and a geek, that part was incredible to see how well built and designed to robot really is and what it could do without trick camera work as they played with parts of it by remote control.
Awesome, has anyone else on here got the special edition dvd? it appears to hard to find...

[–] mmsi1002 18 years ago

its a movie for gods sake!!! are u supposed 2 be some kind of genius or something??? get a life!

[–] resident10 18 years ago

gotta agree that the part where he suffers from the beat up was kinda stupid....

[–] SomethinglikeSarah 18 years ago

I think he is a closet and wanted to express his sexual desires for other boy robots. lol. and u cant debate the whole idea of johnny feeling pain cos the film is hardly based on realism, surely u shud start with the idea or whether a robot can actually be 'alive' :P.

this film rules and shud never be remade!

* Lutons / finest / export *

[–] RogueShadow 18 years ago

Well, have any of you ever seen a robot that became a sentient being? Maybe thats how he interpreted his circuits being disputed the way they were. And didn't he say something about wanting to add color to himself? Maybe that's why he had the stickers? Are you also trying to say that nobody on a ranch wears a bandana, because that's where Newton and Stephanie took him to.

[–] mccarthystuart 18 years ago

As hard to believe as it might sound, I actually found that "beat-up" scene a little painful to watch.

So this is how liberty dies-with thunderous applause?

[–] benbigwig-1 17 years ago

Obviously this is a joke post, but to address the physical pain thing:

Physical pain is just nerves telling the brain that a part of the body is being damaged. The purpose of pain is to make us stop whatever is causing the pain to prevent damage to the body.

Some other robot franchises, like Terminator and Transformers, explain the similarity between the human concept of pain and the same concept in robots. The Terminator said, "I sense injuries. The data could be called pain." That's true because it's basically the same concept-- sensors sending signals that damage is occurring. For Johnny, who responds with human behavior, it would make sense for him to scream when receiving that kind of data on such a large scale as the beating he took from the two thugs.

Well that's my take on explaining it.

[–] avortac4 (3660) 4 years ago

"Physical pain is just nerves telling the brain that a part of the body is being damaged. The purpose of pain is to make us stop whatever is causing the pain to prevent damage to the body. "

Only partially correct. How can nerves 'tell' anything to anyone?

It's all energy.

If you remove energy, there's no pain. If you remove soul from a body, there's no pain. Shao-Lin monks can even protect their body in such a way that not only do they avoid pain, but they also avoid damage and injury. There's one Shao-Lin monk that can have a skeptic drill his head without it causing damage or getting through.

A dead body will not feel pain, but if your theory was sufficient to explain pain, it would.

Even what people call 'physical pain' (or 'feeling') is really the soul, the spirit, the self, the energy feeling it. The physical body doesn't react by pain, it's the higher bodies, from etheric to astral to causal to mental, etc. until it reaches all the way to soul.

The soul is the one that finally EXPERIENCES the pain. This kind of response is of course completely necessary in a dangerous world like this, where you could otherwise do a lot of damage to the physical body, rendering your incarnation shorter than it would otherwise be (I think there have been people born without the ability to feel pain, and at least one of them died from something that feeling pain would've prevented them from experiencing).

Pain is basically energy impulses that shock the soul.

Why do people of this planet try to explain everything by 'brain' and the physical side alone, when the physical side is the least important one, and purely physical mass is never alive? (Even your body is never TRULY alive, but your living soul makes it seem that way - that's why you never die, you only leave the body)

[–] tdl797 11 years ago

I have a question.
I watched it on HUB this afternoon, so I don't know if scenes were cut or not.

**SPOILERS**

My question is in regard to the villains.

Is it not shown that Oscar, the guy who works at the bank, is aligned with the 2 thieves that keep breaking into the warehouse until there is the scene with all 3 at a table maybe halfway or longer in the movie?

I had to rewind to see if I had missed something. Maybe they were wanting it to be a little twist at that point in the movie.

[–] Chris_Esper 11 years ago

Nothing was cut. That is how Oscar is introduced in the film as sort of a twist.

www.chrisesper.webs.com