Talk:Electric Dreams (film)

Untitled

More could probably be said about the relationship between the movie and its soundtrack.

Watching the film, one gets the sense that it was envisioned as a two-hour MTV segment. Events in the story flow around the music performances, which are presented in (almost) their entirety, backed in several cases by MTV-video-style montage. I suspect the movie was produced specifically for the nascent MTV generation, in a bid to replicate the synergistic relationship that emerged between Saturday Night Fever and its soundtrack. (As far as I know, neither Electric Dreams nor its soundtrack were a major success.)

I have no sources for this, however. Perhaps someone more familiar with the history of the movie industry could comment? (This information may also belong at Film or History of cinema—I don't think Electric Dreams was the only film to apply this strategy.)

Simon 18:37, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Also, I know there was an actual music video made at some point featuring Miles and Edgar, the computer (though not based on the plot from the movie, nor to my recollection incorporating any scenes from it). I saw this on MuchMusic many years ago, but can neither remember the song nor the artist associated with it. (Perhaps Culture Club or Jeff Lynne? The video did appear to be set in England.)

Does anyone else remember this?

Simon 18:52, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I do. It was Jeff Lynne. It was the music video for "Video", his first song contribution and the lead-off single for the soundtrack album.

--Sk'py Skwrrrl 21:09, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Cool, thanks!

Simon 00:52, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Other Electric Dreams music videos...

I'm sure everyone's aware of the "Together in Electric Dreams" music video which was cut together mostly using footage from the movie — as far as I know, it began with a TV screen embedded in sand at the beach and a trickle of waves splashing over it — but there was also a music video for "Love is Love".

The "Love is Love" music video featured Edgar ascending (and later crashing) through various stages of fame as a pop star whose career began with the "Electric Dreams" movie. It had its own storyline and there was very little footage (if any) from the movie. The face of Boy George appears on Edgar's screen at the end.

I have no idea where it sits in the timeline of the movie and its spinoffs. It may have been released first, since it depicts Edgar and his date watching "Electric Dreams" on opening night at the cinema, where the colourful flickering "ELECTRIC DREAMS" title text appears superimposed over other footage not shown in the movie. I presume it was promotional for the movie and its soundtrack...

— Algofoogle 06:35, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

DVD Release? Are you sure?

The main Electric Dreams article suggests that the movie has been released on DVD. I'm not sure this is true. I've had a bit of a search and though there are references to it, these appear to be pre-empting a release that hasn't yet been confirmed. Does anyone have any further information to back this up (or disprove it)? I know there are lot of people trying to find a DVD release of Electric Dreams.

— Algofoogle 06:44, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, pre-order only. Madmaxmarchhare 20:23, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

There are a few homemade DVD copies floating around the internet but it has not officially been released on DVD yet .

— NesSimepolys1234 11:41, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

there was also a video release, so that is probably where the references came from. There is now a dvd that has been released. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.111.18.206 (talk) 10:08, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Trivia Section

I put the trivia section back in because the information was not truly "integrated" into the plot section of the article. It's ok not to have a "trivia" section, but a lot of this stuff doesn't really go in the "plot" section, either. Maybe it's a good idea to have a section that's called something else that discusses the impact of the movie (somehow) that integrates the trivia section. Madmaxmarchhare 17:02, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposed Remake

Why doesn't the article mention anything about Virginia Madsen's recently created production company, in which one of the projects in development is a remake of this film? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.24.219.84 (talk) 14:54, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Trivia edit

I've removed two technologies listed in the trivia section about the computer possessing technologies that weren't in use in PCs of that time (sound cards and microphones). Among others in the early 1980's, the Apple Macintosh and Atari ST series supported both technologies. I added one technology that wasn't listed -3-D rendering, as that's what Miles is essentially doing with his brick. 97.82.247.200 01:31, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Um... OK... as an old ST user... let's see. It doesn't support microphones natively, and doesn't really have what you'd call a good quality "sound card"* - there's a reason that the signature sound of ST music is cleverly arranged squarewave chiptunes. If you want anything better than that, or scratchy CPU-hogging (a Pacman clone was the best game I saw using a sampled soundtrack) 4-channel soundtracker efforts, you have to plug in an expensive sampler dongle** to the ROM cartridge port - which you could also have done with a great many contemporary and predecessor machines, even the Commodore and Sinclair models. What it WAS good at, along with the much more expensive Mac, was MIDI sequencing and control, apparently still having more stable timings than some PC solutions... look for it in some late 80s/early 90s music videos and live performances.

And similarly, they also managed rudimentary 3D rendering - the ST itself was fairly good at it (even to the extent of later apps/games showing some very basic polygon texturing and shading) and I lost many hours to both 3D first- and third-person games, and 3D renderers/art packages. The Mac, I can't really speak for, but it's core technology was quite similar to the Atari, at least once they caught onto the idea of using a colour display. The one thing I know is that its soundsystem was PCM-based from the start... but it WAS a rather expensive machine (as was the IBM) compared to what the average home user, such as the movie's protagonist, would have used***. Incidentally, what I came in here to find was what kind of machine it was supposed to be/was based on, having seen the music video earlier this evening and got curious. Looks like a low profile Apple IIe or the like, maybe a two-box MSX? Very early Amiga? Erm?

.*(actually a cheap 3+1 channel synth chip that's beaten even by the C64 and can just about manage to cobble together 4-bit 20khz sample with a lot of CPU assistance)

.**(which were 8- or 12-bit, stereo if you were lucky, and usually included playback capability to the same quality - mastering your musical efforts on the computer wasn't feasible with typically 1mb RAM onboard, and hard drives being expensive rarities (a budget 20mb model was £300 in '91, and offered as a magazine competition prize; 160mb took you into four figures), it was for basic waveform editing and sequencing purposes, to either upload to a "real" sampler (that the ST would then control by MIDI) or use in a studio, recording one instrument at a time per computer onto tape)

.***(C64, lower-end Apple, Sinclair/Timex, BBC, Atari 400/800... ST and Amiga once they got a foothold... I was one of the first people I knew with an actual Windows-based machine when my family upgraded to one in 1994, and the leap in capability from, say, a later model Amiga wouldn't have been much for the great increase in price - the platform choice was mainly for compatibility with school machines and encyclopaedia CDROMs)

77.102.101.220 (talk) 00:54, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Electric-dreams.gif

Image:Electric-dreams.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 21:19, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Pinecone

Surely "Pinecone Computers" is closer to "Acorn Computers" which was a current company at the time, rather than "Apple"? ---=vyruss=- (talk) 11:50, 26 March 2021 (UTC)