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Retro SciFi of the WeekâŠ
Virtuosity (1995)
Films about the mind comprise a huge chunk of the science fiction genre. They trace their roots all the way back to the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the 19th century. Themes include mind alteration, mind control, telepathy, direct neural links, the hive mind, virtual worlds and much more.
Virtuosity marked a turning point and a refresh of this subgenre. Although this isnât the best example of mind films, itâs significant because it began to pull together the elements of the next major phase of the subgenre. This led directly to âThe Matrix (1999)â, and later to âInception (2010), âTime Sleeper (2020)â and many other groundbreaking films about the mind and virtual worlds.
Predecessors influencing this film include âAltered States (1980)â, âBrainstorm (1983)â, âMax Headroom (1987)â, and âLawnmower Man (1992)â. Most of the earlier influential works were tied more to the âhardwareâ of the brain, such as âSpockâs Brainâ (from ST:OS) and âThe Brain that Wouldnât Die (1962)â.
When Virtuosity first came out, it looked like the subgenre had finally jumped the shark, but the somewhat goofy features in this film came to define the next phase of this subgenre. (Iâll highlight some of those elements under a spoiler content warning in this thread.)
(Image: low-res movie poster, fair use)
@peterdrake
I guess you need to follow the thread backwards to the OP (original post). But that's kind of a pain isn't it. I'll try to remeber next time to include the title in the CW.
(The titles are at the beginning of the spoiler post, along with another in-text warning just in case folks have the "auto-open-CWs" feature enabled, but of course folks wouldn't know that until they peek. Duh! đ