You've seen the commercials, the advertisements, the premiers, and all of the above.
But have you seen the movie?
Mission: Impossible
By Bobby Kolling
Some of you may be shocked to see what you thought was an Apple symbol. In Mission: Impossible, the workers don't directly say it's an Apple, they don't call it a Powerbook, a Macintosh, and all of that jazz. The closest they come to saying
it's by Apple computer is the mentioning of the RISC chips. I saw more of the Apple logo in the Mission: Impossible commercial that Apple produced. Wow.
After seeing the Web Cast <http://live.apple.com> I thought this was going to be die hard Apple. I could go see it with a Windows friend and say-hey, that's a
Macintosh. If a Wintel machine is so great, how come they aren't using it? The Apple logo pops up about 5 times in the two + hour movie, which was a great
action flick, even though I didn't see why they called it Mission: Impossible, it's nothing like the original (I've seen the reruns). I came out of this theater happy that I just saw an awesome action/adventure movie with a plot, but disappointed that they couldn't even show the MacOS Finder. They made their own Operating System.
When Tom surfs the web, he used Netscape. But it wasn't the Netscape I use now. This version was strange, twisted, and even had blinking text when you tried to search. When does this appear? I've never seen that before!
Now, onto the movie. Just a reminder, if you haven't seen it, than do. But a suggestion: don't blink. You might lose track of the plot. I had to read the book and see the movie twice before I finally was sure I had the plot right. The masks are the best, and people actually use their minds instead of whacking the living pa toot out of each other. There is a pretty good fight scene at the end though. The end of the movie keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time. Definitely cool.
Independence Day
By Bobby Kolling
In Independence Day, it's up to a cable guy to save the world. Thank god this one isn't played by Jim Carrey. After this movie, I was a proud mac user. The MacOS was shown in all it's glory. No plot, but hey, who needs a plot. Not a bad movie, needs a little more suspense. The special effects are definitely the best I've seen in along time. I recommend it, but then again most of you have probably seen it already. The ID4 web page, located at <http://www.ID4.com> is a great display too, with Netscape and the Shockwave plug-in installed, it's the best. Almost as good as the movie.
The best thing about the Macintosh involvement in Independence Day is when Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith finish the movie off with a PowerBook. That's right, the world is saved by a Apple Macintosh PowerBook 5300. This was the best, plus it must have been running Aaron, or have actually have a beta version of Copland running, because it certainly looked like it.
The Last Word
In closing, I think Apple's involvement in these blockbuster movies is the best move they made in along time. I'm looking forward to actually being surprised by seeing more Apple models being used in all sorts of movies. Keep up the good work Apple!
Mission: Yeah, right.
by Deanna S. Feliciano
Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to view and review Mission Impossible: The Movie. Those were my orders. Now, I used to watch the original, first-run episodes of Mission Impossible on TV. It was a great show. They had one (1) plot line, great tricks (remember the masks and voice change machines?). It was a fun show that didn’t take itself too seriously.
Mission Impossible: The Movie is like the TV show in name only. There are so many plot lines that viewers need a scorecard! Don’t blink or sneeze ~ doing so will leave you hopelessly lost for the rest of the movie. The tricks and special effects were tacky (think of the ‘prototype 686 with AI RISC chip’ ~ clearly a Power Book). Tom Cruise has not yet returned t o the artistic strength he showed in Born on the 4th of July. What happened to his acting range? Did he lose it in Cocktail?
If you want the best part of Mission Impossible, get the soundtrack. Then, if you want to see some tongue-in-cheek intrigue, rent the original TV show episodes. This movie was a dismal disappointment to me ~ I wanted my $7.00 back. It was so bad, even the popcorn seemed tasteless.
