Talk:The Machine Stops

Similarity to Wikipedia
It seems amazing how similar this story is to Wikipedia. The main character's mother spends her time working on some obscure scholarship, presenting her findings via some synchronized worldwide information system. Isn't this exactly what happens here everyday! --Erik Garrison 06:58, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Not really, unless every single wikipedia editor never did anything else, nobody ever used any information on wikipedia to do anything useful elsewhere, there were no external citations whatsoever, and the wikipedia editors would all literally starve to death if the servers crashed.82.69.126.85 (talk) 14:52, 10 November 2011 (UTC)


 * So basically we'd better hope the servers never crash, huh? 207.32.174.169 (talk) 03:21, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Comic on Mad
One of the earliest issues of Mad magazine has a story of exactly this type of dystopian future. Should it be added to the entry?


 * If you are sure that the Mad story is based on the Forster story, then yes (perhaps under a heading of Derivative works). If not, then put the Mad story in List of dystopian literature. HTH. --Heron 17:34, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Speaking apperatus = instant messenger
I've added a bit about the speaking apperatus, which is significant as it predicts a form of video conferencing 80 years before it invention. and is one of the few sci fi novels to ever predict anything like the internet. I think the speaking apperatus concept needs expanding on more tho. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.30.174 (talk) 14:21, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

THX-1138
I've always thought that THX-1138 was partly based on The Machine Stops; I popped by just out of curiosity and see it's not in the article; I don't know how to cite that, it was ina review read long-long ago when THX-1138 was first out....Skookum1 (talk) 04:48, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Contentious Edits
There was an edit in June 2009 which changed the text from saying that the internet came 70 years after TMS was written, not 60. I have not changed this but I believe that it was written in 1903, but not published till 1909. I cannot however find the source of the test which I downloaded which says that. If anyone can help it would be worth inserting, if only to make the story more remarkable in terms of vision. Care in that when something is written it is not the same as something being published. It may have been written and completed many years earlier. Bvrly (talk) 18:19, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

2009 movie version
As a lark, I plugged "The Machine Stops" into the search at IMDB, expecting to find one of the older adaptions there... and was taken directly to a 2009 movie version. I'm surprised there's no reference to it here. Nomad Of Norad (talk) 22:57, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * On closer inspection, it's not a feature film like I thought it was, but a low-budget short film done as some guy's project. Which explains why it's not mentioned here. Nomad Of Norad (talk) 06:13, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It is considered a short film, and if there are any good secondary sources on the subject, it may be proposed for addition. Viriditas (talk) 11:17, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * There's been no discussion of this, and yet it was added to the page. Frankly, it's a crappy student film that is a) an unfaithful adaptation of the short story that doesn't really touch on it's central themes and b) it's crappy and really doesn't deserve mention here over any other student film that's been made. (These "Freise Brothers" aren't famous, and this ain't no THX-1138.) I propose removing reference to this film from this page. 143.229.251.113 (talk) 05:11, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

2008 movie City of Ember
I'm sorry for not just editing it in the article myself, but I'm not very experienced with wikipedia, so I'll let that to you regulars. =) Anyway, I think that at least a short hint to the movie City of Ember is appropriate here, as it is based upon this shortstory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.144.70.30 (talk) 02:42, 22 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The movie City of Ember is based on the book, and there's no computer or surviving telecommunications of any kind in either... AnonMoos (talk) 00:33, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Link to truncated version of text
The external link "full text" leads to an online version of the story with the ending missing. The link to wikisource, however, leads to the complete text. The link "full text" should either be deleted or replaced by a link to a complete version of the short story (such as wikisource). 91.115.241.78 (talk) 21:51, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks - updated. - SCEhard T 05:14, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Original research
The following content needs secondary sources showing a direct relationship. Viriditas (talk)

Removed content
Similar motifs in Polish science fiction include:
 * Sexmission, a 1984 film by Juliusz Machulski
 * Paradyzja, a 1984 novel by Janusz A. Zajdel

In 1952, the story was adapted and satirized by Harvey Kurtzman and Wally Wood as "Blobs!" in the first issue of Kurtzman's Mad. It goes through several steps of human history, chronicling the rise of machines. They first look at the caveman's machines (brusque clubs designed to knock females out so as to be more suitable to drag to caves), then the machines of the 1950s, such as vacuum cleaners, electric blankets, light bulbs, air conditioning, television, cars, and so on. It then delves into the future — by 2000, most men's offices are masses of machinery; by 20,000, it is "no longer necessary for a man to leave his seat once he sat down to work"; and by 100,000, women are permanently fixed in machines that serve any conceivable purpose. The satire made no mention of Forster's story, yet it retained several key elements of the original, including the machine supplying all human needs, the failure of the machine that repairs and the complete breakdown of the machine (called the "Master Monster Machine" in "Blobs!") in the closing panels.

The 1965 French science fiction film Alphaville directed by Jean-Luc Godard has similar dystopian themes, where the inhabitants of Alphaville are reduced to mindless drones by its omnipotent ruler; a giant computer called 'Alpha 60'. Logan's Run, also borrows heavily from this motif of a society totally under the rules of a computer and system set in motion hundreds of years before the current inhabitants.

The above three involve similar ideas of an isolated artificial habitat with mass deception being perpetrated about the nature and habitability of the outer world. To some extent, these motifs could be read as veiled political metaphors of the "fake reality" in which the citizens of the Eastern Bloc had been forcefully kept by their governments during the Iron Curtain and Cold War era.

The 2008 film WALL-E includes several similar motifs, most notably a human race that has transformed into severely obese individuals, living on soft food and communicating entirely through projection screens. Their every need and comfort is provided by a "machine," in this case an interstellar cruise ship, which is controlled by an autopilot.

Similar themes are also present in the 2006 film Idiocracy, in which a future humanity has become profoundly stupid and ignorant due to a combination of the alleged tendency for the thoughtless and imprudent to outbreed the more intelligent and capable, and also an overabundance of automated and user-friendly devices that make competence and practical knowledge unnecessary in daily life, and hence removing evolutionary barriers to the proliferation of their offspring. By the period depicted in the film, there are signs that the infrastructure that made such a lifestyle viable is falling apart but, in much the same manner of Forster's future humans' failure to realise the implications of the mending apparatus itself being broken, the population are now too stupid either to repair the coddling infrastructure they depend upon or even comprehend the threat its failure poses to their survival.

ORA:CLE
The story reminded me of ORA:CLE, a 1984 novel by Kevin O'Donnell, Jr., but I could not find a direct relation. --Error (talk) 19:07, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

BBC Radio 4 adaptation

 * BBC Radio 4 aired Gregory Norminton's adaptation as a radio play.

The only source I've found for this is Norminton himself, from his old blog, "Infinite Space". Viriditas (talk) 00:49, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Source on parallels with modern technology
The BBC writeup http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-36289890 has discussion of parallels with modern technology... AnonMoos (talk) 13:44, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * These are pretty far-fetched. Reading it recently, the interesting thing is that he was writing (1909) even before the age of broadcasting. So the lectures that Vashti gives are really Victorian drawing room entertainments with a select circle of 'friends' and he has difficulty imagining even a proper television screen though these had already been proposed. To my reading, most of the innovations are derived from H. G. Wells and his contribution is quite bleak: that we would have destroyed the ecosystem and community and be forced to live underground like the Morlocks. Chris55 (talk) 10:58, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Having just looked back at the Time Machine, I realise that Wells' views of the future in that book don't really include much technology at all. So my comments aren't really justified. Chris55 (talk) 11:48, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Obviously Forster couldn't be expected to predict the precise forms that social use of technology would take 107 years after he wrote. Nevertheless, it seems that he did a much better job than some who wrote more recently than he did... AnonMoos (talk) 10:23, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

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Isn't "The Matrix" a derivative ?
As "The Matrix" envisages a future where most humans are subservient to, and dependent on, an intelligent master machine, should it be listed as a derivative work ? Darkman101 (talk) 03:52, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

and Asimov
Part of the plot here is like the Solarian culture in Asimov's Foundation and Earth, several centuries after the Solarians were introduced in The Naked Sun. So go figure! 100.15.127.199 (talk) 02:20, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

"Derivative works"?
I am not sure the works listed are all derivative works according to the definitions I can find: Derivative_work says "In copyright law, a derivative work is an expressive creation that includes major copyrightable elements of an original, previously created first work (the underlying work)."; Sidebar Saturdays says "A derivative work is a new version based on a preexisting work. Common derivative works might be an adaptation, translation (languages or into new mediums), musical arrangement [etc]", Duhaime's Law Dictionary says "Derivative Work Definition: Intellectual property (copyright): a work that builds on, or reassembles, with some degree of originality, existing works."

So I think that "bear multiple similarities" is not sufficient to make it a derivative work, nor does "refers explicitly". I have had a quick listen to The Hawkwind album of the same name, and there are some direct quotes from the story, but only contains a fraction of the words in the story, so I am not sure that is a derivative work either.

One of the definitions says that "an adaptation" is a type of derivative work, and there is already a section called "Adaptations" so there is no need for another section with the basically the same sort of thing.

I think the items in the present section are fine, but with the section having a different title. I am not sure what a better title might be, perhaps "Influences", or "Influenced works ", or "Works inspired"?

FrankSier (talk) 20:19, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
 * After a suitable pause for other people's comments, I have changed section title to "Related works". FrankSier (talk) 17:12, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Is this review acceptable?
I was going to add the the following review extract (from https://readingbug2016.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/book-review-the-machine-stops-by-e-m-forster-1909) "The Reading Bug describes The Machine Stops as 'strangely prescient' and says 'this text is closer to the Victorian science fiction of Wells and Verne than it is of the Bloomsbury authors Forster is commonly associated with.' but goes on to say that 'as a story The Machine Stops is a failure. The two main characters are two-dimensional. The ending is sign-posted in the title, so hardly comes as a surprise. And as social commentary the story is a little preachy. When you compare what Wells was able to do with similar ideas one begins to appreciate how little Forster makes of his unquestionably original insights.'"

...but a caution popped up as this probably not being a suitable website (because of it being a Wordpress website I think).

I was already uncertain about this review as the negative opinion expressed in it seemed to go against what seemed to me the grain of general opinion, and also against my feeling. On the other hand it felt POV to omit something just because of these considerations.

Opinions anyone?

FrankSier (talk) 18:48, 21 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I suspect it depends on the credibility of whoever writes the WordPress blog, and whether it is within their area of expertise? JezGrove (talk) 20:14, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Derogation??
There's a quote from Wired describing the story as "a chilling premonition of the George W. Bush administration's derogation of "the reality-based community". It's an accurate and enlightening quote, but the word "derogation" is (imo) meaningless in the context. I suspect the author meant "denigration" as is used in the reality-based community article. Is it possible to keep the quote but give the phrase some meaning? Chris55 (talk) 18:11, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I've answered my own question. A problem with an online dictionary that only gave one meaning! In my Collins paper dictionary the first definition is given as "to cause to seem inferior or be in dispute; detract" which is quite ok. Chris55 (talk) 18:24, 27 December 2021 (UTC)