Oedipa caught in "The Net"?

[John F. Duda]

Yeah, superficially the plot is the same, but in "The Net", Sandra Bullock's
character really never faced the same kind of psychological dilemna that
Oedipa did.  In "The Net", at first Sandra had no idea there was a vast
conspiracy, like Oedipa, sure, but, unlike the heroine of COL49, Sandra,
almost immediately after the arrival of the little blue mystery disk,
incontrovertible evidence of a malignant conspiracy in the form of the
really slick assasin guy.  Because every indication of conspiracy after this
was directed right at killing/discrediting/annoying Ms. Bullock or her
circle of friends, like the sadly offbeat-referenceless Miller, she never
had the time to muse, like Oedipa, on the alternatives, an imagined
conspiracy, a deliberate mind-fuck, or an imagined mind-fuck.  There never
was a voice, a person, to embody the sinister conspiracy in COL49.  "The
Net" had two, a take on Bill Gates and the aforementioned smooth assasin.
Oedpia spent COL49 looking for the Tristero, while Sandra spent "The Net"
alternately running from or whining about her particular conspiracy, which
apparently only encompassed three people.

And finally, how can you compare COL49, even if it was TRP's least favorite
novel, to a movie in which a character can look at a computer screen going
slightly blurry and instantly pronounce,"It's a virus!  It's infecting your
whole mainframe!"

John Duda