Talk:Johnny 5

Copy edit

I just copyedited this article. In the sections that describe events fter Johnny 5 changed his name from Number 5, I used his updated name. It feels awkward, though, having it say 'Johnny 5' all over the place, as opposed to 'Johnny' or '5', maybe. If someone else agrees with me to the point that they feel that it would be worth changing, I'm curious as to what the preferred name would be.

Also, I changed the 'him' references to Johnny to 'it', as he is a robot and not a human. If, due to the personification of the character in the movies (I've never seen them, so I can't know for sure... although it does seem this way from what I learned in the article) is so complete that he _should_ be referred to by 'him', by all means change it. - Christiant 16:05, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Johnny 5 should most definitely be referred to as "he" and not "it". I'll fix that in the next couple days when I obey the cleanup tag. The movies are highly outdated now but I still recommend you watch them (at least the first one). →Vik Reykja 08:27, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

2003:E3:F717:BCD2:7833:2E31:11F0:2081 (talk) 22:35, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Hallo j5 2003:E3:F717:BCD2:7833:2E31:11F0:2081 (talk) 22:35, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm considering a complete rewrite of this article, as it contains little information about the character and a lot of spoilers. I think keeping the plot summeries of the movies in will be okay but they probably should link to Short Circuit and Short Circuit 2 articles with more complete plot summaries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PhennPhawcks (talk • contribs) 09:07, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

/*Copy edit*/juhu 2003:E3:F717:BCD2:7833:2E31:11F0:2081 (talk) 22:37, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Article rewrite first draft (incomplete)

Here's what I've written so far for the rewrite on this article. I haven't submitted it to the main page because it's obviously incomplete as it stands.

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Johnny 5 is a fictional character from the movies Short Circuit and Short Circuit 2. He is a military robot imbued with intelligence and sentience by a lightning bolt, and is considered to be alive as he has emotions and is self-aware.

The Robot

Number 5 was designed by Newton Crosby and his partner Benjamin Jahrvi (pronounced Jahveri), and was constructed by Nova Robotics along with 4 other prototypes as technology demonstrators for the Department of Defence. It was proposed that the design could be used as an artificial soldier and as an intelligent delivery system for nuclear weapons. The design was marketed to the DoD as S.A.I.N.T. (Strategic Artificially-Intelligent Nuclear Transport).

Crosby claims that he designed the machines as robotic housemaids for the domestic market (or “marital aids”, as he says in the film), but it is possible he wasn’t serious when he made this claim. He does, however, seem genuinely disturbed by the use to which his creation is put.

Listed below are some facts about the Johnny 5 robot, as collected from the movies

• His monetary value before being brought to life is $11,002,076.17 • His mass is approximately 700 lbs. • His robotic arms are strong enough to crush a large block of ice, yet they are highly articulated and have enough manual dexterity to mix drinks, read books, drive, operate electrical equipment such as car radios and carry out repairs on himself. • He is equipped with a laser weapon, which can only be enabled or disabled manually at a facility at Nova Robotics. • In addition to a pair of robot arms and the laser weapon, he comes equipped with a tool-arm, a sort of robotic Swiss army knife. Tools on the arm include, but are not necessarily limited to, a small manipulator claw, a rotor device, a soldering iron, a small welding device, lock pick, screwdriver and drill. • His head contains most of his sensory apparatus. In addition to stereoscopic cameras with spectral-analyzers he is also equipped with touch sensors, standard and high-powered microphones, a device that can be used to operate equipment by remote control and an antenna that can be deployed, presumably as some kind of radio sensing device. • He can read and is able to absorb vast amounts of written information extremely quickly, being able to scan an encyclopaedia volume in a matter of seconds. • He can achieve speeds of 30 miles per hour under his own power.

Modifications for short circuit 2

• His laser weapon has been removed and replaced with a toolbox, including equipment such as a Polaroid camera, a plasma cutting-torch, an umbrella, a magnetic grappler on a length of steel cable and a hang-glider. • His original portable power source has been replaced with a lithium-argon liquid battery which can provide enough power for 500 hours of operation. This is supplemented with an emergency backup battery with an unknown capacity, but not much more than a couple of hours. • He has been fitted with a multi-frequency remote control which can operate almost any electrical device, and can control several devices at once. • His memory capacity has been increased to 500 megabytes “online”, implying that this is his RAM capacity. Weather he has any alternate data storage devices such as a hard drive is unknown. • His robot arms have been apparently replaced with new models that look significantly different. He has enough strength in his arms to hoist a family car into the air and bend steel bars. Whether he was able to do this with his old arms is unknown. • He has been decorated with numerous stickers, including Greenpeace slogans and Nike logos.

Personality

Johnny 5 is very curious and inquisitive with an almost insatiable thirst for “input” of just about any kind, but he is especially fond of books and television. While he started life as a military prototype he has a great respect for life and refuses to use his capabilities to harm others, even when they have no such compunctions towards him. He is very intelligent and inventive with an encyclopaedic knowledge, but can be quite naive and child-like at times and can be too eager to trust people that he shouldn’t. His innocent nature has been taken advantage of on several occasions.

He has a fondness for old movies and comedy shows, from which he quotes extensively. Favourites include Jackie Gleason, The Three Stooges, old gangster movies, Tarzan movies and assorted television commercials. He does occasionally quote from sources with more gravitas too, including William Shakespeare, Francis Bacon and various philosophical texts. His favourite books are Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio, probably because he feels empathy for the protagonists of those books.

He finds humans to be bemusing and is sometimes frustrated by their behaviour and their failure to recognise him as a sentient life form, but seems to like them on the whole and has several close friendships with humans.

Biography

Short Circuit

The events of Short Circuit begin with a demonstration at Nova being held in front of various senators and military officials with the aim of securing funding. The S.A.I.N.T. field demonstration is cut short by inclement weather and when the prototypes are returned to the lab, one of them is holed up to a generator for recharging. The wisdom of doing this in the middle of a thunderstorm is questioned by one of the support technicians, but a bolt of lightning strikes the power lines and Number 5 is subjected to a massive power surge before the other technician can disconnect him from the generator. Number 5 survives this, apparently undamaged, and the technicians order the S.A.I.N.T. units to go and have their laser weapons disarmed.

Number 5 fails to obey this order and begins behaving erratically, first running into a wall, and then becoming fascinated with a light switch and a dangling power cord that’s being dragged along by another robot. While following behind this robot he is rammed by a robotic garbage loader which shoves him onto the back of a truck.

Meanwhile, Number 5’s absence has become apparent and Nova begin searching for him. Doctor Howard Marner, and Captain Skroeder actually spot him in the back of the garbage truck, but Skroeder incorrectly identifies him as a coffee machine. The truck is allowed to leave and Number 5 inadvertently escapes the Nova compound. Shortly after, he is distracted by a butterfly and falls off the back of the garbage truck, tumbling into a field by the side of the road.

Back at Nova, Crosby manages to contact Number 5 via a computer terminal, but gets erratic responses to his commands. When he discovers that nobody has activated the robot’s homing device he does so, and the full extent of the situation becomes apparent. An experimental robot has escaped the lab, is malfunctioning and its highly destructive laser weapon is still fully armed. When the homing device shows Number 5 moving away from the Nova lab, Doctor Marner panics and suggests destroying the robot before it can attack any civilians it may encounter, but Crosby and Jahrvi convince him that they can contain the robot without destroying it. This is what he orders Skroeder to do, but the aggressively technophobic captain of Nova security instead orders his men to use any means to stop Number 5.

2 men in an APC encounter Number 5 and inadvertently run him off a bridge, from where he parachutes onto the back of a lunch wagon, belonging to Stephanie Speck. She drives home, unaware of his presence on top of her van and after a run-in with an ex boyfriend, goes about her evening routine.

This is interrupted when Stephanie hears weird sounds coming from outside and goes to investigate. She finds Number 5, who has somehow managed to get inside the truck, and mistakes him for an alien. She takes him inside her house and tries to teach him about Earth. When she discovers that he can read she lets him go through her entire collection of books, including an encyclopaedia.

Even after reading all the books, Number 5 is still hungry for input and starts to get increasingly destructive to Stephanie’s property when she can’t provide it. In an attempt to placate him she shows him the TV, which seems to calm him down. She is a little disturbed to find him there the next morning, still watching and now imitating what he hears on the television, and decides to show him the Great Outdoors instead.

Stephanie’s dog, Beesly, is spooked by Number 5 and jumps at the robot. Number 5 panics and rolls off the back of Stephanie’s balcony into a chicken coop. He is upended but otherwise fine, however Stephanie sees an identification plaque attached to his body and realises that Number 5 is actually a robot. Angered and annoyed at her own stupidity for not realising, she calls Nova, who inform their personnel of Number 5’s location, including Crosby, Ben and Skroeder.

Stephanie explains that Nova are coming to collect Number 5, then they both notice a grasshopper, which Number 5 tries to imitate. He is distracted and accidentally lands on the grasshopper, killing it. He asks Stephanie to “reassemble” it, but Stephanie tells him that the grasshopper is dead and that there is nothing she can do for it. Number 5 makes a connection in his mind between disassembly and death and is horrified to realise that death is the fate that awaits him if Nova’s engineers disassemble him. He panics and steals Stephanie’s lunch wagon in an attempt to escape, but he doesn’t know how to drive and nearly drives himself, Stephanie and the truck off a cliff. When Stephanie asks Number 5 why he is behaving like this, he replies that he is alive and is afraid that he will die if Nova disassemble him.

Crosby and Ben reach Number 5’s location first and Stephanie and Number 5 try to convince that he is alive, but Number 5 is cut off mid-sentence by the arrival of Skroeder and his men. The security men open fire on Number 5, who responds by firing warning shots at a number of nearby boats in an attempt to frighten the men off. But Number 5 takes several hits, partially disabling him, and Crosby manages to shut off his primary power. Number 5 is hauled away in the back of a van with Ben and a security guard, with orders not to power down the robot’s main memory.

Number 5 regains consciousness in the back of the van but is mostly paralyzed with his main power turned off. Using a spanner and his upper camera covers, he manages to switch his main power back on. He then effects repairs on himself and replaces his non-functional right arm with a spare he found in the back of the truck. At this point the drivers of the van notice that he is active again and the security guard produces a handgun. Number 5 immediately relieves him of the firearm and destroys it, and Ben and the security guard run in a panic. Number 5 steals their van and drives off, having learned from his mistakes in Stephanie’s van. While driving, he discovers the homing device and removes it, planting it in the back of a passing pickup truck, throwing Nova off the scent for a while.

Back at Nova, Newton Crosby is fascinated by the ingenuity the robot displayed in figuring out the homing device and becomes adamant on the need to capture Number 5 intact. But by this point Skroeder is making no secret of wanting to destroy the robot, and Dr. Marner is too worried about Nova’s public image. He orders Crosby to remain at Nova HQ and decides to make the escape of Number 5 public knowledge, offering a $25,000 reward for his capture. Stephanie’s slimy ex-boyfriend, Frank, hears this news on television and is determined to get Number 5’s location out of Stephanie.

Number 5 returns to Stephanie's house later that evening. Stephanie tries to convince Number 5 that it isn’t safe for him to stay there anymore, but by employing behaviour that can only be described as obnoxiously cute, Number 5 wins Stephanie over and convinces her to allow him to stay the night. Stephanie says that they should try and find Number 5 a new home tomorrow, but Number 5 insists that he is home with Stephanie.

Newton Crosby and Ben are worried that if Skroeder destroys Number 5, they will never discover what caused his change in behaviour. They steal a van from Nova’s car pool and go off in search of Number 5

As Stephanie feared, it wasn’t safe for Number 5 at her house anymore and Frank puts in an appearance while Number 5 is trying (and utterly failing) to prepare breakfast for Stephanie. He tries to bribe Stephanie with a cut of the reward money, but instead Stephanie tricks Frank into revealing his true intentions to Number 5, who then runs. Frank goes to chase him in his car, only to find it dismantled on the lawn outside Stephanie’s house.

Frank fires on Number 5 with a rifle, but he blocks the bullets using one of the car’s brake disks. Frank then knocks Number 5 over using a prop shaft as a club, but Stephanie tackles Frank before he can cause any real damage. Frank then turns on Stephanie, but Number 5 intervenes at this point, disarming, then humiliating Frank. After threatening to call Nova, Frank leaves and Stephanie and Number 5 decide they need to leave too.

Number 5 believes that he can convince Newton Crosby that he is alive, so Stephanie agrees to meet with him in a nearby bar. While they are talking, Number 5 is found by 3 other S.A.I.N.T. robots, who fire on him. Using his ingenuity to quickly improvise various traps, Number 5 manages to capture and disable all three other robots, which he then reprograms before the Nova task force arrives.

Crosby manages to convince Stephanie to let him see Number 5, but at this point, Skroeder and his operatives who were operating under cover at the bar reveal themselves. Number 5 breaks into the bar and rescues Stephanie from Skroeder and his men, their escaped assisted by the 3 other robots, whom Number 5 has programmed to perform a 3 Stooges sketch.

Stephanie is livid at Crosby’s apparent duplicity, but Number 5 is still certain he can demonstrate to Crosby that he is alive. In order to avoid any further intervention from Nova, Number 5 kidnaps Crosby and takes him to where he and Stephanie are hiding out. After an exhausting night together where Number 5 tries to demonstrate his status to Crosby and Crosby tries to prove that it is impossible for Number 5 to be alive, Crosby hits on the idea of telling Number 5 a joke. When Number 5 bursts out laughing at it, Crosby recognises that the robot has emotions and is therefore alive.

Unfortunately, Nova, assisted by the Army, discover their whereabouts and surround them. Crosby tries to talk Marner into examining Number 5, but Skroeder decides to take over and prepares to destroy the van in which Number 5 is hiding. At this point the robot emerges from the van and makes a run for it, only to be destroyed by a rocket fired from a helicopter.

Stephanie is distraught, and Marner is angry that an expensive prototype was destroyed without his authorization. Skroeder is ecstatic, but Marner fires him for acting without authority. Newton Crosby quits in disgust at Marner’s failure to prevent Number 5’s destruction. Crosby and Stephanie leave the scene in Crosby’s van and try to figure out what to do now.

At this point Number 5 emerges from where he was hiding and reveals that the robot that was destroyed was simply a duplicate constructed from spare parts. The movie ends with the group heading to Montana to live out their lives on some land that Crosby’s parents left him.

Short Circuit 2

The props

— Preceding unsigned comment added by PhennPhawcks (talk • contribs) 09:46, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Screenshots

Too many screenshots,some should be removed.--Pixel ;-) 18:14, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Cost

Where does the article get seventeen cents? Blast 16,01,07 0336 (UTC -5)

What do you mean? If you're talking about the .17 at the end of Johnny' 5's purported fictional cost, the number comes straight from Johnny's mouth in Short Circuit 2, where he clarifies his worth after Fred asks Ben why they couldn't just sell him. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.233.183.59 (talk) 11:14, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Plot summary, trivia, etc

I've replaced two very large plot summary sections with references to the movies. I've also removed a large amount of trivia. --Tony Sidaway 22:30, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Image

Wondering if there could be a better shot of what Johnny 5 looks like. It hard to tell in the current picture. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Buzlink (talk • contribs) 19:36, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

What about that one ?

91.164.51.179 (talk) 14:02, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Deletion

I think a merge into Short Circuit would be more appropriate. Since the movie is about the robot (I've never seen it but that's my understanding), merging the robot information into the movie article would solve the Johnny 5 article's lack of third-party citations as well as flesh out the Short Circuit article. Publicly Visible (talk) 15:25, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

There's a lot of plot here, and the SS movies are pretty well fleshed out already. — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 17:58, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I've replaced the {{prod}} twice, but only because all the maintenance templates were removed w/o edit summaries and I've presumed vandalism (warning duly). If somebody does contest the proposed deletion, please feel free to remove that template only (preferably with an edit summary with your input). — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 17:58, 2 July 2008 (UTC)