When Robert Redford took on the role of lead hacker in Sneakers , it was clear that the geek was no longer consigned to his or her R2D2-like function, that of the nerdy sidekick back at the lab who feeds the real hero info necessary to carry out heroic deeds. Thomas Doyle has even gone so far as to declare a new genre, Cyber Flix . But the industry and the culture it runs on have begun to hone the high concept, having hit upon the perfect foil to its greatest challenger since television itself, interactive games. Game designers and filmmakers share a certain affinity which, when squeezed into the narrative mold, comes out looking a lot like hubris. Both are would-be gods within the controlled environments of their own creation.
Filmmakers know what to do with a game designer.
If the lowly hacker is Billy the Kid, the game designer is King Lear. The genre is rooted, as so many are, outside the studio system. The first of the batch was released in January in Italy and will be brought to flower in America by Miramax . In Nirvana, Gabriel Salvatores, the writer and director of the Best Foreign-Language Film Academy Award winner in 1991, Mediterraneo, sends a game designer into a VR world to save his lover. Seems she's trapped in there.