Last night I watched the movie "Live Free or Die Hard" - the next sequel to the Bruce Willis "Die Hard" series. While I'm a fan of car-chase-action-all-the-way movies - this one had a couple of twists in it that got me thinking about the Mac vs. PC debate.
Twisted logic, I know - but bear with me.
Justin Long, better known as "I'm a Mac" in the Apple ads, is the co-protagonist along with Bruce Willis. Willis plays the part of - well - John McClane - the "I'm just a cop doing my job but I kick bad guy ass by accident" and Long plays the part of Matt Farrell - a twenty-something hacker.
The basic story goes like this: Farrell is wanted by the FBI because there's been a FBI computer breach. John is assigned to bring him in. As it turns out - Farrell is one of a bunch of hackers who are wanted for questioning and who are being hunted by bad guy Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant).
Gabriel and his crew plan to shut down the US infrastructure and grab a bunch of money in the process - over the 4th of July weekend. I won't bore you with the details - but if you get a chance to check it out for yourself - it's a pretty good flick. But that's not the point of this post.
As I was watching this movie - I kept seeing the Farrell hacker character as a Mac. Really. It was weird.
All his actions; his speech; what he did and didn't do; his attitudes - I filtered through the "I'm a Mac" persona.
And as I got more and more into the movie - Farrell in many ways DID play the same role in the movie as the Mac does in the marketplace. He even LOOKS like the guy from the Mac ads - same scruffy beard, dressed the same way - everything.
Long played an underdog - who just escaped death by the skin-of-his-teeth - and confronts his own feelings of inadequacy and fear and realizes that he CAN take on big challenges even in the face of a foe who is superior in terms of manpower, resources and technical prowess.
Long also uses his brain (and some really old Palm Pilot and a Nokia E90 Communicator) to partially thwart the enemy. He's not worth a crap in the fighting department (he even gets bitch-slapped by Mai Linh [Maggie Q]) - but what he lacks in brawn he makes up for by just sticking to his guns and continuing down the path with a single goal in mind: save the world (or at least the US).
Here's to the little Mac that "could" - hopefully someday Apple will get a Bruce Willis to help it take a man pill and kick some marketplace ass as well.
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