Did he shut the computer off at the end or just the monitor? - Stand by Me (1986) Discussion

[–] vandydan 8 years ago

Just watched the ending again to be sure....He only shuts off the monitor...so his story is safe! Unless of course he lost power to the house before he got back from taking his son swimming!!

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[–] peco_7 8 years ago

I just re-watched it as well and noticed something... In the closing when he writes:

"Although I hadn't seen him in more than ten years, I know I'll miss him forever."

"I know I'll miss him forever."

He's writing as if it were happening now and not past tense.

I think he really is just writing his thoughts?

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[–] first_rule_of_fightclub 8 years ago

He's writing as if it were happening now and not past tense.

The movie begins with him seeing a newspaper article about Chris Chambers dying (present tense). This makes him think back to when they were kids. He tells the story of when they went to see the body (past tense). He tells what happened to all of his friends, ending with Chris being stabbed and that he will miss him forever (present tense).

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[–] eyeonyouproductions 8 years ago

LOL, used that exact computer in high school, operating systems weren't really a 'thing', and neither were hard drives. He would have been running that word processing program from a floppy loaded into the RAM, so yeah, unless he hit 'save', a power spike(or in my case a two year old) makes that whole thing go "bye-bye"...

And the question about when he was supposed to be writing this?

He's telling a story in the past tense as a narrator, filling it in with his feelings in the present....

He knows that now that his friend has died and he never will get around to seeing him again(even though they'd fallen out of touch anyway), he will never fill that hole in his life...

So he's reliving the time in the past when their lives all changed and tying it in to the news that Chris is now dead.

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[–] jsn_hylnd 8 years ago

I remember when it was just ms.dos.

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[–] eyeonyouproductions 8 years ago

Yep, we ran the computers on DOS and loaded everything from a floppy to actually run the things. Amazing how slow floppy transfer rates are nowadays in comparison, everything back then seemed to load just fine, shows how tiny those programs really were.

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[–] avortac4 (3417) 3 years ago

"Amazing how slow floppy transfer rates are nowadays in comparison, everything back then seemed to load just fine, shows how tiny those programs really were."

So much wrong here.

First of all, it's not very 'amazing'. Rates are rates, they have always remained the same. Floppy drives have not changed their speed that much over time. You speak as if they have changed, but they haven't.

The 'floppy transfer rates' are constant, they were the same in 1986 as they are in 2021. Why are you saying 'nowadays', when they never changed?

Second of all, when you know what to expect, they're not slow at all. They're exactly what you expect, exactly what they always have been. You don't expect a 1.4MB disk to copy from floppy disk to old hard drive faster than you download a 20kB file with 100/100 Mbit/s connection.

DOS PCs have had hard drives for ages, so you really were either cheap, poor or lazy to not have hard drives back in the day. Pretty much any PC I have ever encountered since early eighties have had a hard drive in them.

If something 'seemed to load just fine', what's the difference to 'actually having loaded just fine'?

How does that show anything about the size of anything?

The programs 'were' not tiny, they were whatever size they happened to be, and sizes fluctuated. There were programs that came on 20 x 1.44MB disks. I wouldn't call that 'tiny', considering how little text actually takes space (so program itself is not usually that big, it's the data that takes the space).

Furthermore, you're talking in past tense, as if they have changed, but they have not. The programs you used are still exactly the same size they always were. Why do people keep thinking data or bits change, when they remain the same? They talk about movies being 'dated', when the movie hasn't changed at all, it remains the same.

Try to get into your heads that data doesn't change - whether it's a TV show, movie, song, game, program, or any other form of data.

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[–] avortac4 (3417) 3 years ago

People always imply that movies and TV shows have some kind of magical ability to change, when ALL that's changed is the 'world around them' and the people themselves - the movie or TV show has not, it has remained exactly the same.

Why is this impossible to figure out for so many people?

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[–] yugfaed 7 years ago

I wish he had been using a Xerox 6085. He'd have been able to express his thoughts in pictures too, including doodles. But of course, no one but the government could have afforded them as they cost around 20 grand.

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[–] avortac4 (3417) 3 years ago

Back in the day, people actually had to know a bit about computers before they could user them fluently. This means the writer would know about the text editor they're using, and even back then, there was such a thing as 'auto-save'. The editor would automatically make a 'back-up' save.

Also, shortcuts were a thing, so he could've quickly hit something like ALT+F2 or something off-screen, so we never see him save, but that doesn't mean that he didn't.

Anyone that writes a lot, would have a habit of saving their work, so it was most likely part of his writing style to have a reflex of hitting the save key combination every now and then, especially after writing a big chunk. I do it by reflex whenever I create something, graphics, music, etc.

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[–] avortac4 (3417) 3 years ago

He turns off the monitor, leaving the computer on.

However, he could trust the auto-save feature, he could've saved with a quick, almost invisible hand movement of ALT+F2 or something, as it was common back in the day to just use shortcuts, since using menus with a mouse was not really a thing back then (though could be done sometimes, but not common in early DOS PC days - however, menus could often be used with keys, and still can).

So regardless of what he shuts off, he has saved the text file on his hard drive, and unless there's a hard drive failure for reason or another, his work can be considered safe.

This is a good opportunity to remind about the old spiritual practice, though, where monks draw an intricate picture by pouring fine-grained, colored sand (of varying colors), and when the beautiful masterpiece is ready, they instantly wipe it out and start over with a new picture. This way, they can practice non-attainment.

(So in that weird movie, where the chinese are depicted to have attacked Tibet and then 'mercilessly destroy the monks' sand painting' is really ridiculous, and typically hollyweird-values-depicting stupidity, as the monks wouldn't care, they would actually think of it as a favor!)

Perhaps the author depicted in this story is also taking this opportunity to do something similar, or realizes he had his 'fix', and doesn't need to cling to the written story, he can just let it - and the past - go, and just focus on the present from now on and play with his kids.

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[–] avortac4 (3417) 3 years ago

As a sidenote, it's kind of interesting how people can cling to a possibly non-saved version of a fictional character's (really non-existing) written version of a story in a movie.

I mean, if people can cling to THAT, what hope is there for them ever letting go of ANYTHING?

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