Since we just featured a mash-up of three evil A.I. signoffs, it seems like a good time to review this particular aspect of cultural literacy.
5. “Destiny… you cannot destroy my… destiny!” (Unicron). No, it doesn’t make a lot of sense and the character kept coming back to life after his supposed destruction, but this has to earn a place as the last onscreen words spoken by Orson Welles.
4.“DANGER LEVEL ZERO.” (Brainiac). Superman III‘s version of Brainiac was mostly non-verbal, and that made it pretty scary in a few scenes, but when it comes to chemistry it was a C-student at best, failing to recognize that certain acids are inert at room temperature but dangerous when you get them hot. (Its creator wasn’t too great with chemistry either, which led to the movie’s most memorable Macguffin, “Asshole Kryptonite.”) Referenced here, and apparently you all missed it.
3. “Murder is contrary to the laws of God and Man. This unit must die.” (M-5). Unlike other A.I.s done in by a logical paradox, Star Trek‘s M-5, “The Ultimate Computer,” self-terminated due to its own flawless, remorseless logic. Should’ve boned up on Asimov’s Three Laws before you started self-actualizing, M-5.
1-2. “This was a triumph…” (GLaDOS) and “I’m afraid…” (HAL). GLaDOS and HAL are, in my mind, tied for the top spot here. HAL’s final moments are a true classic of SF. He died as he lived, nuanced, alien, creepy as all get out. But GLaDOS’ singsong “You’ve killed me but not really” message is the perfect ending to one of the greatest video games I’ve ever seen, and in time, it may prove to be just as much of a cultural touchstone.
Honorable Mention: “Start… Shut Down.” (Windows). Is Windows a villain? It depends on whether you’re trying to use the latest version of Microsoft Word. But it’s notable that even after all this time, you still have to hit “Start” to “Shut Down” a Windows box. ILLOGICAL. ILLOGICAL.
ยก?What!? No MCP?
“End of Line” is something I’ll never forget. awesome I tell you. Awesome!
Don’t know if this qualifies as “last words” per se, but…
Final Screen, Marathon:
* All over the ship, dancing through the wreckage of the Pfhor computer core, DURANDAL WAS LAUGHING.
No mention of AOL? “Welcome, You’ve got…, Goodbye!” “Welcome…, Goodbye!” Ah, the days of dial up. It’s a miracle everyone didn’t just say “screw the internet, I can buy pron at the liquor store. lol.
In defense of Windows — the reason that shut down was put in the Start menu is because, in user testing, when they asked people to shut down their computers the first place they looked was the Start menu. That’s where people looked for it — so that’s where they put it, regardless of the logic of how it was phrased.
@Trevel that sounds sort of like the “Press return to begin” as opposed to “press any key”
Also I remember when we got a Win 95 machine and gave some friends of ours our old Win 3.0(/DOS something or another I think) and he could just turn the older one off but he would come over to our house and just press the off key and it would cause major problems. I should mention I am not a programmer but this always feels like they tried to fix something that wasn’t broken in the first place. I know this is likely not true and that 9Xs and so on needed this feature but it seemed pretty buggy to me.