Mr. Robot - what's the deal?

O

OldCorpse

Rockin the Boat
USA Network series - Mr. Robot gets fantastic reviews, highly rated, I've had friends recommend it to me. I've finally watched the first episode. I don't get it. I'm trying, really, but what's the fuss? The lead is an OK actor, even Christian Slater is no worse than Christian Slater, but the story is just a stack of cliches and a bore - from what I can see. I guess I must be missing something, because everyone seems to love this. So I'm trying to understand what it is I'm not getting, so I can adjust my perspective. To begin with, I'm not big on "hacker" stories, with some hollywood actor tapping and typing at a computer screen with lame graphics - what a visual sleeping pill - and gibberish computer terms thrown in randomly, but whatever, I try to look past that... even though in this case it's particularly egregious for anyone who knows the first thing about computers, the gibberish spouted in Mr. Robot is truly some low level dreck, even for TV. The guy has social anxiety and mental problems that many hi-functioning computer geeks have - OK, that's not exactly novel, seen that a bunch. The very theme of "Ooga-Booga L33T HACKORZZZZ gettin into your biz controllin' the world through computerzzz dontcha know - 0000h, scary!" is tired, tired, tired. TIRED. I mean there must be some kind of twist to all this, or is it just more of the same nonsense? I ask, because I have to decide if it's worth sticking around for other episodes in the hope there is some kind of rad twist or some reason to watch and not just the same old, same old same old stuff we've all seen a million times. I'd rather not waste my time if it's gonna be more of the same cliches and tired tropes. So, question for those who are fans - what's up with this, is it just the first episode that's bad, does it dramatically improve and go in an unexpected direction, should I give it more time, what is going on?
 
Nothing to get, I watched a couple episodes, not watching anymore. It just doesn't do a thing for me at all! This is certainly no Breaking Bad (which when you go back the first season wasn't great compared to the rest). Trying to think of a series that I thought was this blah, and turned out really good, but I can't!

I know I'm a nobody in cinematography, but I've been working in TV since I was 15 (I'm much older now), I know what I like when I see it, and this just doesn't appeal to me. Same goes for Walking Dead (sorry to you fans).
 
I've been watching it. It's weird and hard to follow. There's a lot of misdirection based on what's going on inside his head. I kind of like the way they shoot it. They do weird framing like instead of providing what would be considered the usual nose room they do the exact opposite where the actor is facing camera left and they nail them to the left side of the frame. In opposing close ups, it's actually pretty cool. I like the cast, including Ron Cephas Jones from the LAByrinth theater company. Nice to see him in there. I like the lead plus NY looks pretty great in it. It's definitely an intentionally funky show.

OldCorpse, they don't really do the fake graphics thing, more command line stuff. I think it's better than what we usually see for "computer" screens. I can't stand that either.
 
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I had mixed feelings on the pilot. Liked some elements. Didn't like others. Probably a bit overhyped. It's basically Dexter with a hacker taking down bad people instead of a serial killer taking down bad people.
 
OldCorpse said:
... even though in this case it's particularly egregious for anyone who knows the first thing about computers, the gibberish spouted in Mr. Robot is truly some low level dreck, even for TV.
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What are you talking about? This series is one of the best TV shows or movies when it comes to realistic computer hacking.
 
blommer said:
What are you talking about? This series is one of the best TV shows or movies when it comes to realistic computer hacking.
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Oh really? Please. A young executive from the client company looks over the shoulder of our l33t hacker guy and remarks that he's running gnome, while he himself favors kde... erm, if you're a l33t hacker running linux, why are you stuck on gnome? It's not the 90's you know; if you're running any mainstream linux de (that is, if you're even running linux in the first place, rather than some flavor of BSD as a l33t hacker), then at least you'd run xfce. It's like two supposed Formula I car racers are talking and they're discussing whether the oldsmobile or the pinto is gonna be better for tomorrows race - sure, to a person who knows nothing about cars, those are just random brands, but to anyone who knows the very first thing about Formula I, it would sound insane to discuss an oldsmobile and a pinto in that context. And our l33t hacker remarks how surprised he is that the exec is running linux?? The exec is a young IT guy - why would that be in the least surprising that he's running linux... the only surprising thing is that he'd be running the bloated KDE as his de - I'd expect better of a young IT guy. Then we have this gem, where our l33t hacker is explaining to the head honcho of his computer security company what root is /facepalm/ - I mean, if you're running a computer security company, you'd know what root is - that's like some engineer would be explaining to the guy running a nuclear power plant, what critical mass is... obviously it's done for the benefit of the audience in the most patronizing and worse, implausible way. Like I said, if you know nothing about computers, you don't care about all the chatter about the various de's your os is wearing, meanwhile, if you know even the first thing about this stuff - I mean real Comp Sci 101 - these would be embarrassingly implausible and primitive conversations. And so on throughout the show, every time some technical comp stuff comes up. Hence my quote: "in this case it's particularly egregious for anyone who knows the first thing about computers" - because it is egregious - either don't bother, or make it plausible, not destroying the cred of the show that centers around the supposedly extremely superior skillz of our hackers.
 
OldCorpse said:
patronizing
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That's exactly how I feel about this thread. Linus Torvolds himself uses Gnome. Give me a break, who cares what DE you use. But all you have to do is go online and see how many nerds get into huge flame wars over stuff like that. Our hacker hero even uses Kali Linux, how many shows go to that length to show a legitimate OS used for penetration testing?

And to address the "primitive" conversation between the two characters...it just so happens one of them is an apparent psychopath who says and does things to make his way to the top, so maybe's he's saying what he thinks the other guy would be interested in.
 
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Linus is interested in destop adoption, which means he's focused on the most broadly accessible de, not security or raw power as pimary criteria which I would expect of a guy working in computer security.

And regardless how sociopathic, the guy would find it implausible to EXPLAIN rather than simply mention "root".

Sorry, but none of the technical discussions sound real life believable.
 
Ummm... The guy in charge of desktop management where I work had to have one of his techs. explain what an mbr was. The unfortunate trend in IT is to hire business managers who know nothing but dollars and cents, and it really sucks being on the other side of that!
 
My favorite new show of the year by far and one of my favorite shows ever. Slightly disturbing that one of the tech leads (the blond, forget her name) asked what a rootkit was, but I'm not in it so much for the tech. To each their own though. Not everyone is going to like a show. I didn't get into Walking Dead, nor do I expect the world to owe me an explanation as to why. Just not my thing.
 
I think this is one of the best shows to come out in a long time. The writing and acting is amazing, and the cinematography is downright beautiful at times, and a lot more so in general than it needs to be for a USA Network show. I don't personally know a thing about hacking but throughout the show I think they did a great job of showing some realistic (to the idiot) hacking systems over almost any I've scene in movies or shows. When a character frantically types you always see what they're doing, and it's command line things and looks like they're actually typing it. Many of the characters, including his friend who works with him, don't know as much about tech as they should for the job title and that's part of it.

From first to last this show creates a great story arc populated with fully realized characters, and if you actually invest in the plot it takes you on some really wild twists. The voice-over etc really borrows from fight club, in a great way I think, but doesn't shy away from that acknowledgement.

Also, who could hate seeing Christian Slater? I'd watch him ramble on about his shopping or laundry or whatever for an hour anyway.
 
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