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The Top 10 Apple Movie Moments
Posted 04/08/2008 at 6:31:12pm | by
Michael Simon
While it’s a pretty safe bet that Macs are starring behind the scenes of Hollywood’s greatest creations, Apple’s presence is strong on the other side of the camera, too, as PowerBooks, iPods, Cinema Displays and iPhones appear alongside Academy Award winners, sultry starlets and B-movie hacks. Over the years, Apple’s chic style has caught the eye of more than a few set designers, directors and writers, making for some memorable moments:
10. Meet the Fockers: Just about every character uses a Mac in this flick, but the best setup can be found in Jack Byrnes’ secret RV room, where he has a giant Cinema Display mounted with an iSight. We’re not sure what kind of computer he was using, but it’s probably a dual 2.5 Ghz Power Mac G5 --- the top of the line at the time.
9. Hot Fuzz: When Sgt. Nicholas Angel tours his new digs in Sandford, he is horrified to find a terribly inadequate staff and antiquated equipment, capped off by the chime of a mid-1990s Mac powering up (by pressing a button on an ADB keyboard, no less). It’s tough to pinpoint exactly which Mac family the computer is from, but they stopped making the keyboard in 1998.
8. Monsters, Inc.: Apple has a long history of hiding fun little Easter eggs in its products, and Steve Jobs has continued that tradition as CEO of his other company. Many of Pixar’s films contain scattered Apple references, but the coolest has to be from Monster's Inc. Near the end of the film, Mike is admiring his and Sculley’s picture on the cover of Business Shriek; on the back is an Apple-ish ad with the tagline “Scare Different.” What it’s advertising is anybody’s guess.
7. Jurassic Park: Before all heck breaks loose, the dinosaurs are kept secure by a bank of Macintosh Quadra 700s; you can see a few of them in the control room and even hear a familiar chime when the entire system is rebooted. Remember: it was human error that brought the park down.
6. Final Destination 2: Right after purchasing a brand new Apple computer, lottery winner Evan Lewis sets off a fiery chain reaction by accidentally microwaving a refrigerator magnet with his leftover Chinese food. The scene ends with a fire-escape ladder impaling him through the right eye, but the real tragedy here is the unopened iMac G4 that burns in the fire.
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The Top 10 Apple Movie Moments
Submitted by Rich Brenner (not verified) on Tue, 2008-04-08 17:03
What about 'The Net' ? A plethora of Macs and Sandra Bullock.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2008-04-08 17:10
My favorite was James Doohan, "Mr. Scott", trying to use a use a Mac Plus (or similar all in one "classic" design) in Star Trek IV, the Voyage Home. Didn't Mr. Scott use the Mac to make the calculations to design the whale tank?
Submitted by bklynhstlr (not verified) on Tue, 2008-04-08 18:01
What about "The Devil Wears Prada" ever computer in Anne Hathoway's magazine office is a Mac, from Power Macs with Aluminum displays, to iSight equipped 20" iMacs.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2008-04-08 18:07
No, he used the MacPlus to come with with the computations for transparent aluminum so he could barter for the plexiglass so he could make a whale tank.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2008-04-08 18:02
Dont forget in legally blonde she used an orange clamshell iBook!
Submitted by Troy F (not verified) on Tue, 2008-04-08 18:13
I have 2 : Pirates of Silicon Valley -- true, it's pseudo-biographic, but i think it applies.
The second is not a movie, Smallville , Chloe uses iMac DVs for the whole of 1st season, ...... until they suddenly switch to Dull Wintels , ( must have been Lex Luthor's evil influence ) .
BTW : i'm pretty sure the Powerbook in ID was running OS 7.6 ( anyone remember that OS ? ) ((((((( LOL )))))))
Submitted by George (not verified) on Tue, 2008-04-29 08:49
Darned right I remember 7.6. What a welcome relief from the hellish maze of 7.5.x upgrades! I paid good cash money for 7.6, and never regretted it. So incredibly more stable than any 7.x preceding it, and worked equally well on 040's as on PPC's. Our shop didn't have any more 030's, so I couldn't test 7.6 on them, and don't remember if it was even applcable to the earlier processors. But on my Quadra it rocked, and on the PPS's it really helped out a lot. Of course, 8.1 was the best for Quadras overall, but the space required! Our old little hard drives weren't always fast enough or large enough to accomodate 8.1, but it was very smooth. Never a crash since I bought it when it came out, and that's quite a while ago. In fact, it was 7.6 that convinced me to stay with Macs, well, that and Apple's incredible warranties. No, really, much better than many other lines.
Submitted by Scott Rose (not verified) on Tue, 2008-04-08 19:05
The problem with the Jurassic Park QuickTime video is that you can SEE the progress bar at the bottom of the QuickTime window, so you KNOW that it is a fake video!! It's not a live streaming video like it pretends to be!
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2008-04-08 20:26
I'm waiting for you guys to have a story called "The top 10 meaningless MacLife stories of all time." Some people probably like these dumb stories but then some people (a lot of people) also like People magazine. I'm not one of those people and I hope lots of mac people aren't either. Please give us something useful okay?
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2008-04-08 20:55
So....not only did you read the entire article you thought was "dumb," but you took the time to comment on it?
You don't even get that you just gave the author(s) exactly what they wanted, do you?
People love polls and lists. I thought the screensaver list was lame, but I read it and reminisced a little, whether it was useful or not!
Keep em coming!
Top 10 Mac designs?
Top 10 non-Mac Apple products?
The top 10 pointless comments?
Submitted by Martin Tourneur (not verified) on Tue, 2008-04-08 22:05
So true! Isn't that why we like reading MacLife? On and Off the net.
Submitted by John (not verified) on Tue, 2008-04-08 21:53
I feel like Blank Check absolutely needs to be on this list. I can't remember what model it was exactly, but I think it was an old Performa or Quadra, but that Macintosh let Preston Waters print his $1,000,000 check and also inspired his alias, Mr. Macintosh.
Not to mention it was just an absolutely awesome movie, despite the fact that all the stuff he bought (including a sweet castle) would add up to way more than a million dollars.
-John
www.addictedtowords.com
Submitted by Martin Tourneur (not verified) on Tue, 2008-04-08 22:03
In the film "Hackers" I remember simply falling in love with the Apple so-called prototypes (I doubt these were ever actually ever considered to be built by Apple...) the kids hacked with...from transparent, translucent to camouflage I remember dreaming, at the time of owning one of those...alas.
Funny line: I think it was Matthew Lillard's character who exclaim's "Man did you see that machine--it's lightning fast 28.8k modem-I want it to have my children!! Yeah the future IS the RISC chip!"
-the iPhone/iPod Touch of the 90's...now I'm nostalgic...
Submitted by Mymac4ever (not verified) on Tue, 2008-04-08 23:38
Office Space: A bit strange, as always in the world of movies. When our hero, cant remember the name now, is stressing to get out of the office and avoid Lumbard or whatever his name is he saves down his documents. All saving is Macesque but when he's finished the comp. shuts down to a C-prompt.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 2008-04-09 07:00
In the movie Sabrina, the character that Harrison Ford played had a pre-released 20th Anniversary Mac on his desk. The actual unit he had was the in house development model that Apple lent to the studio.
Submitted by Nathan (not verified) on Wed, 2008-04-09 07:58
In the cartoon Chicken Little the computer on his desk has a glowing acorn in stead of an apple.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 2008-04-09 08:11
How about Steve Gutenberg in Short Circuit when he's pulling a Macintosh Classic (?) out of a box when they are loading the van to look for Number 5?
Submitted by Nathan (not verified) on Wed, 2008-04-09 08:24
In the Left Behind movies, Nicolae Carpathia (the Antichrist) uses a G3 Pismo.
Submitted by Troy F. (not verified) on Wed, 2008-04-09 11:50
Left Behind ??? ---- LMAO
You can't do better than that ? ...... Lame .
Satan does not use an iBook , he uses a Dull Peecee laptop running Windoze XPee and a retro dial-up modem with the "handshake" audio cue.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 2008-04-09 08:47
It's been a long time since I watched, but when the bad guy was talking to the guy down at the wharf over the video conferencing I remember thinking it was a quicktime window. IIRC it also had a progress bar, which made me laugh... you knew when the conversation was going to end! :)
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 2008-04-09 13:30
As I recall, in the Mission Impossible movies (or at lest the first two), all of the "good guys" used Macs (I mostly remember G3 PowerBooks) while all the baddies used PCs.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 2008-04-09 16:42
Now Michael should do Top 10 TV Shows - there's so many of them, definitely more than 10, that's for sure.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 2008-04-09 19:56
I am almost sure that in the movie A view to A Kill the archeologist that bond was talking to used a apple IIc. I minght be wrong but I am 90% sure that they did use it.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2008-04-10 04:54
It is criminal that you left out Scotty inventing transparent aluminum in Star Trek IV (when he tries to get the computer's attention by picking up the mouse and talking into it). I'm going back to PC's (serious).
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2008-04-10 08:57
yeah, you're right --- that was a good one. I guess I didn't let my mind wander back far enough.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2008-04-10 10:17
I guess it's safe to say that this list is not the top 10 mac movie moments. There are a lot of other, better moments. ESPECIALLY scotty's.
This is probably just the list of the last 10 movies that the writer has seen since macs do appear in pretty much any non-period movie.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 2008-04-14 21:28
Has everyone forgotten "Live Free or Die Hard"? Macs everywhere including their new pitchman. :-)
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