From: kitsch@milton.u.washington.edu (Ted Fitch)
Subject: Re: CULTURE: More Lawnmower Man (Was Re: SOC: The Best Virtual
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1992 16:34:35 GMT
Message-ID: <1992Mar3.163435.12705@u.washington.edu>
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle



In article <1992Feb29.085746.9419@sol.cs.wmich.edu> amundson@sol.cs.wmich.edu (Tugrik d'Itichi) writes:

>On 'LawnMower man':  Yes, it was written by Stephan King; it is a short
>story of his, if I am correct.  Yes, it's a horror story. 
>
>I don't know about the exact plot treatment here, but a good example of
>what to expect is this:  a scene, of a man strapped and bound into a
>chair, and into a full VR suit, 'stuck' in the VR as you will... and 
>inside the VR, a gross representation of a man screaming at him, 
>"I am GOD HERE".
>
>From what I know, it uses existing real VR equipment as far as the eyephones,
>datagloves, bodysuits, etc.  The rendering is all pre-done high power stuff,
>though: much improved from what we can actually do nowadays in realtime.

Alright, does anyone really know if the LAWNMOWER MAN was written
by Stephen King.  I haven't read much King so maybe I should keep
my mouth shut, but I remember a post to this newsgroup about a month
ago from someone in LA who saw a sneak-preview for it and said that
the movie was "loosely" based on Stephen King short story.

Anyway, we'll probably find out Friday when the movie is released to
the genearl public.  It would not surprise me, however, to know that
the movie is based on some IDEAS from Stephen King and that the movie
marketers are simply misleading the public when they claim in the 
preview "A Movie from Stephen King" as if he wrote the script, directed
the actors, etc.

My twocents for whatever they are worth.

Ted Fitch

[note to BOB:  Here we go on the topic you were so concerned would take
up millions of bytes on the net and the movie hasn't even been released!
I think that as long as everyone puts the subject "LAWNMOWER MAN" in the
subject field, those who do not want to read the discourse can simply
kill those files.  The discourse is going to go on for quite some time
I imagine! -- Thanks]


[MODERATOR'S NOTE:  In an earlier post, John Eagan of the CompuServe
VR conference gave a good rundown on the history of LAWNMOWER MAN.
My feeling is, the world outside spends as much time ruminating on 
what we can't do as what we can -- maybe more -- and should we emulate
it?  On the other hand, we don't work in a vacuum. -- Bob Jacobson]