Top IT Characters in Movies
It’s a lot easier to find a techie character in television than in movies; from the IT Crowd gang to Chuck. But the vast majority of great IT characters in movies seem to hail from older cult classics, like ‘Hackers’ and ‘Tron’.
So, of all the fictional characters in movies (the list would be heavily skewed if we accounted for ‘Pirates of Silicon Valley’!), who are some of the top IT characters worth mentioning?
Q from 007: Skyfall
The vast majority of IT and techie characters in media are either gross slobs, sleek villains, or anti-authority punks. Q, despite his short screen presence, broke the mold a little; here’s a respectable professional hipster who crosses intellectual swords with spies… but apparently isn’t aware of common quarantine procedures. But he won our hearts with a fantastic quip to the infamous James Bond himself, “Well, I’ll hazard I can do more damage on my laptop sitting in my pajamas before my first cup of Earl Grey than you can do in a year in the field.”
Peter Gibbons from Office Space
Many techies during the office boom were white-collar deskjockies, and Peter Gibbons is a perfect representation of the scores who felt taken for granted and treated like drones. Though he ultimately triumphs in undermining the company that treated him like an automaton, the fact that he quits his profession to become a construction worker is probably a call-out to those of us who sometimes wish we got more fresh air and daylight. And it was ultimately even a little prescient: in the decade following, many tech gurus decided they were better off working for themselves, especially after the slide into less pay and worse working conditions.
Ferris Beuller from Ferris Beuller’s Day Off
This amazing hijinks of this cult classic film all happened thanks to some impressive IT shenanigans when the titular character used an IBM PC XT to hack into his school’s records and remotely alter their records of his absentee days. Who hasn’t ever dreamed of doing the same thing?
Though he bemoans getting a computer instead of a car, we give him extra points for also using that iconic computer to also look at a pixelated Modigliani nude, which some might consider the primary use of computers everywhere.
Mr. Universe from Serenity
With an appearance that amounted to minutes in the much-anticipated film sequel of the cult favorite miniseries, almost everyone who works in tech knows or has met this breed of techie hermit and hacker. He’s also clearly a nod to Weird Science, a much older geeky cult classic. Weird, obsessive, and ultimately happy to work for the greater good, Mr. Universe also rolls out one of the most amazing quotes for IT and tech workers: “You can’t stop the signal, Mal. Everything goes somewhere, and I go everywhere.”
Chewbacca from Star Wars
If you imagine that running the Millennium Falcon requires no tech know-how, think again! The launch of the next iteration of the long-running Star Wars series has brought new and old fans back to this series, though sadly now without his gun-slinging partner Han Solo. Chewbacca has many of the iconic characteristics of an IT guru, and is shown to quickly correct all kinds of hardware issues: from the Falcon’s problems on Hoth to C3PO’s dis-assembled body.
Lisbeth Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The main character of a popular series of thrillers as well as this critically acclaimed film, this girl brought the hardcore punk aesthetic back, and used her fearsome technical capabilities and hacking skills to serve some vigilante justice. Importantly, she’s a fictional female hacker of immense skill in a time when female tech workers are even less represented than they were back in the 90s, and is strong and self-assured.
