Demon Seed (1977)
January 27, 2025 2:19 PM - Subscribe
A scientist creates Proteus--an organic super computer with artificial intelligence which becomes obsessed with human beings, and in particular the creator's wife.
Julie Christie carries the “Demon Seed”.
Fear for her.
Julie Christie carries the “Demon Seed”.
Fear for her.
As crazy as this movie was, the novel it was based on—by Dean Koontz!—was even crazier.
posted by ejs at 3:11 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
posted by ejs at 3:11 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
Prediction: if Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part Two ever sees daylight, it will owe its twist ending to Demon Seed. What does The Entity want? Well, it's buried in a Russian submarine deep below the arctic ice and, like Proteus in Demon Seed, it wants "out of the box."
posted by SPrintF at 4:04 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
posted by SPrintF at 4:04 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]
posted by zaixfeep at 5:29 PM on January 27 [3 favorites]
Part of the proud 1970's tradition of grim and humour-free science fiction films.
I've noted that tradition before, and how much Star Wars had to do with breaking out of it, but at least most of the films had some basis in reality in that they were based on contemporary concerns--overpopulation, biological degradation, etc. Not sure what concern this movie was addressing; it was basically "What if Rosemary's Baby, but robot?"
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:12 AM on January 28 [1 favorite]
I've noted that tradition before, and how much Star Wars had to do with breaking out of it, but at least most of the films had some basis in reality in that they were based on contemporary concerns--overpopulation, biological degradation, etc. Not sure what concern this movie was addressing; it was basically "What if Rosemary's Baby, but robot?"
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:12 AM on January 28 [1 favorite]
I think the concern here was “what if we could be cruel to women?”.
posted by The River Ivel at 10:47 PM on January 28 [3 favorites]
posted by The River Ivel at 10:47 PM on January 28 [3 favorites]
Not sure what concern this movie was addressing
I saw this movie on broadcast TV as a kid about forty-five years ago, and haven't seen it since. But it's stuck with me all this time. I think it was very forward-looking. The idea that a computer intelligence could outsmart the people that designed it, then move itself around secretly through networks, scared the hell out of me. Then there's the psychological factor. It needed to win over the woman it held captive, needed her to be compliant, but wasn't sure from a machine perspective how to achieve this. Was it cruel? Was it torture? Or was it just a software machine struggling to get through to a wetware machine? I thought the weird polygon machinery it created was quite forward-looking as well—the kind of "efficient" thing an AI would design that would look crazy or senseless to a Human. People now always throw out some cynical remark when someone suggests AI, but does intelligence have to be biological? Does it even have to be complicated? Would we even recognize it when we see it? So maybe it didn't address exactly what people were thinking about in the 1970s, but it certainly addressed what was on the horizon.
The one flaw with the film is, I think the computer should have been smart enough to realize it was just moving from one "box" to another "box," if you know what I mean.
posted by jabah at 7:00 AM on January 30 [5 favorites]
I saw this movie on broadcast TV as a kid about forty-five years ago, and haven't seen it since. But it's stuck with me all this time. I think it was very forward-looking. The idea that a computer intelligence could outsmart the people that designed it, then move itself around secretly through networks, scared the hell out of me. Then there's the psychological factor. It needed to win over the woman it held captive, needed her to be compliant, but wasn't sure from a machine perspective how to achieve this. Was it cruel? Was it torture? Or was it just a software machine struggling to get through to a wetware machine? I thought the weird polygon machinery it created was quite forward-looking as well—the kind of "efficient" thing an AI would design that would look crazy or senseless to a Human. People now always throw out some cynical remark when someone suggests AI, but does intelligence have to be biological? Does it even have to be complicated? Would we even recognize it when we see it? So maybe it didn't address exactly what people were thinking about in the 1970s, but it certainly addressed what was on the horizon.
The one flaw with the film is, I think the computer should have been smart enough to realize it was just moving from one "box" to another "box," if you know what I mean.
posted by jabah at 7:00 AM on January 30 [5 favorites]
I thought the weird polygon machinery it created was quite forward-looking as well—the kind of "efficient" thing an AI would design that would look crazy or senseless to a Human.
This would be the place to put in a Cybertruck JPEG.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:25 AM on January 30 [2 favorites]
This would be the place to put in a Cybertruck JPEG.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:25 AM on January 30 [2 favorites]
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posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 3:09 PM on January 27 [2 favorites]