GPS et géolocalisation à travers la fiction

Les résultats de la petite enquête sur Twitter sur les œuvres de fiction où le GPS ou la géolocalisation jouent un rôle significatif /\ The results of a small survey on Twitter on fiction works where GPS or geolocation play a significant role.

Major Manchek's map / La carte du Major Manchek

Le premier SIG du cinéma ? Le Mystère Andromède / First GIS in Cinema ? The Andromeda Strain

 The Andromeda Strain is a 1971 American science-fiction film directed by Robert Wise and based on the novel The Andromeda Strain published in 1969 by Michael Crichton. It tells the story of a four-day major American scientific crisis, in a very structured way. Many and various spatial machineries support the narration :  split screen, text…

Trap Street

A trap street, or errata, is a fictitious street inserted into maps to purposefully trap potential copyright violators of the map. Normally quite innocuous, these fictitious bits of information are used as proof to spot where plagiarism has taken place. The recent chinese feature film « Trap Street » inverts the usual meaning of this expression, becoming…

Wayne’s world 1 & 2

Wayne’s World and Wayne’s World 2 are 1992 and 1993 movies realized respectively by Penelope Spheeris and Stephen Surjik. The first one tells the adventures of Wayne Campbell (Mike Myers) and Garth Algar (Dana Carvey) who host a TV program from a cellar in Aurora, Illinois, USA. They attract an unreliable producer’s attention. Moreover, Wayne…

Maps of Hitler / Les cartes d’Hitler. Der Untergang/Downfall/La Chute

Der Untergang (Downfall) is a 2004 German film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel that focuses on the last days of the Third Reich and the fall of Berlin. The movie is set in and around Hitler’s Bunker in late April 1945. It is a realistic reconstruction, based on eyewitness accounts, survivor memoirs and verified sources. Bruno…

Skyfall. James Bond. Power and Map / Carte et puissance

Sébastien Caquard already pointed out here that James Bond used a geographic tracking device as early as in 1964 (Goldfinger). At that time, the idea of GPS technology was just emerging. At (e)space & fiction, we couldn’t keep ourselves from reacting to the debauchery of geospatial tools used in Skyfall, the latest James Bond movie, directed…

Geodigital tools in « 24 » Season 8/ Les outils géonumériques dans « 24 heures chrono » saison 8

The inventory of geodigital tools used in the final season of theTV series « 24 » was released on Monde Géonumérique. It is added to the inventories of seasons 4 to 7  (self-promotion). L’inventaire des outils géonumériques utilisés dans l’ultime saison de la série télévisée 24 est paru sur Monde Géonumérique. Il rejoint l’inventaire des saisons 4…

RoboCop – Verhoeven

RoboCop is a 1987 science fiction and action film directed by Paul Verhoeven. The Detroit Police Departement is, by contract, under the control of a private consortium, OCP (Omni Consumer Product). But the hidden objective of OCP is to destroy the old town of Detroit and replace it with a new urban complex, Delta City.…

Green Zone – Greengrass

The stylistic innovations that made the success of the TV series 24 are now influencing movies. A very clear example is Greenzone, the movie of Paul Greengrass. It is  saturated with maps, navigation softwares, satellite images and many other representations of the space of action. Of course Green Zone is based on a true story…

Sneakers / Les experts – Robinson

In Sneakers, a 1992 film, Robert Redford is the leader of a security expert team. We can notice 2 spatial machineries that are complete opposites  (and some other stuff, too). Quand Robert Redford est à la tête d’une bande de « spécialistes » en sécurité, cela donne « Les experts » (à ne pas confondre avec la série !),…

Dexter’s GPS device / Le GPS de Dexter

Dexter’s GPS device has an important impact in the end of Season 2. Dexter Morgan is a forensics blood splatter analyst for the Miami Police Department and a « nice » serial killer (he kills other killers who escaped the legal system). He maintains a close relationship with Lila West, a young English woman that has psychopath…