Null references (oh no, not again!)

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Derek Parnell" <derek at psych.ward> wrote in message 
news:p3z1y7v9zg88.z3yecw0xphen.dlg at 40tude.net...
> On Fri, 6 Mar 2009 17:42:23 -0500, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>
>> Sometimes, when I'm in a particularly pessemistic mood, I get the feeling
>> that regardless of its intent, 2001's biggest contribution to society was
>> the creation of what to become one of science fiction's biggest plot
>> cliches: People being put into danger by their own creations (2001, 
>> Matrix,
>> Terminator, Battlestar Gallactica...and probably a whole ton of others I
>> can't think of right now.)
>
> Predated by "Prometheus" from Greek mythology and by Mary Shelly's
> "Frankenstein"
>

I don't remember Prometheus (been a very long time since I last studied 
greek mythology), but I've always seen Frankenstein much more as a tale 
about prejudice, fear of the unfamiliar, fear-based mob-mentality, etc., 
rather than technology-gone-wrong. Edward Scissorhands captures the theme of 
Frankenstein much more closely than the other movies/shows do.

But regardless, I wouldn't be surprised if "people endangered by technology" 
existed in plenty of fiction long before 2001. Perhaps in my earlier post 
"popularized" would have been more accurate than "created".