- When Mitch first discovers the passage in the closet, he boards an elevator that takes him to the steam tunnels below the college, to Hollyfeld's lair. Hollyfeld is there working on his contest entries. So...how did Hollyfeld get down there? The elevator was at the top, not down at the bottom with Hollyfeld. Mitch didn't have to wait for the elevator to arrive — the ride down took a lot longer than the time to get from the closet to the top of the elevator, and the car was there waiting for him. The car didn't automatically go back up when Mitch got out of it. So how did Hollyfeld get down there?
- Another entrance we didn't get to see?
- It's safe to say that the place that Hollyfeld stays in has more than one entrance. It's just that the elevator through the closet is his preferred entryway. If the power cut out on campus for some reason and the elevator was the only way in or out, Hollyfeld would be stuck in the basement. A man as smart as him would have another way out, maybe the original entrances to the basement itself (as he would have had to design and build the elevator, and he wouldn't be able to bring in lots of building material in through the closet without someone noticing).
- The ending of the film has been subjected to Fridge Logic, with the unanswered question of what exactly happens next. The military can still build more lasers now that their prototype was proven successful, right? Except that the whole scheme was exposed to public scrutiny, with a congressman directly witnessing it, ensuring that there will be subpoenas and indictments aplenty going around. And if nothing else, Hathaway's ruined.
- Not to mention that, as far as the military is concerned, the only 100% successful laser test was done by Chris and Mitch in the lab. The aerial test laser, in addition to hitting the wrong target, also burst into flames. Even without the added public scrutiny, there is no way the military would risk using a weapon that potentially unstable on a plane or spacecraft. (Of course, the laser's self-destruction was engineered by Chris and Mitch, but the military doesn't know that.)
- Or that the previously-threatened audit will very likely take place as part of the investigation into the laser's Disastrous Demonstration, which will get Hathaway busted for embezzling much of the research funding to refurbish his now-destroyed house.
- Considering how the sponsors of the laser weapon had previously been shown plotting to murder one of their own number for threatening to inform Congress and the President what they were up to, there'll be heads rolling at the CIA for worse acts than mere misuse of funding, too.
- Also, considering the speed at which Hathaway got the prototype into the Air Force plane, he might not have gotten all the details from Chris on how to reproduce it. If Chris and Mitch destroyed the records, they surely wouldn't have reproduced it, knowing its true intent.
- At no point does any of the protagonists bother to exposit why it's so wrong to build a laser capable of vaporizing ground targets from space. They simply state flatly that it is, and act on that basis. But Fridge Logic suggests that unless the assassination laser was fired willy-nilly at innocent people (at which point the problem would not be the existence of the laser, but the murderous insanity of whoever's firing it), it would actually pose much less risk to innocent bystanders and less general destruction to simply vaporize a hostile dictator from space than, oh, declare war on his entire nation. And there is no plausible deniability involved when you're talking about giant glowing laser beams from space. Only one nation in the world at that time could be credibly suspected of owning laser satellites, and a scenario that posits a conspiracy of agents acting without sanction from National Command Authority is an even bigger plot hole, because National Command Authority is going to be the first person to ask "Why the hell did one of our own 'weather satellites' just vaporize someone with a giant laser beam? Who is responsible for this?" as soon as said satellite is actually seen firing.
- Although there is the fact that the man in charge of building it made his students work on it, without their knowledge, with only the shaky promise of a job or graduate study as potential payment.
- Wrong! The opening scenes exposit in detail why the whole concept is bad, bad, bad. All you can do with it is kill unsuspecting targets; it would be useless in open warfare, against enemies who are either unknown or in hiding. "It's the perfect peacetime weapon." All it's good for is deniable assassinations. And ones without space capabilities at that.
- Well, to quote Shakespeare…shooting someone in the back generally IS the safest way to do it, isn’t it?
- Although there is the fact that the man in charge of building it made his students work on it, without their knowledge, with only the shaky promise of a job or graduate study as potential payment.
And it’s worked in the past and up to the present—against Field Marshals, Admirals, and the heads of major terrorist organizations. Although the laser seen in the film would do it with potentially much less collateral damage, or risk to the gunners.
Or if you don’t like using the fairly small laser capable of putting multiple megawatts of energy on a man-sized target at “infinite” (or at least, very long) range against individual humans, you could use it for…air defense, ballistic missile defense (against “tactical ballistic missiles,” e.g., “Scuds,” or SLB Ms, the R Vs of which are actually roughly man-sized or larger), ‘’counter’’-missile defense, ASAT missions, gunship armament (with increased range, accuracy, destructive capability, the ability to allow the gunship to operate at much higher altitude and greater standoff distance), demining operations, using a laser-ablation propulsion system to boost the range of large artillery shells (hey, perfect excuse to keep the Iowas in service even longer—a few hundred pounds of extra gear, and now you can drop 16” shells on the Kremlin while anchored in the Irish Sea. Hell, you could bring the So Daks back with that setup!)…
A lot of these, in fact, have been conceived of or tested with the use of directed energy weapons in the real world. Including a few by the Soviets. One of which they attempted to launch into space, two years after this film came out.
Actually, the most charitable interpretation of the CIA spooks’ appraisal of the weapon being “useless” for conventional warfare would be that, skilled specialists in their own insular, arcane field as they may be, are really myopic dilettantes—to the point of conceit—lacking a real understanding of subjects ‘’outside’’ their areas of expertise, unable to conceive or readily comprehend how such a weapon might be put to use, or even really imagine the true revolutionary potential of how it ‘’might’’ be used, aside from the cudgel of their ‘’schema’’ that makes everything look like a nail.
Ironically, you could probably say the same about Chris, Mitch, and their crew.
- In it's prototype form, perhaps. But Science Marches On, and this laser bears a remarkable resemblance to the powerguns from Hammer's Slammers, which occupy weaponry niches from heavy artillery to small arms and everywhere in between.
- Furthermore, it would be by far the most effective ABM system yet invented, and mightn't mitigating the megadeaths of a possible nuclear exchange during the Cold War perhaps be a good thing?
- "Unsuspecting" is not the same as "innocent". Besides, you're taking the movie as a given that it would only be used as a tool of assassination. The opening video shows a single zap-and-done, but the actual test shows it as able to drag a fairly destructive line... it would be an amazing weapon for taking out enemy fortifications or battle lines that were keeping forces from advancing or keeping them pinned down, or taking out strategic targets like missile silos, runways, and storage facilities. It has plenty of applications on the actual battlefield, ones that could probably save numerous American soldiers' lives.
- Also, the opening credits spell out the point of the film pretty clearly: the song "you took advantage of me" playing over schematics of Little Boy.
- You mean kind of like they take advantage of the college giving them a free ride on their education and research and getting them a job post-graduation? This makes about as much sense as someone joining the armed forces just to get the "free" money for college, and then throwing a fit when their commanding officer actually had the audacity to deploy them as if they were an actual soldier. But then, people do that, so maybe it's just being realistic about how shortsighted and entitled some people can be.
- That's not a valid comparison. With the military and the GI Bill, yes, you know that you might be deployed to combat—you expect it because that's what you signed up for. However, Chris, Mitch, and co. don't know that they're working on a military death ray. The protagonists are pacifistic science students who are coerced/manipulated into making a working assassination ray. As far as they knew, it was going to be purely a scientific endeavour with unlimited applications. (Except the most obvious one, granted...) Remember the story Chris told about Laslo having a Heroic BSoD in The '70s after finding out his research project would be hurting people? Same type of thing with our protagonists and their laser.
- To be more precise, they "took advantage of the college giving them a free ride on their education and research and getting them a job post-graduation", but translating that to a military scholarship is equivalent to them being told they'd just be doing disaster relief and humanitarian aid(which is how it's often sold)... and then being sent to quell a riot by eliminating everything moving. Killing undisclosed people - in peacetime - was Not What I Signed on For.
- They've been invited to work on a laser with the express goal of making it more powerful and therefore more destructive. At that point their blinding themselves to the reasons anyone would want such a thing isn't anyone's fault but their own. "I was too dumb to know that my genius could be weaponized even though I was blatantly building a weapon" isn't exactly a heroic excuse.
- That's just the characters' hubris at work. Hubris is a subtle recurring theme in the film. Chris and Mitch make the exact same mistake that Chris said happened to Laslo: they got so caught up in their work that it blinded them to what the final outcome was. However, when they are alerted to their shortsightedness, their morals instantly come into focus, and they react as they see fit. I expect that Laslo got involved purely because he doesn't want Chris and Mitch to suffer the same Heroic BSoD that he himself suffered after he finished his project.
- That's exactly what happened. Mitch is happily stating that others can figure out what to do with what they've done, and it has countless applications, when Laslo points out that with the fuel they devised there's only one real plausibly useful purpose. Chris even suffers a minor BSOD once their fears are confirmed, because he feels he should have seen it coming. Laslo snaps him out of that, too, telling him that he obviously relates, but they've got time to change their outcomes while he didn't.
- However, while we can argue the morality and utility of the weapon (and have at length), there's a surprisingly simple reason why what was being done was wrong: Everyone was misled as to the intention of the project and all of them would have objected on moral grounds if they were aware that the laser would be used as a weapon. It is one thing to hire a group of scientists to work in a lab with the specific intention of building a new kind of weapon, as said individuals would be mentally and emotionally prepared to deal with everything that comes with creating a new way of killing people before they started the job. It is something else entirely to trick a group of students into building something like that and just expecting them to deal with it.
- Assuming that there are blueprints and detailed notes and knowing that the concepts behind it are sound,wouldn't the DoD just be able to build another laser? They know it works... and they still maintain the rationale for building it...so why wouldn't they just build another one?
- They don't know it works. They know it missed its target and burst into flame. They don't know that this was intentional, and probably assume it's just a piece of junk.
- No, they know it had a failure. The next step would be to put together another one, have someone go over it to try and find the problem, and then do another test to see if the problem could be reproduced or was just some sort of fluke or human error. Having one unexplained failure and scrapping the project forever is pure Hollywoodism.
- Again, the point that people seem to be missing is the added public scrutiny. The Congressman, the college dean, and a few passersby saw a laser beam hit Hathaway's house. Eventually, a Congressional oversight committee and an interested public are going to start asking questions. I expect that the laser project would be buried underneath red tape for YEARS to come.
- Congressman and others go to Congress. The Congresspeople that actually approved the project in the first place say "It's classified" and send them on their way, to gripe to the college newspaper and whatever publications will listen to them about "a giant space laser". Red tape cut.
- Or, the congressman goes public with the information for political reasons, leading to public outcries and, yes, public scrutiny. Read up on how much the SDI was criticized
and you might get a better understanding about why John Q. Public in the '80s would be interested in solid proofnote that the government was testing death rays in a time of peace. - Truthfully, without Word of God to confirm it one way or another, or with the present lack of a sequel, the final outcome remains strictly in the realm of Wild Mass Guessing. It's possible that, at the very end, when all is said and done, the project was seen a flop. Definitely not thrown out altogether, but put aside for a while (maybe boxed up and stashed away in a warehouse somewhere).
- Don't forget, the opening scene of the CIA meeting explicitly stated that the Agency had gone behind the backs of the President and other legitimate authority to arrange for the laser's construction. Agency heads are going to roll now that the project's existence has been exposed, and by the time the resulting scandal has run its course — whether publically or in-house and in secret — the Cold War will be over and cheaper options like drones will already be in development, turning the film's laser-satellite assassination concept into an overbuilt boondoggle by comparison.
- They don't know it works. They know it missed its target and burst into flame. They don't know that this was intentional, and probably assume it's just a piece of junk.
- What age is Mitch when Sherry Nugil vamps on him? Her dialogue states that she waited three years for him to be legal, and the age of consent in California is 18. Since he comes to "Pacific Tech" at 15, that means that one of several things must be the case:
- The film covers three years rather than single year it implies. This makes no sense, as Chris is already a senior when Mitch arrives and Hathaway is clearly under pressure to complete the laser that same year.
- The age of consent is actually sixteen for purposes of the film, and Sherry's been stalking Mitch since he was thirteen.
- Alternately the film assumes Mitch to be some form of emancipated minor now that he is attending university, which could leave him still fifteen and her stalking him since he was twelve.
- She wasn't necessarily "stalking" him. She may simply follow scientific journals or news about geniuses discovered. She read about Mitch at some point, went "Wow, he's super smart. Better wait for him to grow up a little." and then made a note on her calendar or something.
- This is probably it. She waited until after his birthday, when he would be sixteen and technically legal. The film covers from start of the second term, early to mid January, until late May or early June, after finals. Plenty of time for a birthday!
- Also, this is before any revised legal state mandates for the age of consent (for example, in Florida in 1999, the age of consent was 16 years old. Currently, it's 18 years old). And we know he was 15 when he was brought in, but we do not know when his birthday is in the year. For example, if he was April, he would be older much sooner than if he would be born in December. So, when he was brought in, it may have been before his birthday (and if most of the film takes place during his first year at Pacific Tech, that means that his birthday could very well be in the Fall, meaning he was 15 when the film started but just became 16. And being of the age of consent, it not only allowed for Sherry to approach him, it also allowed for Mitch to approach Jordon to start a relationship with).
- Mitch is in some kind of weird Timey-Wimey Ball.
- Sherry is blatantly lying.
- Sherry is attempting statutory rape, and Jordan does actually commit it (or is implied to), but the movie simply ignores this.
- Jordan is seventeen. Since they are both minors and close in age allows for a pass as most people would consider their relationship acceptable. Sherry, however, shouldn't get such consideration and likely the only reason the movie was allowed to get away with it is due to double standards.
- Jordan says in one scene that she is nineteen. It's still not clear whether or not she and Mitch get physical, though.
- When Hathaway found the chip on the floor of the plane, why was he so quick to cover it up and not address it? It's not like he was responsible for installing the equipment on the plane and the most likely conclusion would be it happened during installation.
- Anxiety and fear. The man was under a great deal of pressure to deliver (especially as he had embezzled funds to renovate his house) and when he saw that chip, his thought was like "oh no, not now" and quickly checks the motherboard for any empty sockets. Finding none he figures someone just dropped it and says everything is fine. He doesn't fess up and say something is wrong because he doesn't want to admit that he didn't really have any hand in actually building the laser or its guidance system. Then again, the lead technician and Hathaway's contact didn't notice either. In one scene, he's clearly struggling to answer questions about the laser he supposedly developed. In another, he lets one of the lead technicians explain the laser for him (and she clearly knows a heck of a lot more about it than he does). His anxiety also causes him to miss that one of the EEPROM chips is missing its protective decal (to prevent UV from erasing the chip's data). Had he actually taken the time to read up on the work his students were doing, he'd have noticed the switch. Not to mention that the tracking system computer was missing its dust cover.
