“This is the future…, people translated as data.”
Edison Carter (Matt Frewer) is a television reporter for Network 23. On the trail of a hot story he is pulled by the station with no explanation other than it is from the top. Furious Edison demands a new controller. His new controller is Theora Jones (Amanda Pays). Theora is very good with a computer. Edison smells a rat and believes that Network 23 is part of the corruption. With Theora’s help he infiltrates the network’s headquarters. What he finds is explosive, literally. Edison discovers that the network has created a form of subliminal advertising called ‘blipverts’. Unfortunately the three second commercials have a side effect in some people of making them explode.
Edison’s presence is detected by Network 23’s whiz kid Bryce Lynch (Paul Spurrier). Bryce sends his favorite goons Mahler (George Rossi) and Breugal (Hilton McRae) to do away with Edison. Theora and Bryce engage in a computer war, Bryce trying to impede Edison’s escape and Theora trying to aid it. Edison steals a motorcycle in the building’s garage and is heading out at top speed when Bryce does a tricky override on the garage’s barrier gate. Edison hits the gate at full speed and suffers a serious head wound.
Bryce decides to create a computer generated copy of Edison’s head and download his mind. A blip in his program caused Edison’s download to repeat the words Max Headroom. These are the last words Edison saw when he struck the barrier arm. They were part of a low clearance sign saying ‘Max. Headroom 2.3’, which stands for Maximum Headroom 2.3 meters. Bryce gives Edison to goon one and goon two and tells them to get rid of the body. He also tells them to get rid of the virtual Edison as well. They sell the virtual Edison to a pirate TV station called “Big Time TV”, owner Blank Reg (Morgan Sheppard). Edison goes to an organ donor company. Edison, the human, is not quite dead. He wakes up and escapes. Edison, the computer generated head, is activated by Reg.
The computer generated head, now known as Max Headroom, takes on a life of its own. It generates interest and ends up taking the pirate TV station into the big time, literally. Edison and Theora plan a takedown of Network 23.
“Max Headroom: Twenty Minutes Into the Future” was released in 1985 and was directed by Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton. It is a short, about 57 minutes, science fiction/cyberpunk made for TV movie. Max Headroom was a concept way ahead of its time. It’s like “Blade Runner” 1982 meets a snarky “Short Circuit” 1986, but easier to understand. The only drawback is that Max doesn’t fully show up until at least 45 minutes into the movie and then he doesn’t get to do much. There is supposedly an extended version also done by the British that includes more Max dialogue and excerpts from the music video show. I haven’t been able to find it though.
The movie is fast paced, dark and a kind of a post capitalistic, apocalyptic view. The future is a dystopian society where life means nothing, but ratings do. The scenes of Edison escaping from the goon squad show a depressing potential that could very well happen twenty minutes into the future. In with this dismal view of life comes Max, an unlikely hero who’s sharp witted and intelligent humor is disarming at first, but Max is computer generated and therefore not subject to reality’s constraints. He can go anywhere and wreak as much havoc as pleases him.
Originally Max Headroom was a computer generated TV host created for a music video program, for Britain’s channel four. A talking head so to speak. The movie was created by Chrysalis Visual Programming Ltd. to provide a back story for the Max Headroom character. At the time Chrysalis Visual Programming also owned Chrysalis Records.
The movie was subsequently used as a pilot for a 1987 American television series, with some changes for American audiences. Apparently American’s don’t speak British. The American TV series “Max Headroom” was released in 1987, on ABC, and lasted for fourteen shows. As far as I know it has only been released on VHS in Britain and the US in 1986. The only DVD release was in Japan in 2005 as region 2. The American TV series is available on DVD by Shout Factory.
In 2007 Max was used in a series of ads for Channel four’s “get set for digital” campaign. I’ve also seen some Coke commercials done in 1987 with Max as well as some interviews by late night hosts and some interviews that Max did. I found one where Max interviews William Shatner.