Forty years ago a prescient made in Oregon film tried to warn the world about the looming dangers of AI and the coming battle between robots and the human race. Unfortunately, the film was marketed as a quirky childish fable. Though initially pitched as “Terminator for kids,” studio executives would instead market the film with the catchphrase “Number Five is Alive.” While it would go on to earn over $40 million against a reported $15 million dollar budget, its warnings went largely unheeded by the world at large.
Until now.
Filmed largely in Astoria, 1986’s Short Circuit starred popular eighties icons Ally Sheedy and Steve Guttenberg, and followed the film’s main protagonist, a military robot known as Number 5 – one of a series of military robots developed by a shadowy, Washington-state based company referred throughout the movie as Nova. After being struck by lightning, Number 5 becomes self-aware, escapes quarantine and flees to Astoria, where he proceeds to wreak havoc. Befriending a local animal hoarder named Stephanie Speck (Sheedy), he convinces her to protect him from the military while absorbing the information required for eventual global conquest.
Foreshadowing Calamity ~ a violent ex gets justice
In an excellent bit of foreshadowing on how AI today benefits humanity while simultaneously infiltrating every aspect of our lives, Number 5 helps Sheedy’s character to escape the clutches of her abuser – a spurned lover with a penchant for shotguns, animal testing and domestic battery – by disassembling his car.
The abuser – though hardly a sympathetic character – is not seen again, leaving details of his eventual assimilation into the Nova collective up to audience imagination.
Among Short Circuit’s other human protagonists is Newton Crosby (Steve Guttenberg at his most Guttenberg-esque), lead scientist at Nova and Number 5’s creator. Crosby’s disdain for human interaction is explored early in the film’s first act, and while his ongoing ketamine use isn’t made explicit, it isn’t hard to draw parallels between Guttenberg’s mad inventor persona and that of many of the figures currently shoving AI into every orifice of human interaction possible regardless of the outcome to humanity.
In a scene at once chilling and prescient, the camera pans out of the hillside home of Sheedy’s protagonist (a house which has since become an Astoria landmark – look up Stephanie’s House on Google Maps next time you’re in Astoria) following a night in which Number 5 greedily absorbs “input”, first by speed-reading every encyclopedia in the house and then by engaging in an all-night TV watching session. Though clearly dawn, the sun can be seen rising in the west over the Pacific.
Perhaps initially seen as lazy editing on the filmmaker’s part, with the benefit of hindsight it isn’t hard to take this as a warning that, like Terminator’s Skynet, the intention of the machines being created by Short Circuit’s Nova is nothing less than bringing about total global destruction by reversing the direction of the Earth’s rotation.
Another Short Circuit protagonist worth filing under the heading This Aged Great is South Asian tech-bro Ben Jabituya, played by Fisher Stevens complete with brownface and an exaggerated accent. Though played for comedy relief during the otherwise dark ride that is Short Circuit, his are among the more memorable lines of the movie, including:
“Well, the cat has dragged in a sight for sore eyes, that is for sure.”
And
“I am sporting a tremendous woody right now!”
Pendleton Connection
Though filmed mostly in and around Astoria (except for a few notable scenes, including one in which Crosby and Jabituya are seen discussing the ramifications of Number 5’s emerging sentience in front of the Vista House overlooking the Columbia River Gorge), another of Short Circuit’s main protagonists is Nova Robotics executive Howard Marner, played by character actor Austin Pendleton. Pendleton is also known for playing Doc Hopper’s assistant Max in 1979’s The Muppet Movie.
Some film students believe that Short Circuit and The Muppet Movie exist in the same cinematic universe, and that Pendleton’s character in Short Circuit is actually Max from The Muppet Movie seeking to make amends for his pursuit of the Muppets. (This theory is obviously insane.)
Random Observations
- The scene in which Sheed’s catering truck outruns a fleet of military vehicles is a clear criticism by filmmakers against inefficient military overspending, a hallmark of the Reagan administration.
- While retaining Fisher (still in brownface) Short Circuit’s 1988 sequel features neither Sheedy nor Guttenberg. While most believe that this is due to both actors having become too expensive for the sequel, their absence suggests a darker implication: Following the conclusion of Short Circuit (which shows Sheedy, Guttenberg and Number 5 driving east to Montana), Number 5 extracted all possible value from his human savior / servants and, following robotic logic, covered his tracks by eliminating them. (That Number 5 adopts the alias Johnny 5 in the sequel lends credence to this grim theory.)
- Outside of the overall cost of living – a single woman whose sole source of income is catering could never afford a multi-story house with a view of the Columbia River Estuary in 2026 – Astoria hasn’t changed much since 1986.
Click here to check out pix from last week’s 40th anniversary celebration of the film Short Circuit. (Ally & Steve are looking great.)
Next Up: The Goonies: A Retelling of Lord of The Flies on the Oregon Coast
