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Extras:
Deleted, Extended and Behind the scenes, Sea of Perdition short film, Voice of the Moon documentary,
The Early Days: Early Richard Stanley Super 8 Movies, Original Hardware promo
(The Bones of the Earth, Brave, Dust Devil, Europe - 99euro-films 2, Hardware, Incidents in an Expanding Universe, Rites of Passage, Sea of Perdition, The Secret Glory, Vacation, Voice of the Moon, The White Darkness)
Producers:
JoAnne Sellar and Paul Trijbits
Screenplay:
Richard Stanley
(from a short story, "SHOK!", by Steve MacManus and Kevin O'Neill)
Original Score :
Simon Boswell
Cast :
Moses Baxter: Dylan McDermott
Jill: Stacey Travis
Shades: John Lynch
Lincoln Wineberg Jr: William Hootkins
Angry Bob: Iggy Pop
Nomad: Carl McCoy
Alvy: Mark Northover
Vernon: Paul McKenzie
Taxi Driver: Lemmy
Chief: Oscar James
Out in the sticks, or what would pass for the sticks amongst a desolate planet
Moses Baxter (Dylan McDermott) finds and brings home the head of a defective maintenance droid, found out in
the Zone by a Nomad, also known as a Zone Runner, since his better half, Jill (Stacey Travis), makes a living
putting sculptures together and this piece would complete the picture nicely. Big mistake.
The setting for Hardware isn't a dodgy ITV sitcom with cardboard sets and unfunny jokes, but is actually
a post-apocalyptic future world teeming with radiation and this particular type of government project droid,
codenamed Mark 13, never came to fruition because it was deemed to malfunction - and how!
The robot rebuilds itself back into a killing machine, by using spare bits from around the house and topping it off
with the head - just imagine if a cybord head from the
Terminator films could do that. However, it does
take quite a while before it gets to that.
It's difficult to quantify this film because it's great when it's going full-tilt for the last 40 mins, but for the
preceeding 55 mins, my memory of what I saw when it first came out far exceeds what was actually there. Oh, and I'd
also forgotten how gruesomely Eastenders Tony Carpenter (Oscar James) gets offed :)
but I had remembered that there's also an audio cameo from Iggy Pop as radio DJ Angry Bob.
Public Image Ltd: Order Of Death
Hardware is presented in a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen ratio and it's only 19 years old so just why does the print look
as bad as it does in some places? There are flecks on the print early on and it doesn't look particularly fantastic to
start with so it's like someone's forgotten to remaster it. Overall, it just doesn't feel like the kind of quality we
would expect of a Blu-ray disc.
For the record, I'm watching on a Panasonic 37" Plasma screen via a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player.
There's better news from the audio, though.
Although there's no DTS/Dolby Digital soundtracks here, what we have got *is* on top-form, as much as it can, and comes
loud and proud when the robot goes ape, as well as being crisp and clear for dialogue and for everything inbetween,
especially the occasionally gory murder. I also loved the film's theme by Public Image Ltd, "Order Of Death"
(see right) If only the picture could've taken a leaf out of the sound's book.
The extras are as follows and give some spoilers about the film, so make sure you've watched it first:
Deleted, Extended and Behind the scenes (21:10):
3 extended, plus a brief look at a the scene where Lincoln dies and then a rough cut of a deleted scene.
I know at the start of this it states that the quality of the footage source can vary, but they have got to be having a
laugh with the dreadful VHS quality of the first extended scene. The rest weren't miles better, either.
All of them are in letterboxed 1.85:1
The Early Days: Early Richard Stanley Super 8 Movies (54:25):
Does exactly what it says on the tin, with two films - Rites of Passage and Incidents in an Expanding Universe,
the first one of the two running to almost 10 mins. Clearly something for the collector but don't expect high quality
pictures here.
The Voice of the Moon (32:24):
Something else from the director. This time it's an experimental documentary on the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.
Original Hardware Promo (3:32):
It's extended-trailer time, presented in 4:3, with comments from the cast and crew.
This disc has a cool main menu which mixes talking computer with music from the film to have just 12 chapters is
ridiculous and a lack of subtitles doesn't help. The collector of Richard Stanley's work will be pleased to find
all the additional films on this disc, and apparently the full package (which didn't accompany my review check disc)
includes a 26-page booklet of information about the film and some collector's cards. However, the presentation of the
film itself could be better.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Blu-ray: 
Out in the sticks, or what would pass for the sticks amongst a desolate planet
Moses Baxter (Dylan McDermott) finds and brings home the head of a defective maintenance droid, found out in
the Zone by a Nomad, also known as a Zone Runner, since his better half, Jill (Stacey Travis), makes a living
putting sculptures together and this piece would complete the picture nicely. Big mistake.
