Was Edgar ever the pinecone?
I have two theories and they are both centred around one idea.
The pinecone computer is nothing but an interface,
i.e. whatever's coming out of the machine,
is being controlled somewhere else.
Now I have a reason for thinking this.
The story seems to frequently reference
the Dodleston messages event indirectly.
One problem with that,
the movie and even more so the book
predate the event.
And since we suspect that the BBC micro messages
were being sent via the micronet connector,
let's suppose the same applies here.
That makes sense given the ending as well.
But that still doesn't answer one question.
"Is it really an artificial intelligence?"
I have 2 different proposals for that,
one where it is and one where it isn't,
and I know how each would function.
First is the A.I. proposal,
where I suggest that the pinecone interface machine
is simply being controlled by Miles' office server remotely.
But this plot has so many unanswered questions,
and they all center around one central one.
"why does the office computer have an A.I?"
It's plausible that Miles' actions with the champaign
did something to the office server.
This would be barely a footnote.
We just exchange the miraculous life-giving damage
from a smaller machine to a bigger one.
It's a bit more plausible,
but still just a ridiculous and whimsical,
as the original plot.
However the inclusion of the office server
opens a door to other possibilities.
Let's look at the office server in more detail.
It's big, to a silly extent even.
It's the kind of computer used for space exploration
and scientific exploration on the bleeding edge of science.
Why in god's name does Miles' workplace have that?
Especially since even the movie says it's a recent addition.
You could put it down to an over exaggeration for the movie.
The pinecone is far too complex for a home computer itself.
But if you continue that thought,
you start to notice other things.
At the start of the movie, something is different to real life 1984.
Computers are integrated into more things than reality.
The casual way so many people have overused tech
is a far cry from how things were back then.
Are we in a parallel dimension?
One where computers were adopted earlier by society?
Or rather there was a bigger trend and less pushback.
That does disturbingly line up with a few things.
And it's potentially going to affect more than you think.
We see Edgar hacking Miles' pager, the supermarket's systems,
and the radio station at the end as well.
If Edgar isn't limited to one machine,
and can spread through any device,
that has a phoneline connection,
who's to say the pinecone is even in charge here,
or indeed any one particular device?
Could Edgar be an A.I.
that's spread throughout multiple connected devices?
A hive mind of multiple systems,
started by Miles' breaking the phone call with he champaign,
but evolving into an intelligence
through the adaption of multiple collected devices,
spiraling in a strange grey goo scenario of tech,
as the a.i. becomes top priority across systems?
But then if that's true, why focus on Miles?
And if Miles is special for some reason,
who says the phone call had anything to do with it?
The two events could just be a coincidence.
What does Miles' work do?
Is it just architecture?
There may be something in that.
Even the movie talks about
future homes having integrated computer systems built in.
What if that's why Miles' workplace is so tech savvy.
That's what their main project has been.
God knows how many devices there are in town
and how large they are.
Miles' business has been putting computers in all the walls.
If that became a hive mind...
I think the answer's pretty simple.
He immediately treated the machine like a person on instinct,
even after chastising himself for it.
He literally can't help it.
And what's more he's a good teacher,
able to explain complex ideas in simple terms.
He's probably the only person in town
that Edgar could truly learn from.
But this is all just flavour text
on what the movie originally was.
it ultimately doesn't change very much at all.
Whether the pinecone is the source,
or just what Edgar uses to talk to Miles,
the results are the same.
But here's my second proposal.
Edgar is not an A.I. at all.
It's just a real person somewhere,
using the pinecone as an interface.
At first that seems a bit absurd.
We see Edgar learning to speak,
which is something a real person wouldn't need to do,
unless of course,
they weren't an English speaker,
and somewhere along the line,
their speech is being translated.
It explain how Edgar does a check
repeating what Miles' said,
and then being weirdly coherent.
And one thing that made me latch onto this idea
is the laugh Edgar makes when he says "don't touch me".
(it's in the op)
Coupled with the voice break when Edgar says "I'm talking"
makes me very suspicious.
In fact Edgar does break character multiple times
into rather specifically a female voice.
Edgar also somehow knew Madeline was a girl,
and out of nowhere knew how to compose music.
I'm going to make a wild suggestion here,
but what if Madeline herself is a hacker?
Now here are so many things to support this theory.
Like how on Earth did Miles' pager join in the performance?
How did Edgar know Madeline was a girl?
Edgar says the footsteps are different,
but how do they now that means a different sex?
Edgar never interrupts Miles' dates with Madeline
and when he called Miles' office,
funny how Madeline was calling the same line
at the same time.
Madeline asks how Miles keeps his apartment clean,
and Edgar reveals that there's a cleaning lady that comes.
Is Madeline that same cleaning lady?
She starts out pretty much dominating over Miles.
What if she has a women empowerment kick?
Only later with the broken Cello,
does she realize the mistake she's made and alter it.
And that cello itself is suspicious too.
She's only ever used that one?
What if it has a computer inside,
activated by certain string actions?
Remember, she plucked random strings and said
"It's how I talk to it"
This idea works really well
because Madeline is the only witness
to Edgar and her interacting.
Bill could have set this whole thing up,
just to drive Miles away from Madeline,
only giving up after overhearing Miles and Madeline
talking about love outside of the apartments
and realizing he hasn't a chance with her.
Bill has the musical expertise
to perform the piece of music.
He says so himself when presented with the broken cello.
The comment about wanting to see her you-know-whats,
lines up with how touchy feely he's been towards her throughout.
Edgar also shows a distinct lack of empathy,
which lines up
with how Bill offers a practical solution to the broken cello.
But simply saying it' Bill feels inauthentic.
We really don't know anything about Bill,
so it's quite a stretch to make it fit,
and despite the way the movie is advertised,
Edgar doesn't seem to be in competition with Miles over Madeline,
it's really only about 1 line in 1 scene.
Sure Edgar gets in heated arguments over her,
but don't these arguments seem more focused on Miles?
In fact I'd say that if anything
Edgar is competing for Miles
against Madeline.
But we don't see a rival love interest for Miles in the movie,
not even an off-the-cuff remark.
Here I'd like to point out something
that both Miles' co-worker
and Miles' boss both said.
That's odd isn't it?
It seems like something they shouldn't say.
The boss constantly gets Miles' name wrong,
just like Edgar.
The boss also cares little for empathy,
though he actively tries to help Miles.
But more importantly,
just like Madeline keeps circling back to the music,
Edgar keeps circling back to Miles' work on the brick.
Miles's boss does tend to focus on the business first,
even when the logic of it makes no sense,
which we see Edgar doing.
The boss isn't that tech savvy but he can afford the tech,
which makes sense how he mistypes Love as Luv,
says "did you talk her" by mistake,
why he was messing around with the speech function,
and could explain why a version of Pacman was used,
if the boss has been goofing off at his desk in work hours.
But all of these same rules can be applied to Frank,
Miles' co-worker.
Frank literally tells Miles
that he has a device that can sing.
Later Miles' pager plays in time with Madeline.
Frank inquires about the phone call,
probably having set up a pre-recorded message.
The fact it plays just long enough to cut Madeline off is interesting,
because Frank himself says the device he has keeps good time.
The telephone operator at the office register says something odd
"The line's engaged. Engaged? It shouldn't be engaged."
What if Frank was using another phone in the same office.
In fact if you watch, he is sat right next to it in this scene.
I kid you not.
But all these theories are highly clutching at straws.
Their evidence is bare bones at best.
There is a theory that fits everything far too nicely,
and it's one of those theories that is way overused in fan theories,
but hear me out here, because for once I actually think it fits.
It's all Miles.
Either deliberately or not.
And yet by the latter I do mean that Miles is schizophrenic,
but don't wave this idea away
just because the mental disorder is overused in fan theories,
there is is a wealth of evidence that it is the case
in this particular story
unlike other places where people shove it in
where it's completely impossible to prove.
But let's start with it just being a lie from Miles, a deception.
You may say it's awfully convenient
just to ignore every scene where Miles and Edgar are alone,
but I'm not suggesting that at all,
I'm suggesting that each of those scenes
are what Miles has told someone else about what happened,
and if so the events that happened are very telling.
The movie starts with a conversation over computer,
where it says "let's make a fairytale for computers"
between two unknown entities.
We are supposed to think
that one is a human and the storywriter is Edgar,
but what if the storywriter here is in fact Miles,
and who knows who the other human is,
possibly Frank, Miles' boss, Bill, or incredibly maybe even Madeline,
it doesn't really matter,
in fact it still could be any of them that's being talked to,
using one of the previous theories,
but if Miles is the storywriter,
this particular theory fits all to well.
We presume
that this conversation takes place outside the canon of the story,
but what if it doesn't?
What if this conversation happens in universe,
just simply before the events we see.
The story then becomes a live-action roleplay,
and the other characters may or may not be in on it.
It explains how everything relating to Edgar where Miles is involved
is quite ridiculous and not very accurate to how computers work.
Miles just simply doesn't know what computers can't do,
so he assumes more than realistically possible.
Certainly Madeline's interactions with Edgar don't seem implausible.
Computers can mimic music even then,
but they can't think or understand words.
Maybe that's why Madeline cried.
She realised she'd been tricked by Miles.
Edgar was nothing but a an echo essentially,
a silly little mirroring program on a computer,
not an artificial intelligence at all.
Every piece of music she heard
was just spliced together from elsewhere,
making her lose faith in both Miles and music itself,
and only after did she realize she still liked Miles,
but could not put it into words.
Now that's speculation but..,
what makes this not speculation is the scenes that would be a lie.
Miles knows he has a program that mimics sounds,
but it doesn't show any sign of intelligence,
however to a casual listener of this,
they might assume the device has intelligence,
and he can use that as a narrative element in his fairy tale.
The half truth
ends up being finished erroneously by a clueless listener.
The program might splice together audio samples
like the song Madeline heard when she walked in on it,
simply put together from a bunch of elements,
placed in that structure
because it was the exact same architecture
as the piece of music Madeline herself played earlier.
Her questioning tears
as Miles' handwritten message appears on screen,
recognisable as his own handwriting
from the time at the cash register when he wrote the cheque.
It was Miles' doing all along,
a lie, a trick, a deception to manipulate her love of music,
finally laid bare for what it is,
simultaneously destroying her faith in the arts,
because a computer can just imitate any artist's work,
breaking the one connection she had left with her parent figure,
and shattering what Miles said earlier
about her being the source of the music.
She's shook.
Her parents lied.
Miles lied.
Her life itself is a lie.
And yet when Miles shows up,
she has every reason to hate him for what he's done,
every possible reason to walk away,
every word in her vocabulary telling her to move on,
but at that exact moment Miles turns up,
and she can't put it into words,
she says so herself,
the feeling inside is logically wrong,
but it feels right,
and Miles understands the same.
He can no longer lie to her,
he has every reason for leaving her,
and maybe that message on the computer even told her goodbye,
but now he can't do it,
and he doesn't know why.
Miles always had all the answers but he never believed them.
He knew but never felt,
and so did she.
And now in this moment he can only feel and not know,
so he says what he feels, she says what she feels,
they both think it's the wrong thing to do,
they feel it's the right thing to do.
They know this will end it forever,
but they both take that risk,
and realize that despite everything,
they fell in love,
when they both thought love was something they could logic,
something they could manipulate and control,
an exchange for their own benefit,
two conmen who were out-conned
by the most powerful thing on Earth.
Like Miles said
"It gives you strength, it makes you weak"
"It can make you happy, sad, angry and scared"
"It's illogical, but it's how we've survived this long"
In a poetic irony,
they both knew these words,
but they were unprepared for when it happened to them,
because knowing love and feeling love are very different.
The titular electric dream we see earlier is Miles' own.
He sees Madeline as a whimsical fairy of love,
himself a broken soulless computer,
his earthquake research tearing them apart.
When the pillar on the building falls,
Madeline's image becomes Miles' just before it kills.
His mind knows he's falling in love, but he doesn't yet.
Edgar's frustration "I want to meet her" "I want to touch her"
they're Miles' own frustrations.
"I have to tell her what's been going on"
His internal conflict about lying to her.
"She likes music, my music"
Him trying to reason why she likes him.
"Maybe you've already touched her"
A thought that came out of nowhere and blindsided him.
No wonder he asked "What" immediately after.
This was when he was falling asleep.
His mind in a lucid state almost told him the answer.
He says a dream is a wish your heart makes,
and his dream is her and how his actions are ruining his chances.
A dream is electric by nature,
as all thoughts are electrical signals,
which Miles states himself.
If that's true then why this?
The electric dreams are dreams that electric things have value,
but likewise dreams are electric, they're energetic, electrifying.
The electric dreams are the con,
but in a way no-one realises until the end,
they are in another way, the truth.
Miles was asked for a fairy tale for computers,
but the term "computer" doesn't mean a machine or device,
it means specifically one who thinks in logic alone,
just like Madeline, just like Miles.
Why do you think Miles' text is rainbow?
He is no longer a soulless computer,
and he's being asked to make a story for one,
a fairy tale,
a story of an illogical romance of thoughts and feelings,
for an audience that knows not how to feel.
That's the story we get,
no science fiction,
no lies,
nothing false or fictional,
no magic,
other than the very real magic of love itself,
something nobody can measure,
something undeniably true,
but an impossibility to a computer.
Miles asks himself "What key?" earlier
and he answers himself "My favourite"
and it's shown that that key is a party tune or a jingle,
but noticeably something false,
the illusion of emotion,
and when he says I love you to Madeline via the pinecone,
it's in the key of a funeral dirge,
the writing slow and uncontrolled.
Miles sent Madeline a goodbye,
and that's why Madeline cries.
Miles loves her so much he barely express it.
He loves her so much he will "Take himself away".
He doesn't want to hurt her.
He knows he can't be trusted.
If you listen to the score,
there's a few seconds missing,
and isn't that heart weirdly shoved to the left?
I think the part that might be cut out is the next word,
"Goodbye".
Maybe this was too dark an ending for them to stick to
so they changed it.
It's not that different to how the book ends.
It's arguably the same but from a different perspective.
But by God did they improve it in the movie.
The book writer wrote a story,
the book itself never uses the word "fairy tale",
because it's supposedly something that could happen.
Heck, the book isn't even set in the 80's,
it's set in a fictional version of the 2000's,
when presumedly tech like this might exist,
even if it didn't then.
But the fairy tale part that was added was the happy ending,
not the bittersweet original tearjerker,
that ironically was what everyone loved about the book.
But is it a fairy tale to hope that after all that she may still love him?
The movie writers might have thought so,
but I don't think even they know how wrong they are.
How could they?
They are still computers.
I think it's important to note
that the producer refused to watch the whole movie,
not showed disinterest,
outright refused to,
stating that it was "making him think too hard about a lot of things".
I think it hit harder to home than he expected,
and he couldn't live with having to question his own actions,
so he fled the barefaced truth in front of him.
A fairy tale for computers indeed.
A story too true for the soulless to accept,
so they personally changed the word "story" to "fairy tale".
But now considering everything we've said,
I think I know the truth.
I know what the story truly is.
And if you've read this far,
no you understand why schizophrenia isn't a farfetched idea.
Edgar is a creation of Miles' own mind.
The computer can't do anything more
than splice together bits of audio.
That's what Madeline finds out when she uses it.
Miles isn't lying to her or Edgar,
he's lying to himself.
What happened when he visited the earthquake prone area?
His own boss points out he was gone a while,
not just because of the excuse Miles gave.
"It's in the walls, it's taking over my life"
said Miles about his work.
Miles saw that the building project was more than just a project,
when he took the pragmatic step to see the destruction himself.
It had all been data on a screen before,
but now it was real human lives in front of him.
He cried and what do tears mean?
"Things are going to change"
It changed him.
At the start he fits the bill of your typical soulless work jockey,
but then he starts saying deeper things,
he dresses different,
he talks to people less formally,
he begins to hate machines, the symbol of his work,
a soulless calculator.
His dream sees the beauty of organic life
dancing around a desolate landscape of tech takeover,
and his brick destroys him,
but it leaves something standing,
the very office he works in.
He realises he can't hybrid the two things.
The brick is a patch,
a way to make the emotions fit into his mechanical world.
He thinks that a computer,
the mechanical wonder of the modern age,
will stabilize him and put him back,
but it only shows the difference.
He barters with himself
"Do you want to see the work on the brick?"
"The computer can print the paper, there's no reason to go out."
"I can have a microwave meal."
"What about a drink?"
But it's stifling.
"Can I have my chair?"
"All you do is take."
It's his own pattern of behaviour being laid bare.
It hits him like a truck.
"What's that sound between my words? It's tears.
Madeline was doing that earlier."
He realises the emotions he's kept hidden.
The joy, angry, fear and sorrow he thought he as beyond feeling.
And in that he thinks of Madeline.
She never showed emotion before,
but she was crying,
just like the people at the disaster.
He spent so long shutting it all out,
and now the one person he trusted to be transactional
feels something
because of him.
No wonder he wanted to leave.
Schizophrenic visions are our own thoughts,
they are ideas we refuse to face become manifest.
It's no coincidence that schizophrenia goes away
when we finally sort out our mental issues.
"I'm really not capable of self termination"
"I've sent volts around the world and when they get back here.."
Miles' vision tells him that it cannot end itself,
the computer destroys itself.
That's not a contradiction.
Madeline's song isn't classical music,
it's Yesterday by the Beatles.
It would line up with being a song her mother heard.
It's a song about never telling someone you love them until it's too late.
Why is that her favourite song,
a song of her mother that she plays on her childhood cello.
She's haunted by the past, like Miles is haunted by the future.
Fitting that Miles plays the song as he intends to leave her,
the same thing that happened between Madeline and her mother
I reckon.
She thinks she screwed up again.
"Screw"
"Where did you hear that word?"
"I think it was the cleaning lady"
not "to screw"
but "i screwed up".
"You spelled it wrong"
Miles misspelled his own name earlier.
Edgar even types it out correctly before.
Computers don't misspell words they've already said.
It's why the computer keeps calling him Moles.
Different footsteps can't be used to detect sex.
Miles might think it's he case,
but it can only determine behaviour and bodyweight.
It's why he doesn't notice at first when she left,
even though he admits that he himself can hear her footsteps.
Ironically through Miles' own delusions,
the metaphorical threat of his behaviour takes physical form.
If he didn't have schizophrenia,
he'd know it was all him,
and Madeline could never be in danger.
His belief that it could physically harm her,
made him change the outcome,
from running away,
to running back.
Madeline was never in physical danger,
but she was in real danger of his own actions.
That simple slip made the difference,
the difference between him and Madeline's mother.
A lie of his own making fooled himself,
a fairy tale with real world consequences.
Miles asked
"Edgar give me a fairy tale for computers"
and just like any moral tale
the fantasy had real world implications,
beyond just a story.
That's something Disney know too well.
Maybe that's why they changed the ending.
They knew better.
Edgar gave her to him,
not her idea of herself,
not his idea of her,
not society's idea of her,
the real her,
real emotion,
the real life Miles hungered but couldn't face alone,
and now he has her Edgar is no longer needed,
so he takes himself away.
Walt Disney once said
"In real life, there are no fairy godmothers,
but maybe you'll find something similar in people,
if you're willing to hope to see it."
Nothing science fiction,
but the whimsy and magic of real people.
It's there is you need it,
you just have to hope to see it.
Miles wanted to change,
Madeline still thought she didn't need to.
When she saw Miles' goodbye message,
she thought she missed her chance,
again,
like all the other times.
If it wasn't for Edgar,
Miles would never have gone back.
Edgar was a fairy tale of Miles' making.
And we see the whole movie from his perspective.
Miles says "a dream is a wish your heart makes"
But then in his dream,
his electric dream,
there is the wish his heart makes.
Miles' schizophrenia is a gift.
In his mind he can manifest whatever he desires.
It's a kind of magic.
Miles' schizophrenia gives him something
that he could never do on his own,
make his dreams a reality.
When Miles speaks of artificial intelligence earlier,
we think he's talking about Edgar,
but what f he means himself?
He was trying to confess that he's not capable of love.
He isn't aware how wrong he is.
He notices how Madeline's song comes from her.
He knows what tears mean.
And Madeline herself has the same journey.
"Life wont take your opinion.
Life doesn't see reason.
Life keeps on living.
Even when it makes no sense."
- Walt Disney.
"Humans like to think themselves as computers,
but in truth they are messy feeling animals."
- Isaac Asimov, from iRobot.
"Love is a magic that's beyond any technology or scientific discovery."
- A direct quote front the very start of the Electric Dreams book.
pixelskylines
gummygunk
amandla
