Electric Dreams Trivia

Edgar, the name of the computer is most likely named after Edgard Varese who is widely recognized as the father of electronic music.

The movie was dedicated to the Univac One, which was one of the earliest supercomputers built in the 1950's, in the days when computers were only for businesses or government and were the size of several refridgerators!

The storyline is very similar to Kurt Vonnegut's short story 'Epicac' - wherein a lovestruck computer programmer tells a computer about this girl he loves named Pat, then tells Epicac what love is - so of course, the computer falls in love with her. To demonstrate his ardor, Epicac writes poetry for her, something the human dude just can't do. When Epi learns that the girl can't ever love him, he self-destructs... But not until he leaves enough love poetry for Pat and her swain for the next 500 wedding anniversaries. Sound a little familiar ? When the credits dedicate the film to Univac, I sometimes wonder if they ment Epicac.

Edgar, the computer was not a real computer model. He was assembled by the film makers from a pastiche of computer parts of the time. He has a DEC VT keyboard, early Apple disk drives. Someone out there will be able to identify other parts. If you can, press the update button!

When Miles goes to the computer store, you can see the brand of the computer (Edgar), it's a Pinecone. An actual brand for its time and very pricey as well.

In the early scene where a co-worker shows Miles his pocket computer it looks suspiciously like a Casio programmable computer (guessing a Casio PB-100 or Casio FX-700), they had a full QWERTY keyboard and a BASIC programming language.

There are a few cameo roles in this movie, notably Koo Stark (one-time girlfriend of Prince Andrew) as a soap actress, and composer Giorgio Moroder as the radio station executive at the end of the movie.

"Edgar" is voiced by Bud Cort. He can be seen in the Movie M*A*S*H, and in the cult classic, "Harold and Maude"

Maxwell Caulfield ("Grease 2", "The Supernaturals", "Empire Records") plays Virginia Madsen's co-chair cello player.

Fans of Red Dwarf may recognise Miles (Lenny von Dohlen) in one of the best episodes produced, season five episode one, "Back To Reality".

For British raised, but American born actor von Dohlan, this role was his big chance... but he almost turned it down! Lenny recalled:

"I was researching a role for a period TV movie when the script of Electric Dreams came to me. "War Games" had just been a big success and my first reaction was that I didn't want to do another computer movie. My manager urged my to read it and at once I realized how human ELECTRIC DREAMS was. It was a film with very human emotions in which a computer played a pivotal role,"

He also said:

"Something else struck me immediately about Rusty Lemorande's script. How many movies do you see today where the characters are good to each other? Being nice and acting the way we would like to think of ourselves behaving and how life should be, just doesn't seem to make it into films these days. I adored Miles' faith in humanity. He's an idealist and that greatly appealed to me.

I really enjoyed being able to build Miles' character. I did a lot of research, reading books and visiting architectural firms. At one particular company I saw this fellow hunched over his draughting table, totally oblivious to my being there and I think, to anything else. He was wearing a bow tie and glasses. I modelled Miles mostly on him. I added 'bumbling professor' characteristics to my part and luckily the director Steve Barron and the producers agreed with what I did and thought it made Miles more interesting.

I also saw a lot of Miles in myself. I just ended a very tumultuous relationship before the start of filming. I was touched by the way Miles tried to grasp what love is and how difficult it is for him to define. Like my character I tend to submerge myself in my work without taking enough time with my personal relationships. Miles never took enough time to explore his feelings before he met Madeline and consequently was not well versed in male/female relationships, being more comfortable with his draughting table."

If the movie seems like a music video, that's because it was directed by Steve Barron, who directed many classic videos in the 80's, including: "Take On Me" by A-Ha, "Don't You Want Me?" by The Human League, "Money For Nothing" by The Dire Straits, "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson, Several videos for Toto and Bryan Adams ...and numerous others! Electric Dreams won him Best Director at the Madrid Film Festival, and the public Prize for the best film at the Avoriaz Fantastique Film Festival in France.

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