Short Circuit (1986) on Netflix
PG19861h 38mComedyFamilySci-Fi
After a lightning strike, Number 5, an experimental military robot, gains rudimentary sentience and escapes. Its designer Newton Crosby and his assistant Ben Jabituya are ordered to recover it.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb6.6/1071,568 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes62%
Trailer
Plot summary
At NOVA Laboratory, robotics experts Newton Crosby and Ben Jabituya have built a line of robotic soldiers for the U.S. military, though both would rather put the machines to peaceful use. During a live demonstration, lightning arcs through the lab's power grid and scrambles the programming of S.A.I.N.T. Number 5, giving the unit rudimentary sentience. The robot leaves the facility and wanders into Astoria, Oregon, where Stephanie Speck, an animal caregiver, finds him and takes him for an alien. She brings him into her home, and the flow of new input lets him improve his language and build a personality. Once Stephanie traces the robot to NOVA, its president, Dr. Howard Marner, orders Crosby and Ben to retrieve Number 5 for disassembly and rebuilding.
Cast
- John Garberas Otis
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Short Circuit (1986)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The design of Number 5 came from Douglas Trumbull's Showscan short LETS GO, which featured a robot named PAL designed by Eric Allard; Steven Spielberg saw the short and told Badham to contact Allard. Syd Mead, the visual futurist famous for Blade Runner and Tron, then designed Number 5.
- Fisher Stevens said that when he was originally hired to play Ben Jabituya, the character was not intended to be Indian. Stevens was fired and replaced by Bronson Pinchot at one point, but then Pinchot left to do the sitcom Perfect Strangers, and Stevens was rehired.
- The film later drew criticism for casting Stevens, a Jewish actor, as the Indian character Ben in brownface makeup, which Aziz Ansari cited as whitewashing. In a 2021 interview Stevens said it definitely haunts him and that he would never do that part again.
- In 2009 Austin Pendleton, who had gone to college with Badham, said some stuff was cut out of his part and that the two leading roles were cast with really talented, attractive people who were not right for the parts.
- Most of Number 5's arm movements were controlled by a telemetry suit carried on the puppeteer's upper torso, each joint fitted with its own sensor, and the robot was voiced live by that same puppeteer because the director thought it made the interaction with the other actors more realistic.
- Although no soundtrack album was released at the time, El DeBarge had a chart hit with the single Who's Johnny (Theme from Short Circuit), issued in 1986 on the Gordy label, which reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the Hot R&B Singles chart.
- By 1987 Short Circuit had grossed $100 million in worldwide theatrical and ancillary revenues, not including merchandise, and the film was reportedly the top home video rental of 1987.
