Short Circuit

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For the article on faulty electrical circuits, see Short circuit.

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Short Circuit was a 1986 comedy sci-fi film starring Ally Sheedy and Steve Guttenberg and directed by John Badham. It revolves around an intelligent and sentient robot named "Number 5" that is worth $11,000,000 and 17 cents. The robot later takes the name "Johnny 5". A sequel, Short Circuit 2, was released in 1988.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Number 5 is one of five prototype robots proposed for use by the US military, although the scientist mainly responsible for creating them, Newton Crosby (Steve Guttenberg) is more interested in peaceful uses of their artificial intelligence, like playing musical instruments. A demonstration is under way in the grounds of the company that makes them and other robots, Nova Laboratories, in Oregon. After a lightning storm shuts down the presentation of the prototypes, a power surge hits Number 5 while it is recharging and causes it to reprogram itself. An associated accident causes it to be taken outside company grounds and it wanders off, unable to communicate and not knowing where it is.

Number 5 ends up at the home of animal lover Stephanie Speck (Ally Sheedy) who initially thinks it's an extra-terrestial visitor, but then determines the robot to be built by Nova. She decides that the robot is sentient and subsequently tries to help it escape from its creators, who only see it as a very dangerous, expensive and wayward machine. At the same time, Number 5 develops an understanding about the value of life and, realizing that he himself is sentient, develops a fear of his militaristic programming and the disassembly that awaits him back at Nova, believing it to be the same as death for him.

After various adventures, and several escapes from a small army of armed guards and regular soldiers led by the gung-ho paranoid ex-military security chief Captain Skroeder, Number 5 manages to fool its creators that it has been destroyed. In fact, Number 5 builds a duplicate of itself from spare parts, and takes off to Montana with Stephanie and Newton, who's lost his job for siding with the robot.

It was thought that this movie was inspired by Steven Spielberg's movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, though some believe it was also used as a defiant change from most other 'living robot' movies of the time, ironic in the fact that, originally, it's rumored that the movie had a story similar to that of The Terminator.

A video game was also made based on the movie. It featured two parts, one arcade adventure where Number 5 had to escape from the lab and one action part where Number 5 runs across the countryside avoiding soldiers and bunnies.

The movie has gained a cult following, and spawned a sequel, which was largely criticized by fans as being the weaker of the two. There has been rumors of a possible third movie to have been in the works but subsequently scrapped after the poor performance of the first sequel.

One feature in the first movie is the ending credit sequence which features snippets of scenes cut from the final product, a gimmick that predated the explosion of director's cuts and deleted footage DVD options of recent years.

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Trivia

The story is reminiscent of Robot AL-76 Goes Astray, a 1941 short story by Isaac Asimov, in which a tightly programmed robot is lost and finds itself in an unfamiliar environment which it can't understand.

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