Sci-fi interfaces in movies

by javier on 22/07/2009

Have you ever wondered who designs those cool (and sometimes impossible) user interfaces that appear in sci-fi movies. Well, it’s companies like OOOii.

They designed the exhausting multi-touch interface for Minority Report and more recently the intensive data panels at the last Star Trek movie. There is a very interesting interview to the guys in charge at the Flash Blog (Adobe). Yes, they do almost everything in Flash :)

I wonder how the specs are decided:

  • realistic vs. futuristic
  • intuitive vs. cryptic (hacker-style command line)
  • resemble something existing vs. completely innovative
  • real data (from the movie) vs. fake content (and data in small type so nobody can read it)
  • user executes commands vs. user dialogues with an artificial entity (HAL)
  • …

How many movies do you recall where interesting user interfaces appear? Would you help me make a list (and then make a collaborative post out of it)? Ok, here I go with the first that come to my mind:

  • Minority Report (multitouch)
  • Red Planet (augmented reality devices)
  • Star Trek (intensive data displays)
  • 2001 (HAL, natural language interaction)

More?

There are 13 comments in this article:

  1. 22/07/2009Iñigo Medina says:

    I did not like very much “Iron Man” as movie but I enjoyed some of its moments devoted to holographic prototyping.

  2. 22/07/2009yusef says:

    [ES]
    Quizá menos impresionante, pero igual de interesante, la película Hulk, en la que uno de los ordenadores muestra una visualización de Ben Fry (gurú en esto de la infovis).
    http://benfry.com/genomevalence/hulk/
    http://benfry.com/genomevalence/index.html

  3. 22/07/2009alberto romero says:

    I have to recall my childhood classics:

    Robocop (augmented reality see-through helmet)
    Star wars (uhf style 3d hologram videoconference)
    Back to the future (yes! you have to love the retrofuturistic time machine on the delorean dashboard)

  4. 22/07/200906/08 says:

    Quantum of Solace wasn´t bad at all :-)

    MK12 // Quantum of Solace: VFX Reel from MK12 on Vimeo.

  5. 22/07/2009Ariel Guers says:

    CSI deserves to be on the list.
    They have this state-of-the-art imaging software that can transform a very bad still from CCTV footage into a super highres image. Actually they have a pretty similar app to enhance audio.

    They also have natural language spplications that can even read your “mentalese” (the language you think with).

    CSI apps rock!

  6. 24/07/2009Óscar says:

    Just take a glance to this post:
    http://snarkerati.com/movie-news/the-top-50-dystopian-movies-of-all-time/

    It’s an old one but, somehow, here ‘u can find a backlog of nice sci-fi movies which bring ‘u some interfaces.

    Keep in your minds doin’ the same within utopian movies.

  7. 18/08/2009Mark Coleran says:

    In the movie business, screens and interactive elements have a very low priority in the grand scheme of things (with a few notable exceptions).To really sum it up, there are just three considerations.

    The first is to do somethign that sits with the look and feel of the environment and set. The nature of the film always dictates. If it is in the future, then the desire is generally to have a different way of interacting or displaying things, than is currently the norm. It is a small way of differentiating the interfaces. The reality is that these systems might already exists, but are not widely used or known about outside of labs or specialist groups.

    The second is the worst part. Prior art. Some of the people involved, directors, production designers, producers, bring with them their own biases, pre-conceptions and pragmatism that can result in less than satisfactory interfaces in the films and content on those interfaces. It is not uncommon to hear people day “I want it like it was in that movie” whether a good example or not. People try to play safe at times and it is not always easy to overcome.

    The third and most important part is that the interfaces are there for only two things. Set dressing and story. Irrespective of design and plausability, if they tell the story they are deemed a success by those commisioning. CSI might seem implausable in action and stylistically but they do one thing and one thing well. Tell you what happened or what they have found. This can lead overall to interfaces and systems seemingly doing some very unrealistic things, but in the end the story is all that matters.

    Mark Coleran

  8. 18/08/2009The Cosmonauts: Mark Coleran on designing Sci-fi interfaces says:

    [...] Coleran just commented on our recent post about designing interfaces for sci-fi movies giving very interesting insight: In [...]

  9. 18/08/2009Javier says:

    Thanks a lot to everyone, especially to Mark Coleran (with extensive experience in this area), who was very kind to share some of his knowledge here.

  10. 26/08/2009Rucito says:

    When it comes to computers, interfaces and sci-fi I always tend to think about Alien, the 8th passenger.
    I love those vectorial landscapes redrawing everytime the spaceship approaches any planet.

  11. 20/08/2010David says:

    I agree with Rucito on this one

  12. 3/12/2010Fire Basket says:

    Sci-Fi is the best, i love sci-fi movies, books and stuffs like that. I am a man of science that is why i love it ,-”

  13. 24/09/2011Jonathan Yuen says:

    I just found this post possibly 2 years too late, but I started a blog called HUDS & GUIS which deals with this exact topic.

    http://hudsandguis.com/

    There’s actually lots of movies with interesting interfaces such as:

    - District 9
    - Avatar
    - The Island
    - Final Fantasy
    - Blade Runner

    There’s video examples of them on the site. Although these ‘fictional interfaces’ may not be plausible, there is a lot of inspiration that people can get out of it, whether it be from a user experience point of view or from technology to design.

Write a comment: