Welt am Draht (World on a Wire - Part 2)

It's not for me to say how influential Welt am Draht was, but it came out in 1973 with ideas that seem like they were ahead of their time.

Although I don't have an exhaustive knowledge of '60s and '70s sci-fi, I wasn't expecting the film to be in line with late 20th and 21st century shenanigans (it's the earliest example I can think of which showcased such ideas).

It concerns virtual environments within virtual environments with some characters aware of their electronic anatomies, eventually responding with paranoid pride, in relation to fractious fundamentals.

The parallels with Star Trek: The Next Generation's Moriarty holodeck character are striking and it may have been where STNG originally found the idea.

Although contemporaneity suggests that different writers were likely thinking about the same ideas simultaneously, if I understand the concept correctly, finding alternative modes for similar hypotheses which various people were considering at the time.

With Welt am Draht's different virtual environments there's a set up similar to Total Recall as well, where people can virtually live someone else's life to gain surrogate sensation. 

Thus, once again, Philip K. Dick may have provided the framework which another artist then expanded upon in his or her work, his story We Can Dream it for You Wholesale (Total Recall) having appeared in 1966.

Thus, Star Trek's holodeck and Total Recall combine as characters within the dreamscapes become aware of their existence, and then seek knowledge of the world beyond while trying to avoid distressing authorities. 

Where does the dreamscape begin, without origins is there organic life?

Multiple dimensions existing in exponential parallel ethereally linked through electronic spirit?

Conscious and substantially determinate yet existentially star-crossed in manifold chrysalis.

Like on Star Trek: The Next Generation I suppose, in episodes which play with space and time, notably Parallels which sees Worf disrupt the universe on his way home from a bat'leth tournament.

Who's to say who's taken different manifestations of these ideas to their most compelling extremes, but The Matrix did an excellent job, and it looks like they're making another sequel.

The first part of Welt am Draht pulls you in with cryptic offbeat uncanny rhythms, it's cool to watch as Fred Stiller (Klaus Löwitsch) slowly discovers the blueprints of his reality.

The second part doesn't add much but it's a cool drawn out conclusion.

It's fun to watch sci-fi sans special effects.

Love it when technological constraints don't spoil good storytelling.