The Hackers Phonebooth
Posted by Skrud at Friday, December 29th 2006 at 7:03pm
When I was in NYC, Josh and I were really intent on finding a particular phone booth depicted in a classic cinematic masterpiece; Hackers. In more than one scene, the heroes are standing around a phone booth in New York’s Chinatown, using their laptops to wreak havoc and mischief directed at FBI Agent Richard Gill (aka “Hacker enemy number 1”).
The phone booth in the movie should stand out, since there was a Chinese pagoda sitting atop it, making for a pretty distinct-looking phone booth. So Lunchy & James, our native New-Yorker buddies, guided us around Chinatown looking for a phone booth that had a pagoda on top of it.
We couldn’t find any.
Upon closer inspection of the movie, I think I can figure out why:
In these screenshots, it’s pretty clear that the pagoda isn’t a permanent fixture on the phone booth at all. Instead it seems to be a little wooden prop that the filmmakers placed on the phone to make it look more … Chinatown-y.
In the second screenshot you can see a better view of the street. I’m pretty sure we were at the very intersection, at that very payphone, walking down that very street – only we didn’t notice the payphone’s significance due to lack of pagoda. I’m pretty sure that’s the street we walked on to get to this little restaurant that was supposed to have awesome soups, only to have it close exactly as we approached the front door.
Aw! I was expecting, based on the direction of how you wrote this post, to see you and some friends smiling in front of the phone booth. That’d be totally worth it. Hell, I’m impressed that you even tried.
That’s quite a worthy adventure. I wouldn’t even attempt it, thinking that the area, on top of being Chinatownified, would have changed dramatically over 10+ years. But my idea of an adventure is “let’s walk down Sherbrooke and eat at a restaurant we’ve never been to before!”
As a New Yorker, I can tell you that since that film was made, most of the phonebooths in NYC have been removed and replaced, so if there ever was a pagoda on past ones, they probably would have been removed. NYC went from phone booths to phone banks (ie, a row of phones, sepearated like urinals), because phone booths are extremely easy to mug someone out of.
depending on how much you know about this movie, this is my question… i am looking for a list of the computers and lappys that were used, specifically the clear one that was shipped to Dade what the heck is that thing? is it a mac? is there any way that some one out there would possibly know the model?
if you know what that thing is or could point me in a better direction, that would be awesome!
thanks
depending on how much you know about this movie, this is my question… i am looking for a list of the computers and lappys that were used, specifically the clear one that was shipped to Dade what the heck is that thing? is it a mac? is there any way that some one out there would possibly know the model?
if you know what that thing is or could point me in a better direction, that would be awesome!
thanks