Short Circuit 2: Encyclopedia II - Short Circuit 2 - Plot

Short Circuit 2 - Plot

Ben Jahrvi has moved to New York City, and is trying to assemble and sell miniature Johnny 5 toy robots, with his friend and partner, (also con-man) Fred Ritter.

In a huge stroke of luck one of his little toys is discovered by floundering toy marketer/maker Sandy Banatoni. Sandy loves the tiny Johnny 5's and is in fairly desperate need of something new to offer to her boss, thus she places a single order for one thousand of them, with a delivery deadline. Ben and Fred have no way of assembling that many in time, even with plenty of temps to help.

Fortunately, the real Johnny 5 then happens to arrives in a large crate from Montana (where he has been staying since the end of the first film). He notices the schematics and parts for the toys laying in the open and takes it upon himself, thanks to his enormous curiosity (hasn't changed since first film) to see what the end product of all these parts and instructions is, and goes to work at blurring speed. He is done in a few short seconds, which is many orders of magnitude faster than any human is capable of, and is pleased to find it is his very likeness. Johnny then gladly agrees to help his old friend by manufacturing the entire order, which he can do easily within the time before the deadline.

Life is very much looking up for the three until a small gang of would-be diamond-thieves (led by Oscar Baldwin) show up on the scene. Oscar (the only one to show himself to any of the protagonists), under a simple ruse, then very easily befriends and gains the total trust of the child-like Johnny. Once this is accomplished, he requests a favor of Johnny who is all too quick and happy to oblige. Johnny is almost ecstatic to help a friend in work that gives him purpose. The task, which is a joyful-breeze for Johnny: dig a tunnel under an adjacent city street. This tunnel will lead to an underground safe-deposit-box vault. The vault is part of a bank that is across the street from the warehouse that Fred and Ben have been working (and living) within. The bank is the thieves' target because it contains a certain box which holds a renowned and valuable collection of many large diamonds.

Meanwhile, Ben and Fred have been locked in a Chinese restaurant's freezer for uncovering the criminal plot and must rely on Sandy to find them through hints they are able to send her in the form of "music" they send to her answering machine in the form of number tones entered into the phone line.

Once Johnny outlives his usefulness to the thieves (tunnel-digging through bedrock/etc, cutting a door into the vault's wall through roughly 8 inches (200 mm) of alloyed-steel and picking the locks of the safe deposit box and metal briefcase housing the collection), they severely beat him and leave him for "dead". Johnny manages to save his own life by practically crawling till he can get his only good hand on two automobile batteries he borrows.

Jahrvi and Ritter manage to lead Sandy to free them from their freezer-prison. After "thawing out" they split up to desperately search for Johnny in the blocks of inner New York surrounding their warehouse. Fred finds Johnny, who is in horrendous condition and leaking massive amounts of battery fluid. Johnny can no longer speak but manages to tell Fred, by scratching words on a brick wall in the alley in which they meet that he needs Fred to enact immediate repairs in a very nearby Radio Shack which Johnny points out.

Inside, Johnny painstakingly leads Fred through his own repair by typing instructions, one-handed, on a Radio Shack computer that Johnny uses as a simple terminal. As soon as he is functional enough for action (though far from operating nominally and, much more importantly, still running on nothing but the quickly expiring car batteries), Johnny sets out for justice. Johnny heroically, with minuscule help from Fred, apprehends all those who used and then betrayed him, Oscar last, who has all the stolen gems in-hand.

Many months later, just before the ending credits, we see Ben taking the oath to become an American citizen in a mass swearing-in of at least several hundred soon-to-be Americans. Johnny 5, now fully repaired and completely gold-plated, also takes the oath, and then receives his personal certificate of United States citizenship.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Plot", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki