Ever since work bought my first ThinkPad, I have had an obsession with them just like most people on these forums.

One thing I catch myself doing is spotting ThinkPads in the wild, whether I am watching a TV show, movie, walking around campus, etc...

Here are some of the TV shows/movies I've seen the ThinkPad in:

Law and Order: Special Victims Unit
Law and Order: Criminal Intent
Clueless (don't ask -- it came on yesterday and when glancing at the screen, I noticed at least 10 ThinkPads)
GameTap.com TV advertisement

What TV shows, movies, etc have you seen the ThinkPad star in?

i stared at that thing and i swear i didn't see a thinkpad!

I think there is a disproportionate amount of Mac's on TV show's. Pretty sure it is a conspiricy by the hollywood elite against PC's.

I'm always looking at the model of laptops in show's and movies, i watch a lot of documentary type scientific stuff (PBS) and see those type of folks using thinkpads a lot.

I think I saw one or two in the Lenovo commericals, but not too sure.



But I see them all the time, mostly in the more "serious" TV shows and countless movies.

I know one appeared in an early Mission Impossible movie and I know the early Pierce Bronson-era Bond movies, such as Goldeneye, has the Butterfly. You do have to look for them, however, in such movies given that they are "stealth" black.

Seriously, you don't notice them unless you look closely or play back the scene a few times.

There is a 701c site I bookmarked under EE at LBL that listed the movies that Thinkpads have appeared in. I do also think that several 600s and 770s made appearances there, but it is very tricky to pin them down.

IRT Mac's in popular television; more of a design choice than anything else given that the major decision people go by is that they look nice (The iCandy Effect) and are, hence, asethetically appealing in most well lit studios and sets for upbeat sitcoms. A Thinkpad would stand out and, if conditions were right and given the "talent" that are in most shows nowadays, steal the show.

It comes down to dollars and cents.

Jobs has always been more generous with "donating" computers to Hollywood than any of the other manufacturers, particularly IBM.

James

Take a look at Legally blonde (Reese Witherspoon)... There is a scene at a Law's class where everybody uses thinkpads!!! however as a critique to its conventional style, Reese's character ends buying a pink notebook! (it seems to me it's an apple.... one point more to generous Stephen... )

I just finished watching a marathon of weeds on showtime...with a mac blatantly displayed..

I saw some ThinkPad's on TV. I saw one of them on a TV commercial and it was a T4* and I saw a lot of ThinkPad's one time when I was watching Storm Stories on The Weather Channel. (I was jumping up and down when I saw the ThinkPad's on TV .)

It seems like whenever you see a ThinkPad in a movie or TV show, it is used by the villain (or at least the opposite number of the hero), while the "hero" will be using an Apple.

Case in point... "You've Got Mail" with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. She clearly uses a Mac while he uses a ThinkPad.

Ahh -- For some reason I thought I was watching Clueless but it was really Legally Blond like you mentioned... they had TONS of ThinkPads in that movie.

I agree -- I think Mac's are more of a design choice. And just like you mentioned, they are usually very noticeable and in very lit areas.

Usually when ThinkPads are used in shows, they are more "hidden" or in the background.



I also think you nailed it on the head


I could have sworn it was the commercial for GameTap but it might have been one of those other monthly game websites... It was the commercial with the man standing next to the desk with the ThinkPad on the table (I think I remember seeing the ThinkPad when he was talking about "having an Internet ready PC"

Yeah, I've always pictured Darth Vader using a Thinkpad, wereas Macs are more of an Ewok affair

That's part of what makes Thinkpads so appealing to me really. They are dark, stealthy, and mean (in the same sense that an overcharged black Pontiac TransAm is mean roaring its engine, waiting for the light to turn green.)

Or like a B1 bomber.

B2 is more stealth, but the radar cross sections of a B-1 Bomber either flying off the deck or in a tight pattern is quite small in comparision to the actual size of the aircraft given its wasp-ish like blended fuselage.

Yeah, I was just about to say I could see Darth Vader using a Thinkpad; then I thought about Ewoks, then I realized that I really hate Ewoks, so I would pretty much choose to be Darth Vader because, you know, black armour, Thinkpad, Lightsaber and all.

lol...what the hell is that!?

Mark Foley at Halloween!

Independence Day!

But that was a movie computer....

I really don't quite know what exactly that is, per se; I am, however, assured that it is technically legal in the countries in which it was filmed of course. It comes from Caravan of Courage, a movie about Ewoks and little Kids and something vaguely related to Star Wars (and not to greed at all, no way).

That was twisted!

Glad you appreciated it Dan.

Must be too subtle for the rest of the denizens......

James

Au contraire, my good friend...The first thing I thought when I looked at that was, after the initial shock, pretty much along the lines of what Foley is up to his eyeballs in now.

You really can't unseat that lingering, and quite disturbing, sense of *eagerness* by the Ewok now can you? The rapidly stroking right hand, the expression on the face of the Ewok, the expression of innocence on the kid's face. All of these factors combine to give you an exquisite sense of "W.T.F?"

Along those lines, thanks for getting that aspect of the image *stuck in my head* again, as if having it stuck in my head for the majority of 6 months after my friend, who is also named James, emailed just that image to me the first time was just *soz* peachy. I appreciate having to now actively think of something else just to block it out as opposed to being in blissful ignorance of that for, oh, 2 months.

You know what they say though, It's a smalll world afffter alllll!

James,



James, you have soared to a new low altitude . He resigned! It's over...that was a good one though.

Could be worse.........

Could have been goatse!

James

My exact thoughts. Which is a clear signal of how much the media, by publicizing all sorts of macabre perversions, has corrupted our innocence. I know some parents block channels of their TV, mostly the ones that carry movies or series with sex or violence. I'd say however that blocking all news channels from your kids' eyes might be a much more productive endeavor.

Thumbs up to that!

Really, however, the first thought that I had when I saw pictures of the T21 in CNet back in the day was: Man, that looks wicked, sort of like a stealth bomber or an Imperial starship.

Tell that to the Dems!

Just saw a t4x on the Daily Show, I believe it was the one about a person being acused of having the same middle name as Saddam Hussein

Mike and Mike on ESPN2 (sports talk show) did their show from the New York studios on Friday. They both had ThinkPads in front of them very prominently, appeared to be T4x models. Couldn't miss the Thinkpad logos.

I can't remember which one it was but I remember seeing a T2x series ThinkPad on one of the episodes in my Apprentice First Season box set. I also remember seeing Pat use a ThinkPad on the Screensavers before TechTV was bought by Comcast, relabeled G4 and shot down the crapper.