“Strange Days” and Ultimate Escapism
What Kathryn Bigelow’s 1995 pulpy techno-thriller says about the possible perils of virtual reality
Say what you will about Strange Days. It’s got too many subplots, some clichéd characters and it’s so damn 90’s (for better or worse). Personally, I’m a sucker for nineties noir, so Strange Days is right up my alley. The visuals are captivating, the point-of-view camerawork is impressive for its time, and the movie has some great action scenes.
But it’s also a pessimistic view of the 21st century, especially when it comes to technology.
Granted, Strange Days is far from the first movie revolving around being “plugged-in”, or even virtual reality. But watching it today, with VR being so hyped, it’s thrilling to see how a 22 year-old movie envisioned VR.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the plot, I’ll leave it to the site The Ghost Diaries. They wrote about movie dystopias that will actually happen and described the movie like this:
“Strange Days depicts Los Angeles in the year 1999, when a technology known as SQUID (super-conducting quantum interference device), has made it possible to literally inhabit someone else’s experiences. The film’s protagonist, Lenny (Ralph Fiennes), is a dealer of SQUID products, whose clientele ranges from wealthy businessmen to down and out info-junkies, addicted to other people’s experiences, or perhaps simply the feeling of being outside one’s self. He’s a user himself and no longer cares to make the distinction between real experience and mediated ‘playback’. This shit’s gonna happen soon.”
Of course, we’re not there yet. But…
Looking at the rapid technological advancements being made today, with everything from artificial intelligence to neural implants (Elon Musk’s Neuralink is just one example), SQUID might not be that far-fetched.
Maybe virtual reality — like in the movie — won’t culminate in violent snuff-experiences being dealt on the black market. But what if the nefarious side of the porn industry (which has a lot to win with VR) takes things too far?
In the above article, John McCoy, CEO of Intimuse, says:
“However, it’s easy to see how people will become bored with the current landscape of experiences and thirst for something more realistic, so the market is catching up to us, and I see the two spaces converging.”
The consumer wants more, and the advanced technology is able to satisfy that demand. We grow bored with the current state of entertainment and with the aid of technology we’re able to consume something that seems even more real. Perhaps too real.
In Strange Days, Lenny is a SQUID-user himself. But the “tapes” that he return to are not other people’s experiences. They are his past experiences of his ex-girlfriend. Sunny, sexy memories that he keeps reliving while slumped down in his crummy apartment.
Like Lenny, many of us search for escapism. But when that escapism becomes so tangible that it’s hard to separate from real life, we have a problem.
Virtual reality will seem even less virtual as the technology gets more advanced. What begins as stimulating the audiovisual senses might soon connect to our sensory and neural functions.
If developers and engineers can push the envelope, they will. Especially if there is a market for it. And while it may not result in the voyeuristic snuff-flicks that make up the procedural premise of Strange Days, the ultimate escapism that Lenny peddles might not be that far away.
