The Lawnmower Man (1992)

The story begins with Dr. Lawrence Angelo, a scientist working for Virtual Space Industries, or VSI, who has spent years experimenting with drugs and virtual reality in an attempt to increase intelligence. His research initially involves chimpanzees, including a subject named Rosco that becomes extraordinarily intelligent but also increasingly aggressive after being subjected to military-oriented conditioning. When Rosco escapes and is killed by security personnel,

Angelo becomes determined to continue his work without the violent component. He finds his next experimental subject in Jobe Smith, a socially isolated, intellectually disabled gardener who is regularly mistreated by people around him. Angelo believes that combining brain-stimulating drugs with immersive virtual-reality experiences can unlock Jobe’s potential, and Jobe eagerly agrees because he dreams of becoming intelligent enough that people will no longer take advantage of him. The experiment initially appears to be a remarkable success.

Jobe rapidly learns to read, absorb information and understand concepts that had previously been completely beyond him. His personality changes along with his intelligence, and he becomes increasingly confident, sexually aware and ambitious. Angelo believes he may have discovered a revolutionary method for accelerating human evolution.

The problem is that the organization behind the research has different objectives. A secret government operation known as The Shop wants Angelo’s technology for military purposes, and the original aggressive elements of Project Five are secretly reintroduced into Jobe’s treatment. As Jobe’s intelligence continues to expand, he develops extraordinary abilities including telepathy, telekinesis and the capacity to manipulate people mentally. His transformation ultimately becomes less a story about curing intellectual limitations and more a nightmare about creating a superhuman intelligence that its creator can no longer control.

Jobe’s transformation becomes increasingly sinister. He takes revenge on people who abused or humiliated him, including Father McKeen and others who had treated him cruelly. His fascination with virtual reality also evolves into something approaching religious obsession. Jobe no longer wants merely to become smarter; he wants to transcend his physical body altogether. He envisions becoming a form of pure energy inside the computer system and then spreading through the world’s interconnected computer networks.

His intended “birth” will be announced when every telephone on Earth rings simultaneously. Angelo eventually realizes that the experiment has produced something far beyond his intentions and tries desperately to stop the man he helped create. The climax takes place both physically and inside the film’s elaborate virtual-reality environment. Jobe uploads himself into the VSI computer

system while Angelo attempts to prevent him from escaping into the outside world. Angelo isolates the computer from external networks and prepares to destroy the facility, but he enters the virtual world himself for one final confrontation with Jobe. Jobe overwhelms him, but his remaining attachment to Peter, the young boy who had befriended him before his transformation, ultimately gives Angelo a chance to escape.

acquired the rights to King’s story, but it proved impossible to expand the very short story into a feature-length movie. Leonard and Everett already had a completely different screenplay called Cyber God, centered on virtual reality and human evolution. Allied Vision ultimately combined elements of the King property with the Cyber

God screenplay, producing the movie that became The Lawnmower Man. Consequently, the actual screenplay was essentially an original virtual-reality story with a few elements borrowed from King’s tale. King strongly objected to the connection. The movie was originally promoted as

Stephen King’s The Lawnmower Man, but King argued that it bore virtually no meaningful resemblance to his story. He successfully sued to have his name removed from the advertising and film title, although the battle continued over subsequent home-video releases. This became one of the most famous examples of a film retaining a famous author’s title while having almost nothing to

do with the source material. Only a brief sequence involving a lawnmower killing someone can reasonably be traced to King’s story. The controversy also makes the film unusual because King actually saw and publicly acknowledged that he thought the movie itself was reasonably good; his objection was principally to having his name used to market a movie that he considered essentially unrelated to his work.

Production began on May 28, 1991, and principal photography continued into July. The movie was filmed primarily in Southern California, with locations including Pasadena and Simi Valley, as well as the Brandeis-Bardin Institute in Simi Valley. The Angelo residence was filmed at a large historic house at 1000 Buena Vista Street in South Pasadena.

Carpenter would later become especially famous for his work on James Cameron’s Titanic. One of the movie’s most memorable technical accomplishments was its use of computer-generated imagery to depict Jobe’s increasingly abstract virtual world. The production also used early motion-capture techniques,

including technology that had originally been developed for purposes unrelated to filmmaking. The filmmakers reportedly spent months creating only a relatively small amount of computer-generated footage, illustrating how labor-intensive digital effects were before modern computer-rendering technology became commonplace.

Another fascinating piece of trivia is that the movie exists in substantially different versions. New Line Cinema shortened the theatrical release after preview audiences found the original version too long and complicated. Leonard subsequently restored material for a much longer director’s cut, which ran roughly 140-plus minutes depending on the release. The director’s cut gives considerably more room to the characters, the scientific experiments and the developing relationship between Angelo and Jobe.

Leonard was particularly unhappy with the theatrical editing and later described the director’s cut as putting the story back into the film. The existence of the two versions means that viewers can encounter noticeably different versions of The Lawnmower Man, rather than merely a few minor deleted scenes. The film was also remarkably successful considering its modest budget and unusual subject matter.

It opened in 1,276 theaters and took approximately $7.75 million during its opening weekend, eventually reaching about $32.1 million in domestic theatrical receipts. Its success helped establish virtual reality as a recognizable cinematic concept during a period when the technology itself was beginning to attract enormous public attention. The film’s vision of cyberspace now looks very dated, but that is part of its historical charm.