Here’s how Oscar Isaac tearing up the dance floor in Alex Garland’s directorial debut spawned the hilarious Irish actor Domhnall Gleeson) – a talented programmer who works for a Google-esque tech company and wins an employee contest to stay with CEO Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac) for one week at his luxurious, ultra-modern home in the isolated wilds of Alaska.
It soon transpires the company contest was a ruse and Nathan hand-picked Caleb to test whether his latest creation – a humanoid AI robot named Ava (Alice Vikander) – is capable of conscious thought. As Ex Machina progresses, Caleb becomes increasingly attracted to the incredibly human-like Ava who shows sentience and self-awareness beyond her programming. It also becomes increasingly clear the hard-drinking Nathan is an egotistical narcissist – to put it mildly. It turns out Ava is the latest in a long line of android and cyborg prototypes (which include his submissive maid Kyoko, played by Sonoya Mizuno) that Nathan mistreats and basically uses as sex toys.
A certain scene in Ex Machina serves as a turning point during which Caleb realizes just how disturbed Nathan is. The scene in question sees Nathan try to deflect Caleb’s concerns by declaring “I’m going to tear up the f***ing dance floor, dude” before performing a seemingly impromptu (but creepily synchronized) disco dance routine with Kyoko to the tune of Oliver Cheatham’s 1983 funk song “Get Down Saturday Night.” It’s a surreal scene that comes out of nowhere and manages to be both comical and jarring. It also inspired the hilarious Ex Machina movie dance meme.
A Twitter going by the handle @oscardances discovered that Oscar Isaac and Sonoyo Mizuno’s Ex Machina dance routine matches up perfectly not only with “Get Down Saturday Night” but a whole host of other songs too. Putting the theory to the test, @oscardances played a range of different songs over the dance sequence – from Smash Mouth’s cover of “I’m A Believer” and the Backstreet Boys’ “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” to Harry Belafonte’s “Jump In The Line” and the Bee Gees disco classic “Stayin’ Alive.”
Unfortunately, @oscardances was suspended due to copyright issues and all of the videos were deleted. Luckily, the Ex Machina lives on through other meme-makers that took a cue from @oscardances and made their own videos demonstrating how versatile Star Wars theme tune.
