Talk:I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

message: why does am hate the humans — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.87.104.151 (talk) 18:31, 14 March 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Initial text

message: Sign your posts, folks.
Shouldn't it be emphasized that Ted's actions at the end take place with the consent, or at least appreciation, of his compatriots? Ellen helps by killing Nimdok before Ted kills her...their deaths served to infuriate AM, which delights Ted, but also freed the other humans from their tortured existence. Russell 18:34, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes indeed.  Go for it! --Nuffle 15:47, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Deaths by consent

message: I don't remember the color of her skin being mentioned in the story.  Is it possible this was also from the computer game, just like the quote? Jackkoho (talk) 20:31, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That could be figurative, indicating an emotion like rage, although I find that unlikely in context.  However, the story also mentions "her ebony features", which seals it. Kjetilho (talk) 22:05, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ellen's race 

message: Would anyone have a link to this story available on the internet to post on this article? I have searched and cannot find one. 21:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably that's because of potential copyright infringement. - Jack's Revenge 22:28, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You can still view the scifi.com text with archive.org: http://web.archive.org/web/20010616053153/http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/ellison/ellison1.html - 24.85.67.49 (talk) 11:21, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Online text 

message: Shouldn't there be a segment on interpretations or would that be a bit much? DrWho42 01:03, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That is a good idea; we'd just need to find some appropriate sources to avoid original research or such. The review of the story on Ellison's website is a good start  , but I haven't found any more. --Phoenix-forgotten 02:56, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interpretations 

message: Where did the info that HE "created it in a single night" come from? In the intoduction to the story in the book named for it, he says that it took a year and a half.   00:10, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Its in his introduction rant from The Voice From the Edge audiobook series. 73.221.144.193 (talk) 07:50, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Background 

message: Should we put a spoiler warning on the plot summary? I don't know the policy behind this with short stories.Andrew zot 09:50, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm against this because I don't like spoiler warnings but also because it's a well known story, readily available online. If anyone was searching for it, they would easily be able to find a full copy somewhere long before finding this wikipedia article. Anyone searching specifically for this article would most likely have already read the story and be looking for more information, rather than looking for a plot summary. Axem Titanium 12:56, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spoiler Warning? 

message: I think there should be one simply so that people wouldn't be sent to the wrong version of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.. Aside from this, there's the computer game and the anthology. DrWho42 23:53, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Does the anthology have its own article? Axem Titanium 00:33, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not as of yet, but it is listed under the Harlan Ellison article as well as being under the link A review on the short story. DrWho42 00:38, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe I'm going crazy but I don't see it. At any rate, an "anthology" would seem to imply that it would be little different than the original text, meaning it probably wouldn't warrant its own article. And since the game is already linked at the bottom of the page, a disambiguation page doesn't seem necessary at the moment. Axem Titanium 00:58, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: By "anthology", I refer unto the collection of short-storeys that also includes the short-storey as well as others: Big Sam was My Friend, Eyes of Dust, World of the Myth, Lonelyache, Delusion for a Dragon Slayer, and Pretty Maggie Monkeyeyes. I was wondering about this since it was listed under Harlan Ellison's short stories collections and the link leading to the supposed collection led to this short-storey. DrWho42 07:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

text: You can create that article if you'd like and have a blurb at the top of this page linking there. I still don't think a disambiguation page is necessary, since all three are about basically the same thing. Axem Titanium 00:48, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambiguation Page 

message: Is it just me, or is Collosus: The Forbin Project basically a direct rip-off of this story, re-set in a more palatable setting? Certainly the genesis of AM appears to be largely identical to the collaboration that leads to Collosus's intellect. Maury 21:18, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Collosus 

message: Does this qualify as dystopian?  The story is told entirely after the collapse of society.  I would call it post-apocalytic, but not dystopian.
G8bluSti 21:31, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Calling five people a "society" is stretching the term to the breaking point. So no, this story doesn't depict any variety of *topia. Clayhalliwell (talk) 19:11, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You seem to have entirely missed the point that these people are being totally controlled by a supreme, malevolent dictator (albeit a machine). Furthermore, the group still appears to have society-like functions. They have a de facto leader, and even a 'prostitute'. Just because it is suggested the book takes place following an event on an apocalyptic scale does not mean this is a post-apocalyptic novella, well, not in tone (albeit it in time). You might as well call the setting of such stories as that in Æon Flux 'post-apocalyptic' and, by extension, such communities as those in Lost by this logic. Dystopian. Melaisis (talk) 16:45, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't miss the point, I considered it and rejected it. A miniscule social structure does not a society make. Clayhalliwell (talk) 19:17, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dystopia 

message: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth_And_I_Must_Scream#Background
Supposedly this story was based on a drawing, but no drawing is provided. This needs to be linked or posted within the entry. I am unable to find it though! Please get this up ASAP if you have any luck finding it. The13thzen 16:19, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the link, I enjoyed seeing that.  As you probably realise, it can't be copied to Wikipedia or included on the page itself due to copyright, but I added a hyperlink to it at the appropriate spot. Kjetilho (talk) 22:18, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  William Rostler's Drawing Needed 

message: The current plot section is very poorly written and contains numerous errors. --anonymous, date unspecified
An anonymous user with the IP address 173.2.197.76 seems a bit insistent that their version of the last paragraph of the plot summary stay.  I think this version is rather clumsy, which is why I amended it in the first place.  Since there is disagreement over this part of the article, let's open discussion.  I think it could benefit greatly from a complete rewrite, and some tidying at the very least (especially the last paragraph). Aidalgol (talk) 08:54, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plot 

message: I have added a section on the translation of AM's talkfields.  Given that these messages have often been misprinted, if anyone out there has a copy of the first version of The Essential Ellison (1991), I think it would be useful to post picture scans of the two different messages so that people with other, misprinted, editions can see how the author originally intended them.--Samwiseuk (talk) 13:06, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The new section is great, but it's completely out of sequence.  The reader has no idea who or what AM is when she encounters it.  I moved it to the end.  I also included AM in the list of characters, which suffered from the same problem. —johndburger 02:35, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I obtained scans of the original talkfields, as Harlan intended and have added them to the article to fully illustrate this section.--Samwiseuk (talk) 20:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: AM's talkfields

message: Shouldn't it be mentioned that James Cameron based the character of Skynet on AM, and Ellison recieved a writing credit in the film The Terminator. --Dark_Wolf101 00:32, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  His writing credit is due to the plot being taken from two episodes he wrote for The Outer Limits...And he only got the credit after a lawsuit.  I haven't heard anything about Skynet being based on AM, so unless you can find a reliable source for reference, then it shouldn't be mentioned.  rzrscm (talk) 08:41, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There's no resemblance because Skynet wasn't based on AM...The idea of omnipotent computers is one of the most common themes in Science Fiction and has been around for a long time. rzrscm (talk) 20:53, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Funny ... I hadn't seen the OL eps at the time The Terminator came out, but I had read the story, and it seemed to me that there was something clearly derived from it (powerful, sentient supercomputer becomes self-aware and destroys most of humanity). That's the first thing I thought of when I saw Ellison's credit at the end.AM's "HATE" speech also seems to me to be echoed in Agent Smith's speech to Larry Fishburne ("I even smell like you) near the end of The Matrix. Daniel Case (talk) 14:22, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Eh, but AM and Skynet had two distinct personalities...I personally can't see the resemblance, but I've also seen and read a lot of science fiction dealing with the same subject.  It could be true, but we need a reliable source to add it to the article. rzrscm (talk) 21:22, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

text: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088247/trivia?tr0781374 I don't think this is a reliable source, but this is all I can find that mentions it. rzrscm (talk) 21:31, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Skynet 

message: I wonder how much the writers of the game Paranoia were influenced by this story. The computer in Paranoia has a lot more people to work with/torment but the general idea is not all that dissimilar.
76.28.103.69 (talk) 03:24, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Game Paranoia 

message: I have reverted this anonymous modification to the Harlan Ellison quotation regarding the Punchcode Tape Messages:
06:14, 10 April 2009 64.85.227.212 (talk) (14,624 bytes) (→AM's talkfields - Punchcode Tape Messages) (undo)
Given what the quotation is actually talking about, it's somewhat ironic that the modification was made.
You cannot modify a quotation just because you're offended by a swear word.  If there is a problem with using the word in a Wikipedia entry, the quotation should be removed not altered.  My personal opinion is that Harlan's original quotation is fine and to alter it is somewhat juvenile.
Harlan's strong views against unauthorised modifications of his words and work are, btw, commonly known.
Samwiseuk (talk) 11:56, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revert modification of Punchcode Tape Messages quotation by Harlan Ellison. 

message: Do we have any better source that the introduction to the computer game - "Based on Harlan Ellison's short stroy "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream", one of the ten most reprinted stories in the English language" -  
http://www.cdaccess.com/html/pc/nomouth.htm.
Even if it was true then, is it still the case ? -- Beardo (talk) 16:23, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  One of the ten most reprinted stories 

message: Does anyone have a valid citation for the basing of the ST Voyager "The Thaw" on this?  (The question of a valid citation is also posted on the Talk page for the episode on the Wikia page about the episode, []) Jimw338 (talk) 00:05, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Star Trek Voyager episode "The Thaw" 

message: I think that it may be worthwhile to include a section about accusations that Ellison's descriptions of Ellen as being a "slut", etc. are misogynistic. These concerns are a big reason that I'm seeing readers who otherwise found the book to be a compelling and good, albeit disconcerting, read totally shun it. Whether or not we may agree with those readers, I think that acknowledging these concerns of misogyny is an important and very worthwhile part of conversations about this book and its representations of themes and characters.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Qwertygirl123 (talk • contribs) 08:43, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misogyny controversies 

message: "Why? " "Because I am god already: who am I supposed to call to?" "The past! You have anti-time-technology. T.o.E. ist a pun: a sandal is a lousy cover for a toe. That´s what that hype about shoe makers is all about. " 2A0A:A548:699F:0:A090:CB45:F145:16BB (talk) 07:49, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  I want to scream but I have no sound 

message: Hey  - I saw you reverted my edit and so I thought I should notify you here instead of escalating.
You’re right that plot details don’t need sourcing, but per MOS:PLOTSOURCE, direct quotations do. I’ve avoided using quotes throughout because of this.
I also manually reverted it to my version because I don’t agree with the tone used - “one of Ted’s thoughts” doesn’t give me an encyclopaedic vibe, nor does it really convey the tone of the final parts of the story; it seems a little flippant.
If you’d like to propose a different way of phrasing this finale, I’m all ears - if not, I’ll change it back when I next update the article from my draftings. Thanks for keeping an eye on it and happy editing! :D  23:55, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see the point of paraphrasing the quote. It just looks silly. As for the MOS:PLOTSOURCE stipulation, that's a headscratcher. But I've come up with a solution. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:17, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plot quote 

message: Shouldn't "Adaptations" be for direct adaptations? I propose removing the "Amazing Digital Circus" from the "Adaptations" section. It has a vague resemblance in premise, as does a million other works of media. ArguedOyster (talk) 05:28, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adaptations 

message: you you you you 203.160.161.178 (talk) 09:35, 30 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  this time i want..