Virtuosity: Difference between revisions

Virtuosity
Virtuosity
	The movie poster for Virtuosity.
Directed by	Brett Leonard
Written by	Eric Bernt
Produced by	Gary Lucchesi
Starring	Denzel Washington ; Russell Crowe
Music by	Peter Gabriel
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	August 4 1995
Running time	106 min.
Language	English
Budget	$30,000,000 (estimated)

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for a person who is virtuous see virtue

Virtuosity is a 1995 science fiction movie directed by Brett Leonard. The movie tells the story of a virtual villain's successful attempt to escape into the "real world". SID 6.7, the villain program portrayed by Russell Crowe, is eventually transplanted into an android body and escapes. Parker Barnes, a reinstated police officer played by Denzel Washington, is given the chance to catch him.

Plot

Template:Spoiler Tagline: Justice needs a new program

Programmer Dr. Darrel Lindenmeyer of the Law Enforcement Technology Advancement Centre (LETAC) developed SID version 6.7: a Sadistic, Intelligent, and Dangerous virtual reality entity amalgamation of 183 notorious criminal personalities: mass murderers, serial killers, and megalomaniacs. Programmed using genetic algorithms, each of the 183 killers in SID holds the memories, personality/behavioral traits, and emotional composition as the original. Being far too complex to design, Lindenmeyer had SID's program begin with him as a child (sped up in virtual reality), having the killers in his subconscious raise him and guide him in the ways of the world. The killers emerge through the 50 terabyte, self-evolving neural network that is SID through a sort of Multiple Personality Disorder, giving way to the stronger personalities depending on each situation.

LETAC would like to train police officers by putting them in full-sensory simulation VR with SID, the idea being that if the cops in the virtual reality simulator could catch him they could catch anyone. First they must prove the concept works - in which they decide to do using prisoners as test subjects. While two of the prisoners were inside virtual reality, SID, having the accumulated knowledge of 183 madmen, had figured out how to raise the neural sensitivity calibrations in the VR program, causing the pain being received to be more lethal than real-life. SID killed one of the two prisoner-turned-temporary-police officers by torture through electrocution - a technique not available as one of his programmed methods of killing. The aftermath left the prisoner/contestant dead of severe, concentrated seizures to the major pain receptors of the brain. The other participant, who was taken out of VR before SID finished him off, was left temporarily traumatized.

Witnessing the catastrophe, Commissioner Elizabeth Deane, the director overseeing the SID project, ordered to have it shut down. Later, Lindenmeyer gravely told his 'masterpiece' his fate. SID, in turn, told Lindenmeyer an alternative: Tricking Clyde Reilly, a befriended coworker at LETAC, into turning SID's persona into a regenerating android (better known as a 'nanotech synthetic organism'), by making him think he was actually downloading the persona and form of a sexy virtual prostitute. Less than 30 seconds after the ultimate madman was released into our world, Reilly became SID's first victim. Now in the real world, he is free of all behavioral limits he had in virtual reality, gaining the ability to now grow on his own - rewriting and improving his own programming.

Character Bios

Commissioner Elizabeth Deane

Police Commissioner Elizabeth Deane (played by Louise Fletcher) is a presidentially-appoited "Crime Czar" whose job it is to develop new systems for controlling the ever-burgeoning problem of urban crime. After witnessing the death of inmate, John Donovan, during the first test run in virtual reality against SID 6.7, she ordered program director, William Wallace, to have it shut down.

Madison Carter

Madison Carter (played by Kelly Lynch) is a doctor of criminal psychology, writer of criminal psychology non-fiction, and occasionally acts as a consultant for LETAC. She currently has two books published, and is involved in the SID Project as research for her third book. Single mother of Karen Carter.

Lt. Parker Barnes

Police Lieutenant Parker Barnes (played by Denzel Washington) was a decorated police officer who was put on the task of apprehending political terrorist, Matthew Grimes. Known for a single-minded determination that bordered on the obsessive, Grimes hoped to convince Barnes to halt his pursuit in exchange for the lives of Barnes' wife, Linda, and child, Christy. Barnes answered by storming Grimes' underground base of operations, killing all who posed a threat. During this assault, Grimes was having an interview by a television crew. When Barnes came to the cell where his family was held, he hastily opened the door, setting off the trigger to the explosives, killing his family and destroying his left arm. Recovering, Barnes continued through the maze of tunnels until he reached Grimes, killing him with multiple shots to the torso. When the cameraman and reporter jumped around the corner to record the action, Barnes mistook the crew for lackeys of Grimes, shooting them by instinct. For not following protocol and the wrongful deaths of two civilians, Barnes was incarcerated for seventeen years. His arm was replaced by a metallic artificial limb, covered by an artificial skin graft with pseudo-nerve endings that matched his skin tone. Nerve reconditioning was done, returning the loss of feeling to nerve cells destroyed in the blast, and also giving him feeling in his replaced arm, though leaving his back badly scarred.

SID 6.7

SID 6.7 (played by Russell Crowe) is an entity created by Dr. Darryl Lindenmeyer of LETAC (Law Enforcement Technology Advancement Center) as an antagonist for police officers in virtual reality simulations. He is composed of 183 personalities, consisting of serial killers, terrorists, and tyrants. While SID has his own personality and behavior, he also gains the personality, behavior, and other traits of these 183 personalities which emerge through SID in the same fashion as a person afflicted with Multiple Personality Disorder. He was programmed using genetic algorithms, enabling SID to improve his own programming in the sense to heighten reaction time, sort out glitches, and to make logical decisions.

Later, utilizing nanotech program designs by Clyde Reily at LETAC, SID was given an android body (referred to as a "nanotech synthetic organism"), allowing him to function outside the confines of virtual reality. As the nanotech synthetic organisms are still in the prototype stages, each android is given an experiment number. SID was experiment no. 1013. It takes 12 hours to incubate a nanotech synthetic organism. The nano cells are programmed to absorb silicon, specifically the kind used in the manufacture of glass, using it as both an energy source and a way to regenerate damage. In an ironic twist of fate, SID's body was killed by falling through a multi-tiered glass ceiling. The character module, the housing unit for SID's "mind", was taken from the body by Parker Barnes and thrown from the skyscraper into the streets below.

In the novelization by Terry Bisson, published by Pocket Books, the ending doesn't have Parker Barnes throw SID's module into the streets from the Gas Company Tower, but instead - at that moment - he has a better idea. Beginning the next chapter, you read of a group of boys playing an arcade game similar to Wild Gunman against a weary SID, where a behavior-constrained SID loses again, and again, and again to a bunch of young boys. It is unknown whether this ending was purely creative freedom from the author or was a previous revision of the script that Bisson had used at the time of creating the novel.

Many fans believe there lies a backup to SID at Lindemeyer's apartment, due to Madison Carter and Parker Barnes gathering much of their research on SID from Lindenmeyer's computer.

Personality Listing

Below is an alphabetical listing of the 183 killers who comprise SID 6.7's personality list.

- Al Qadhafi, Moammar
- Amin, Idi
- Attila the Hun
- Ball, Joe
- Basil II ("The Bulgar Slayer")
- Bathory, Erzsebet
- Baughe, William
- Behram
- Bianchi, Kenneth ("Hillside Strangler")
- Bonin, William
- Bonney, William H. ("Billy the Kid")
- Boost, Werner
- Borden, Lizzie
- Brady, Ian
- Buffs, Vernon
- Bundy, Ted
- Buono, Angelo Jr. ("Hillside Strangler")
- Burke, David
- Berkowitz, David ("Son of Sam")
- Calden, Paul
- Capone, Al
- Carignan, Harvey
- Castro, Fidel
- Catoe, Jarvis
- Ceauşescu, Nicolae
- Chase, Richard Trenton
- Chikatilo, Andrei
- Collins, Norman John
- Corll, Dean Allen
- Constanzo, Adolfo de Jesus
- Cooke, Eric Edgar
- Cotton, Mary Ann
- Cowan, Frederick
- Bryan, William
- Czolgosz, Leon F.
- Dahmer, Jeffrey
- Delgado, Campo Elias
- Dr. De Kaplany, Geza
- De Medici, Catherine
- De Rais, Gilles
- De Sade, Marquis
- De Salvo, Albert ("Boston Strangler")
- Diaz, Robert R.
- Dillinger, John
- Dodd, Westley Allen
- Drake, Lynwood C.
- Dracula, Vlad ("Vlad the Impaler")
- Drenth, Herman
- Duffy, John
- Duvalier, François ("Papa Doc")
- Dzhurmongaliev, Nikolai
- Eichmann, Adolf
- Dr. Engleman, Glennon
- Essex, Mark
- Eyler, Larry
- Farley, Richard
- Fish, Albert
- Fromme, Lynette
- Gacy, John Wayne
- Gary, Carlton
- Gary, Lester Harrison
- Gaskins, Donald
- Gates, Anne
- Gein, Ed
- Gencht, John
- Genovese, Vito
- Giancana, Sam
- Gillis, Lester Joseph ("Baby Face Nelson")
- Glatman, Harvey
- Glover, John Wayne
- Goldstein, Baruch
- Gosman, Klaus
- Gotti, John
- Grant, Waldo
- Greenwood, Vaughn
- Grimes, Matthew
- Grossman, Georg Karl
- Gunnes, Bell
- Haarmann, Fritz
- Haigh, John George
- Harris, Joseph
- Harvey, Donald
- Hauptman, Bruno
- Heidnik, Micheal
- Heidnik, Gary
- Heirens, William George
- Henderson, Clem
- Hendricks, David
- Hennard, George Jo
- Hess, Rudolf
- Hickson, Monroe
- Hindley, Myra
- Himmler, Heinrich
- Hinckley, John
- Hitler, Adolf
- Hirohito
- Horton, Wayne Donald
- Huberty, James Oliver
- Hussein, Saddam
- Ivan IV of Russia ("Ivan the Terrible")
- James, Jesse
- Jones, Jim
- Judd, Winnie Ruth
- Dr. Kevorkian, Jack
- Kemper, Ed ("Co-Ed Killer")
- Khan, Genghis
- King John
- Knight, Julian
- Knowlton, George Frederick ("Black Dahlia")
- Koch, Ilse
- Koresh, David
- Kraft, Randy
- Kroll, Joachin
- Kurten, Peter
- Landru, Henri Desire ("Bluebeard")
- Lenin, Vladimir Ilich
- Leonski, Edward
- Mark Lepine
- Lepke, Louis
- Dr. Lindenmeyer, Darrel (Computer Science Doctorate)
- Long, Bobby Joe
- Lopez, Pedro
- Lucas, Henry Lee
- Luciano, Charles ("Lucky Luciano")
- Ludke, Bruno
- Machiavelli, Niccolo
- Manson, Charles
- Mao Zedong
- Maranzano, Salvatore
- Mary I of England ("Bloody Mary]]")
- McDonald, William ("The Mutilator")
- McDuff, Kenneth
- Mengele, Josef ("Angel of Death")
- Mudgett, Herman Webster
- Mullin, Herbert
- Mussolini, Benito
- Neilson, Donald
- Nelson, Earle Leonard
- Nero
- Nidal, Abu
- Nilsen, Dennis
- Lee Harvey Oswald
- Panzram, Carl
- Paulin, Thierry
- Perón, Juan
- Dr. Petiot, Marcel
- Pinochet, Augusto
- Pizarro, Francisco
- Father Porter, James
- Pot, Pol
- Provencher, Gary
- Richard Ramirez ("Nightstalker")
- Rasputin
- Rifkin, Joel
- Rivera, Miguel
- Ryan, Michael
- Sánchez, Ilich Ramírez ("Carlos the Jackal")
- Selby, Norman
- Setz, Jerome Ralph
- Shawcross, Arthur
- Sherrill, Patrick Henry
- Simmons, Ronald Gene
- Sirhan Sirhan
- Speck, Richard
- Stafford, Roger Dale
- Stalin, Joseph
- Stano, Gerald Eugene
- Suff, William ("The Riverside Killer")
- Sutcliffe, Peter
- Tamerlane
- Teach, Edward ("Blackbeard the Pirate")
- Tieri, Frank
- Tojo, Hideki
- Torquemada, Tomás de
- Unruh, Howard
- Walls, Coral Eugene
- Weiss, Carl
- Whitman, Charles
- Williams, Wayne
- Woo Bum Kong
- Randall Woodfield ("The I-5 Killer")
- Wuornos, Aileen
- Zulu, Shaka

Chief William Cochran

Police Chief William Cochran served as a friend and former partner of Lt. Parker Barnes while he served on the Los Angeles Police Force. Though Barnes went against proper police protocol in his apprehension of Matthew Grimes, Cochran sympathized with him due to Grimes killing Barnes' wife and child. While Barnes was incarcerated Cochran visited him, bought him chalk and other supplies, and did what he could to get him out of prison sooner, such as getting him on the list to test the prototype, SID 6.7, in virtual reality. Template:Endspoiler

Cast

Cast (in credits order) verified as complete

Denzel Washington - Lt. Parker Barnes
Kelly Lynch - Dr. Madison Carter
Russell Crowe - SID 6.7
Stephen Spinella - Dr. Darrel Lindenmeyer
William Forsythe - William Cochran
Louise Fletcher - Commissioner Elizabeth Deane
William Fichtner - William Wallace
Costas Mandylor - John Donovan
Kevin J. O'Connor - Clyde Reilly
Kaley Cuoco - Karin
Christopher Murray - Matthew Grimes
Johnny Kim - Lab Tech
Heidi Schanz - Sheila 3.2
Traci Lords - Media Zone singer
Gordon Jennison Noice - Big Red
Mari Morrow - Linda Barnes
Miracle Vincent - Christine Barnes
Mara Duronslet - Beautiful woman at Olympic Stadium
Michael Buffer - Emcee
Karen Annarino - 'IS' TV reporter
Miguel Nájera - Rafael Debaca
Danny Goldring - John Symes
Randall Fontana - Ed
Allen Scotti - Surgeon
Dwayne Chattman - Stripped man in Media Zone
Ed Marques - Blonde punk in Media Zone
Cheryl Lawson - Pretty Woman in Media Zone
Kevin Loreque - Animatronic Bartender
Eiko Nijo - Geisha Hostess
Gaura Vani Buchwald - Burly Man in Video Store
Rolando Molina - Salesman in Video Store
Gary Anthony Sturgis - Officer at Video Store
Monica Allison - Woman on Train
Susan Mohun - Bystander
David Asman - Metrolink Cop
Anthony C. Hall - Locator Technician
Amy Smallman - Aide in Cochran's Office
Ahmed Ahmed - Cameraman
Marva Hicks - Onscreen Talent
Juan A. Riojas - Metromedia Cop
Steven R. Barnett - Metromedia Cop
John Walcutt - SWAT Captain
Michael B. Silver - Undercover Cop
Jordan Marder - Prison Transport Guard
Brogan Young - Monitor Prison Guard
Laura Leigh Hughes - Suburban Reporter
Dustin Nguyen - Suburban Reporter
Anthony Winters - Male Newscaster (as Toni Winters)
Virginia Watson - Anchorwoman
Beverly Cohen - Tabloid TV Host
Margot Hope - Paula
Una Damon - Woman with Video Camera
Mila Chagall - Woman with Video Camera (as Mary Rachel Foot)
Jennifer Greenhut - Screaming Woman
Lesa Noelle - Screaming Woman
Michelle Smith - Screaming Woman
Brit Thompson - Screaming Woman
Alanna Ubach - Eila (scenes deleted)
Kevin La Presle - Paramedic
Daniel Anderson - Police Detective
Eric Bernt - Building Supervisor
Rob Gomes - SWAT member
Michael Tamburro - Helicopter Pilot
Frank Welker - Special Vocal Effects (voice)
Anthony Backman - Metrolink Patron (uncredited)
Ken Shamrock - Ultimate Fighter (uncredited)
Rogan Wilde - TV News Producer (uncredited)

Movie Details

Release Date: August 4, 1995
Rating: R
Running Time: 106 minutes

Trivia

The idea of using virtual reality to train law enforcement was inspired by screenwriter, Eric Bernt, by computer flight simulators. Where today's aircraft pilots are trained in VR to fly in a range of conditions to develop a well-rounded skill in piloting, so too would his idea of VR law enforcement training be used to train officers against all forms of criminals.

SID's version number was choosen as 6.7 because it is 666 rounded up, the number symbolized as the Mark of the Beast.

SID 6.7 escapes from the confines of virtual reality into the real world for more power. In director Brett Leonard's previous film, The Lawnmower Man, this is the opposite of what was done by the villain, Jobe; Jobe escapes the confines of the real world to have greater power in the virtual world.

The blood of SID 6.7, referred to as "nanogoo" by the production team, is a mixture of maple syrup and blue food coloring.

External link

Virtuosity at IMDb

@@ Line 330: / Line 330: @@
 ==See also==
+*[[Metrolink (Southern California)#Media|Metrolink Commuter Rail System]]
 *[[cybertechnology]]
 *[[nanotechnology]]