Nitpicking the shell history scene in 'Tron: Legacy'

(greenend.org.uk)

75 points | by speckx 2 hours ago

10 comments

  • jgrahamc 2 hours ago
    Wonderful!

    At the bottom he notes: "I’m sitting in the UK as I write this. Under UK law, I believe this should constitute fair dealing: the purpose is quotation for criticism and review, and this single screen capture is in no way an alternative to paying to see the original film. The film comes from the USA, and under USA law I think it similarly constitutes fair use: it’s for non-profit educational purposes, the amount of the full work used is extremely small, and the effect on the value of the full work negligible."

    I took down my entire "Behind The Screens" YouTube channel and transferred it to my own site: https://behind-the-screens.tv because of copyright notices from YouTube that were heavily skewed towards the studios and I didn't have the energy to fight what was clearly fair use in my videos.

    • xrd 19 minutes ago
      You really need to put this on an RSS feed! I wish there was a way you could get paid for views for this stuff. I will be sending people this link when they ask "why are you so mad about that terminal scene in that movie?!?!"
    • doublerabbit 56 minutes ago
      Thanks for that. A very entertaining watch.
  • AkBKukU 1 hour ago
    > Killing some processes to free up memory

    This section is disregarding a key lore element, the inhabitants of the grid are programs. Killing a process in this context more likely has an interpretation of an attempt to stop an individual such as the villain Clu. I would say an alternative explanation is is more story based, with Kevin Flynn trying to stop Clu from the outside world but being unable to and instead taking the last resort of entering the grid when he knows it would be dangerous.

  • s_dev 57 minutes ago
    As an aside the Daft Punk soundtrack that accompanies this film is an absolute masterpiece. I think it's their best work.

    It's such a shame the film doesn't live up to it's own soundtrack.

    • masfuerte 2 minutes ago
      The film looks great too. It was such a missed opportunity.
  • scottlamb 1 hour ago

        $ login -n root
        Login incorrect
        login: backdoor
        No home directory specified in password file!
        Logging in with home=/
        #
    
    I think this is supposed to be something like CVE-1999-0113 (or its very recently discovered/disclosed friend CVE-2026-24061). It's the sort of thing you might just know off the top of your head that would be handy for getting into a computer that hasn't been updated in 20 years.
  • agloe_dreams 40 minutes ago
    The funny thing about all of this to me is that, compared to most 'hacking' scenes in movies, this bit is wildly realistic, almost too good. If they were like "run upload_me" we wouldn't even be talking about it.
  • quelsolaar 29 minutes ago
    I was luck to know Josh Nimoy who is responsible for a lot of this in the movie, who has since sadly passed away. Josh took great pride in the fact that he was able to put Emacs and a bunch of Unix commands in a major Hollywood blockbuster.ed
    • kridsdale1 11 minutes ago
      FYI, (and sorry for the intrusion since you were a friend and I only learned of this person through this HN post) but it appears that you have used their deadname (which is an unfortunate term in this case).

      Thank you for identifying them though, thanks to you I learned of a badass, and I regret the loss.

      Personal site: https://jtnimoy.cc/about.php.html

  • mewse-hn 32 minutes ago
    Why is this guy so obsessed with the variable vs fixed-width font, you'd think he's the guy who wrote putty or something
  • ianmcgowan 31 minutes ago
    Now I'm watching this thread for the consultant hired by the film to show up and explain why each of those goofs was caused by the director explicitly asking for them...
  • ck2 22 minutes ago
    this makes me remember Trinity doing the power plant escalation hack in the 2nd Matrix movie

    the code apparently was legit, I think it was an SSH exploit

    (btw that movie is TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS OLD)

  • stephenlf 1 hour ago
    Very fun analysis!