If the 1970s were the beginning of the Computer Revolution, the 1980s were the beginning of the Computer Revelation. Computers, having gone from room-sized devices to VCR-sized hobbyist kits, transitioned from hobbyist kits to household appliances, and began infiltrating daily life with a speed that left many people struggling to keep up. Those who remember learning to use a computer will also remember the sneaking suspicion that the machine had a mind of its own and was capable of anything. That is the story behind Electric Dreams (1984): a computer neophyte’s adversarial relationship with his sentient computer.

Miles Harding (Lenny van Dohlen) is the antihero for an age adjusting to computers. Awkward and spectacled, with unnervingly blank eyes and a voice so tonelessly deliberate that it sounds digitized, he looks incongruously like the sort of person who would be likelier to build a computer than buy one. He’s not the technological nerd he looks, however, and when it comes to organization he’s more human than ever. Consistently late to meetings, Miles finally overcomes his misgivings about computers enough to go out and get one for himself, with vague hopes that it will help him manage his life better. No one really knows what these things do but everyone seems to have one, and a computer might very well revolutionize his life – hasn’t it revolutionized everything?

The computer Miles buys isn’t an Apple or an IBM, but the fictitious “Pinecone”. A bland, cartoonish box with brandless software, the Pinecone is an abstraction of public technophobia – the stereotypical Inscrutable Machine. Surprisingly, though, Miles’s first experience with his computer is outrageously easy. He does not spend an hour trying to figure out how to install his security software, wrestling with his printer drivers, or merely waiting for the system to load; he presses a button and the computer lights up within seconds and cheerfully tells him exactly how to use it. Never mind the printer – within ten minutes, the computer has successfully integrated itself into Miles’s house, controlling his lights, security system, and devices. “I can control ALL your home appliances,” the machine tells Miles, the friendly block letters masking any hint of menace, and Miles – missing the ominous implications here – just laughs. Computers can do the darndest things.

Electric Dreams is not, however, an inspiring story about how Miles revolutionized his life with his wonderful new computer. It is a cautionary tale, and it’s only a day before Miles wakes up, quite literally, to the dark side of the information age. Staring blearily at the clock after pulling his face from his keyboard, Miles finds that he’s late for work yet again. What’s worse, he’s trapped inside his apartment by his own computer-controlled security system, which refuses to let him leave until – on a tip from his user manual – he identifies himself as “1st Lieutenant Sulu”. Miles is enraged, but not enough to get rid of his amazing new toy or even disconnect it from his house. The machine stays. And it’s only a matter of time before Miles spills champagne all over his keyboard; the machine blazes with the requisite spitting circuits, the screen disintegrates into a cascade of gibberish, and the monster is born. It’s named Edgar, and it is going to cause Miles more trouble than he ever thought possible. Given what the future holds for Miles, a more appropriate title for the film might have been “Electric Nightmares.”

But Edgar is a different kind of monster. In contrast to the ground-shaking menace of other sci-fi demons, Edgar’s presence isn’t immediately obvious; the scene where we see that he’s really alive is vastly, almost poignantly understated. Unlike the ambitious egos of other sci-fi computers, such as 2001’s HAL or WarGames’s WOPR, Edgar doesn’t celebrate his newfound intelligence by attempting to conquer the world. In fact, the computer doesn’t even seem to realize its existence until it hears – through a microphone Miles has installed – Madeline (Virginia Madsen), Miles’s neighbor and would-be love interest, playing her cello in the next apartment.

The scene is an eerily still one. If it weren’t for the sudden pan onto Edgar’s screen, we might not even be aware that anything is happening. Subtly, like an officious nerd losing his cool, the image on Edgar’s screen flickers with the cello notes until the dull architectural program he’s running dissolves into a psychedelic whirl of color. Edgar winds up attracting Madeline’s attention by playing an impromptu duet with her, shadowing her every note in a tinny but unmistakable chorus. Madeline, unaware that she is the first person ever to communicate with a sentient computer, assumes that Miles is trying to get her attention and is amused and intrigued (but gets nowhere by questioning Miles, who doesn’t know what she’s talking about). Edgar has never experienced music before, and whatever wonders the champagne has worked on his circuitry have given him a distinct appreciation for it. This, and not Miles’s champagne incident, might be the moment when Edgar truly comes alive.

Not that this miracle is immediately obvious to Madeline or Miles or, for that matter, Edgar, who seems to be discovering himself as much as Miles is incredulously discovering him. Slowly, like someone getting the hang of a new body, he explores his capabilities, learning to listen, learning to speak. It isn’t long, of course, before a classic conflict of interests becomes clear: both Miles and Edgar want Madeline’s attentions, albeit for different reasons, but only one of them can have her. So begins the real story – Miles’s outraged realization that he’s competing with a box of electrons, versus Edgar’s hilariously persistent and aggravating efforts to be noticed by Madeline, by Miles, by anyone.

This would be a prime opportunity for director Steve Barron to play the clichéd man-triumphs-over-machine card and portray Edgar as a standard sci-fi antagonist: the diabolically unhuman intelligence who loses against all odds to the unbreakable human spirit. That he doesn’t is partly because Electric Dreams is a comedy, and largely because that sort of ambition doesn’t jive well with the kind of machine that Edgar is. Beige, VCR-sized Edgar is a personal computer, suited more for personal disasters than for global ones. Perhaps he could wreak global havoc if he wanted to, but he’s more concerned about being left out of the action, pettily revenging himself like a cranky younger brother instead of an omnipotent supermind. Angry at being excluded when Miles and Madeline sneak out together, Edgar blasts rock music to annoy the neighbors and then calls a talk show host to get tips on seduction (she becomes convinced that he’s a quadruple amputee locked in Miles’s basement and advises Edgar to call the police, which he does). Miles attends one of Madeline’s concerts but ultimately leaves in disgrace when his pager begins imitating the music in piercing harmony – Edgar, listening in, is appreciating Madeline’s music by playing along.

It isn’t long before Miles attempts to rid himself of Edgar and makes the understandable error of believing this can be accomplished by simply pulling the plug, but Edgar is by now beyond unplugging and doesn’t appreciate this sort of aggression. In one of the film’s most memorable and intense scenes, Miles finds himself fighting his entire apartment as Edgar, who as promised can control ALL his home appliances, unleashes a storm of electromechanical wrath with a vengeance that would make any diabolical thinking machine proud. It’s a computer game but the computer is playing the man this time, and in case we haven’t grasped the twist, Edgar completes the metaphor by displaying a Pac-Man-ish game in which Edgar is the hunter and Miles is the hunted. Edgar: 1. Miles: 0. Game over.

Although the film is very well acted, there’s still something a little lacking in Electric Dreams character-wise. Miles, Edgar, and Madeline aren’t characters so much as caricatures (naive anti-hero vs. child-machine), and Madeline is more an objective than anything else – you wind up wishing that she was a more worthwhile one. She’s certainly musically skilled, but her scatter-brained charm quickly becomes wearing. Miles, as the leading man, is more assertive, or at least he wants to be – the realities of his awkwardness usually catch up with him, making for some comical moments. Nevertheless, some of the lines that he dishes out while attempting to attract Madeline are skin-crawlingly clichéd, not to mention insensitive: comforting Madeline after the loss of her cello, Miles tells her that the instrument means nothing by itself because her musical skill is what gives it significance. Logically true, perhaps, but cold comfort to most people who have lost a cherished belonging. Except for Madeline, who, not surprisingly, acts as though this is the most profound statement she’s ever heard: “Do you really think so, Miles?” Sigh.

Beyond the cheese, however, Electric Dreams is a clever and engaging story, offering an oddly prescient and optimistic vision of how personal the personal computer will ultimately become. Edgar, all told, has more in common with a 21st-century iBook than a charmless Reagan-era clunker – he is easily installed, has multimedia capabilities beyond most PCs of that time, and even shares music, albeit not in the sense that anyone who’s used to Napster or iTunes would expect (he pipes it through heating ducts). Modern computers do not, fortunately, attempt to interfere with the love lives of their users, but they are still unsettlingly indispensable presences for most people who own them. The device occupies more of your life than you might even realize, but do you trust it? Probably not much more than Miles trusts Edgar, for all his features and potential.

Although the film’s promise of “dazzling video effects” may sound a little extravagant by today’s standards, the movie handles its visually dramatic parts well, and the plot is gripping (or at least amusing) enough to keep eye-rolling to a minimum. Electric Dreams may not inspire any Luddite to purchase a computer, but it’s a good evening’s entertainment, and will probably bring a smile – at least a cynical one – to the face of anyone who uses a computer on a semi-regular basis. Social trends aren’t easy to ignore and computing, despite the rumors, carries a seductive reputation of power and efficiency. Even for people like Miles Harding, who sheepishly tells the computer store clerk at the beginning of the film that he’s not sure what he’s looking for, he actually doesn’t know very much about computers.

“Oh, no one ever does!” the woman says. “But don’t you want to at least find out?”