When the possibilities of PCs and the worldwide web were yet a huge mystery, a flick like this was considered wickedly cool ... but next to idiotic now that people carry computers in their pockets and spend most of the day online. You will just have to keep in mind that it was released at a time before it was considered a necessity to have an e-mail address.
Image nabbed from Wikipedia.
Johnny Lee Miller * Angelina Jolie
In this cult classic, hackers were romanticized and "coollified", even collectively portrayed as a powerful, threatening worldwide force sporting aggro cyberpunk fashion. It made us believe they weren't socially challenged losers who spent their days as nuisances in cyberspace because they couldn't get a real life.
The story is about a bunch of attractive computer geeks with impossible hacking skills despite their dial-up internet access. They get themselves in a big mess, try get out of it, and run around in their spaceman jackets. Given their initial dislike for each other and their awkward usernames, Dade "Crash Override" Murphy and Kate "Acid Burn" Libby predictably fall in love in the end.
The falling in love part wasn't just on screen - the two lead stars got hitched shortly after filming. The British actor Johnny Lee Miller became the first and now-forgotten Mr. Angelina Jolie. They were in this sexy-weird goth phase, and wore vials of each other's blood instead of wedding rings.
Image from here.
So yeah, before she became Lara Croft and became all famous and shiz, Angelina was Mrs. Crash Override.
The other hackers were Matthew Lillard (Shaggy from the Scooby Doo movies), Laurence Mason, Renoly Santiago and a young Jesse Bradford.
Angelina wasn't yet a big star then, but I thought she was sexy. I mean, I got a girl-crush on her and wished I could be even as half as rad. It must have been because of that sparkly, tinfoil-esque jacket.
Image from here.
She was so nonconformist-cool as Acid Burn, I didn't even realize she looked like Spock's half-sister.
And here comes my confession. I tried wearing metallic ash-blue make up and hematite-hued nail polish like hers after seeing Hackers. I even scoured Silverworks trying to find something like that hinged ring she wore.
I thought about rocking in cyberpunk fashion even if I was a techno-peasant who didn't know the least bit about computers. Come on, I was 17 and already weird anyway; I had a license to attempt some sort of poseristic self-expression. I had to abandon that fixation though, upon realizing how a synthetics-based ensemble would cling and crumble in Manila weather. Ugh, the horror of getting all sticky.
.
