Do you remember hacking The Gibson? How about that place where you put that thing that time? Last week, the film Hackers turned fifteen years old. Now normally, when a film turns fifteen years old (or more often ten years old) it gets some sort of special treatment with a re-release containing no less than three discs in some collectible tin case with little extras wrapped up in the package. With Hackers, this isn’t the case. The film isn’t even available on Blu-ray yet.

Now, while many people might brush this film under the carpet as a loose end of the 90’s, there still exists a small group fanatics that watch the movie over and over again celebrating it yearly. Who are these fanatics? You might be surprised to know that the people who keep this movie alive are probably the people who dislike it the most: hackers. Yep, above it all, people involved in the computer industry love this movie. It’s campy, it’s nostalgic, and it’s downright entertaining.

Despite this, there are many people involved in hacking culture that find this movie damaging. Not only does it perpetuate the use of the word “hacker” to mean someone who breaks into computer systems to cause chaos, but also detracts from the image with the almost “too hip” feeling of the movie. Personally, I’m a fan of the movie due to the fact that I find it to be very interesting. It plays into the fear of technology and provides something of a time capsule for the mid 1990s. There is humor around every corner of this movie if you know where to look.

Despite this movie being forgotten by film companies, many still strive to keep it alive. For example, Infonomicon released the Hackers on Hackers commentary a few years back. The commentary itself is both informative and comparable to MST3K. There is also a planned anniversary party for those die-hard fans out there slated for next week in NYC.

Who knows if Hackers will ever get a proper DVD or Blu-ray release (Criterion, here’s hoping) but as long as there is one DVD or worn VHS tape, this film will continue to live on at hackerspaces and file sharing networks. Copying a garbage file has never been so interesting.