I love analyzing how computers work in movies.  Someone on the production staff must know something about computers to get the fake systems to appear operational, but at some point during the process the desire for flashy technology overrides that real-world knowledge.

National Treasure using Wikipedia

I started watching National Treasure: Book of Secrets this afternoon.  If the first film is any indication, this promises a wealth of unlikely technological behavior.

Already I had to pause the movie only 30 minutes in when Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) started looking up historical names in an online database branded “Find On-Line.”

In the first split second of screen exposure you should recognize the fonts and proportions of Wikipedia.  An image is floated right, and the familiar Monobook navigation menu is on the right.  In the remaining second or two you see the image, you might also notice the unusually high concentration of links in the text, and maybe even the way the first line is indented (à la “Queen Victoria redirects here.  For other uses…”).

Finally, let’s take a moment to reflect that although Riley is using a MacBook, he appears to be running applications that borrow heavily from both Windows and Linux.