This trope is the sole premise behind Ghost in the Shell. Series Creator Masamune Shirow holds a degree in engineering and the original manga contains countless side notes that explain how many of the machines and mechanisms are supposed to work. Both of the Oshii films contain several scenes which can be considered hardcore technology porn, some of them several minutes long. The two season series does it to a lesser extent.
Any incarnation is sure to show several scenes of both the main characters and the antagonists carefully assembling and preparing their high-tech equipment.
Both films start with highly artistic scenes showing the assembly of androids. Female, of course. And naked. Up close. Technology Porn for real. [1].
It's a cyborg being fitted to a prosthetic body in the first movie, actually...There's deliberate contrast between the two, as the making of a cyborg is very mechanical, while the birth of a gynoid has an organic feel, especially with the initial formation of the neurochip, resembling an egg being fertilized.
The second movie includes a several minute long scene showing nothing but a plane circling a massive cathedral with its segmented wings flapping in the wind like feathers. And then there's the horde of naked robo-chicks spinning and jumping through the corridors while decapitating armed guards. And the virtual assault on the facilities internal computer defense. And...
Obsessive detail for futuristic machines and weapons is a recurring trait in Masamune Shirow's creations. He even has a recurring small arms manufacturer, Seburo, which shows up in his various works.
As are his insanely legged and chiseled female protagonists, especially in his recent H-works. Which again bridge Technology Porn with, well, normal porn.
The painstaking detail in which the Texhnolysis process is depicted in Texhnolyze (duh) certainly qualifies, especially seeing how Doc, the doctor performing the operation has nearly orgasmic reactions throughout it, and makes clear in her dialogue that she considers it an erotic experience.
And the battle against Iruel, which was left out of Evangelion 2.0.
Unit 00's berserk incident. Hell, even Unit 01's first Rebuild launch counts, what with the copious amounts of hi-res CGI. And Unit 02 engaging Beast Mode.
Mobile Suit Gundam's first battle starts with Amuro reading Project V manual for Gundam complete with rather detailed diagrams. Supplementary materials go even further with detailed explaination of science behind almost every tech used and assembly instructions for HG model kits are often broken up with illustrations showing various internal working of Mobile Suit in questions along with description of various parts functions.
Gundam Unicorn, which is weighted more towards long-time fans, is full of Technology Porn, from the suits to the cockpit displays.
Armored Trooper VOTOMS being gritty Used Future setting had more than one scene of the mechs - usually Scopedogs - in various stages of disassembly and repair. The whole first 15 minutes or so of Last Red Shoulder OVA are dedicated entirely to the team modifying four A Ts into Turbo Custom variants. Supplementary materials have detailed diagrams of internal workings of every mech in the show too.
Tsutomu Nihei's works often include generous amounts of tech-porn, though the actual mechanics behind them are rarely elaborated on. When it is, it's all Technobabble anyway given how far into the future he likes to set things.
Nihei was educated as an architect, and some of his wider shots are sometimes impossible to distinguish from architectural sketches.
The only part of Haruhi Suzumiya that was made in 3D (well, obvious 3D), was the futuristic videogame "world." Tons of ships and views of torpedoes being loaded and general "technology smut."
Shoji Kawamori graduated as an aircraft engineer, and entered the animation industry only because there weren't many open vacancies in Japanese aircraft industry in early 80es. So when SDF Macross producer Noboru Ishiguro needed a mecha designer, he knew whom to ask: Kawamori was a friend and a schoolmate of Macrosss artist Haruhiko Mikimoto, better known as HAL.note HAL also heavily influenced early Sadamoto, who worked with him on Macross Kawamori then applied all his engineering training to the lovingly detailed and well thought-out series' mechas — and continues to do it ever since, having with time replaced Ishiguro as a Macross mastermind.
Their team also included the famous animation director Ichiro Itano, already a living legend for his "Itano Circus". Itano, just as HAL, also worked on the first (and many other) Gundam series, so there's actually a lot of creative cross-pollination between the two franchises, as both were produced (at least partially) by Sunrise, and creators often migrate between projects. It is therefore not entirely surprising that both are known for their attention to complex and detailed technology.
Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2199, full stop. The rest of the franchise probably as well, but its visual style is just too Leiji Matsumoto-specific and his early-Seventies look seems really dated for some, despite being a conscious aesthetic choice. 2199, OTOH, updated it with more mainstream stylings.
Steamboy. Pretty much every single device in the film can induce steam-boners in fans of Steampunk. Even Scarlett's little treadmill for her pet chihuahua is meticulously detailed with gears, levers and ornate designs.
In the German comic Werner: Brösel can't draw women (at least, he couldn't for most of his career), but boy, can he draw machines and vehicles!
The Red Porsche Killer concept drawings in Eiskalt!, provided by the real-life Ölfuß, definitely count, too. While he drew them, he kept stating that it's possible to actually build all that. He did, and it worked.
Iron Man lapses into this from time to time, but Len Kaminski and Kevin Hopgood's run in the early 90s was the best example, with the War Machine, Telepresence 2, Modular and Hulkbuster armors and the "Iron Manual".
Commercials and Advertising
The new Droid commercials are just made of this. Or this.
Film - Animated
Watching Unicron's transformation in Transformers: The Movie in the theater was a life-defining experience for some tropers. Earlier in the movie the Autobot city shifting into battle mode was rather impressive as well.
And, twenty years later, seeing Primus transform in Transformers Cybertron... Excuse me, I have to pick up my jaw.Lesser examples include Optimus Prime's Super Mode sequence, and any shot of him as a flying fire truck.
From Cars, the first unveiling of Lightning McQueen.
Similarly, from WALL-E, when EVE first arrives on Earth, particularly the intricate routine where she is unloaded from the shuttle and activated.
The Iron Giant: Both when the Giant repairs itself after the train crash, and when it is attacked by the Army and deploys its weapons.
Film - Live-Action
The Delorean gets some of this in the Back to the Future movies, especially when Doc Brown introduces it in the first movie.
Also, the opening of the first movie, showing off various gadgets Doc has at home.
The refrigerator doc makes in 1885.
In the Iron Man movie, when Tony Stark suits up to rescue the besieged villagers. A legion of computer-controlled waldos, cranes, hoses and parts dance all over, building his suit around him with lavish close-ups of automated ratchets buttoning it up. Reaches a crescendo when his chest piece closes with a pneumatic hiss, and climaxes with Iron Man's mask slamming shut and his visor's eyes lighting up.
An earlier scene when Tony gets ready to try-out the Mk.II suit has a 360 degree pan as Tony runs a diagnostic to "test flight surfaces," so many shiny moving fiddly-bits. *drool*
There's also that one lovely scene with Tony getting de-suited/undressed by said robots.
Tony: Hey!
Jarvis: It is a tight fit, sir.
Tony: Aaah!
Jarvis: Sir, the more you struggle, the more this is going to hurt.
Tony: Be gentle! This is my first time! I designed this to come off, so... Hey! I really should be able to...
The sequel delivers, as there's a wonderful scene showing Tony putting on the movie version of the Suitcase Armor.
Heck, forget about the armour, just look at his completely automated holographic interfaces! Or the computers he can access anywhere in his mansion, including on a coffee table! Or his personalized PDA that he used to hack the Pentagon! Iron Man may as well be renamed Technology Porn, The Movie!
The tradition of Iron Man's Technology Porn continues in The Avengers, where Iron Man has a walkway on the Stark Tower that takes his suit off, piece by piece, as he walks along it without obstructing his movement in any way. The amount of motion tracking technology and smoothly operating mechanics such a device would require is insane... But it looksso cool
The Avengers also features the Mark VII armor (with cool features like panels on his chest that open up and allow repulsors to provide more vertical thrust) and its emergency deployment mechanism: The suit is a rocket that flies to Tony and, once it locks in on Tony's position by lining up laser beams with discrete wristbands hes wearing, pulls in and unfolds around him.
There's also the Helicarrier's transformation from sea mode to flight mode, plus it turning invisible.
Michael Bay's Transformers movies have loads of Technology Porn, most often when the titular robots are transforming for the first time. The result of which is Optimus Prime taking anywhere from from eight to thirty seconds to transform as opposed to an animation sequence that was completed by the end of "chii-choo-chuut."
Prime's first transformation in the first movie, and the transformation in in NEST HQ in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, are both accompanied by a 360-degree camera pan.
Then there's the collapsing of the AllSpark from a cavern-sized cube to a block no more than two feet on a side. note Travel-sized for your convenience.
From the original Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, the opening scene with the the massive Imperial Star Destroyer flying past the camera in all of its Rebel-crushing glory.
And The Empire Strikes Back topped that by showing the Super Star Destroyer utterly dwarfing the monster ships from the first movie!
Jonathan Coulton: "And which 80s sci fi movie would be complete without the pointless mothership flyby?"
Mel Brooks says on the DVD commentary that if he could've gotten away with it, he would've had nothing but 90 minutes of the ship passing the camera. Unfortunately for him, the studio insisted there be a plot.
A frequent feature of James Cameron movies. Even in Titanic he managed to have the camera linger just as lovingly on the heavy metal of the ship's engines as on Kate Winslet.
From The Fast and the Furious, there were CGI-generated shots showing the inner workings of the cars' engines, notably when enhancements like nitrous were used.
Hellboy II had a bunch of this going on, especially with the closeups showing off the inner workings of the Golden Army robots.
And watching Nuada's crown put itself together is like a free stripper-cake!
Any scene in a James Bond movie in Q's workshop where he demonstrates his latest gadget for Bond to use on his next mission. A great example is in Goldfinger where he shows 007 his new Aston Martin DB 5 with all kinds of hidden weapons and features.
Galaxy Quest, being an Affectionate Parody of Star Trek and Star Trek fandom, shows one of the fans with a wireframe model of the entire interior of the NSEA Protector. Later, when Jason and Gwen walk through the room that houses the Omega 13, we're treated to geniune technology porn, complete with awe-inspiring music.
The opening sequence of Short Circuit shows the construction process of the S.A.I.N.T. robot line.
The Conversation has this is spades. Aligning playheads, long distance mikes re-mounted and aimed by snipers, and each multiple audio pass savored for it's methodical slowness. In the digital age, it still qualifies as analog porn that would make the typical Diesel Punk aficionado blush.
Literature
A literary example would be the various Star TrekTechnical Manual books. Hundreds of pages of diagrams, technical schematics, and plans for vehicles that don't exist.
The Ships of the Line calenders and collections, which are basically pinup collections for Starship porn.
"These books would represent the most thorough research ever done on these vehicles and would receive Lucasfilm's formal imprimatur as canon."
However, that statement should be taken with a grain of salt, given the rather... egregious... overestimations found in some of those books.
Galaxy of Fear never goes into high levels of detail about tech, but there's an in-universe example in The Nightmare Machine, when the mechanically inclined Zak finds rare droid parts and everything he wants to see in a workshop, and excitedly chirps about this and that while his sister has the same blank reaction non-tech lovers often have to this kind of thing.
The "techno" in "techno-thriller", like for example those written by Tom Clancy, is there for a reason. Authors in the genre tend to go into loving detail about the hardware used in the work.
David Weber's Honor Harrington lovingly describes in exquisite detail the physics and appearance of starships in hyperspace, and the Manticore Missile Massacres often go into the fine points of missile warfare technology in the Honorverse.
The more serious works by Stanislaw Lem tend to fall into this at times, especially Fiasco.
Live Action TV
The UK TV show Top Gear is full of Technology Porn, especially with the camera swooping over the glossy curves of expensive cars.
Similarly, just about every sports car commercial ever made.
Many tokusatsu series do this, especially when a character or mecha first transforms, even in some cases where the transformation only results in a fairly shapeless spandex bodysuit.
How It's Made, on the Discovery Channel, lives on this trope.
As do Factory Made and How Do They Do It?
The Gadget Show in the UK is full of this. Given the sheer amount of stuff they give away and the scale of the things they do on the show, companies probably pay more than a pretty penny to have stuff gushed over (not that all stuff is shown to be excellent).
Modern Marvels is a technophile's dream come true, going into the history and the mechanics behind everything from knives and swords to the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber.
For Doctor Who, they sell blueprints of Daleks, a diagram which can be seen in one of the episodes.
Done in No More Heroes before the nonexistent boss fight with Letz Shake and Dr. Shake. The game goes to great lengths to show the Earthquake Generator powering up before Henry shows up and cuts Letz and his machine in half.
Incidentally, said machine's inner workings are based on the PlayStation 3.
Samus' entrance in Metroid Prime was pretty much made to show off her power suit in glorious 3d. Echoes and Corruption both mirrored this scene, with Corruption also treating us to an extended landing sequence for Sammy's new gunship.
Final Fantasy VIII. Basically every FMV that isn't directly related to the characters is either technology porn or Scenery Porn. Exemplified by this FMV.
The intro sequence to Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake is a prime example. An entire three minutes is dedicated to highlighting every single little mechanical detail about the titular Metal Gear.
The introduction to Crysis, which includes the camera rushing between the ridges of the nano-muscle-suit the soldiers wear in the game, complete with the hammy "MAXIMUM!" voice-over.
Mass Effect has an in-game codex which goes to great lengths to explain how technology in the game's universe works, most of it related to element zero. It even goes so far as to describe what FTL travel looks like to an outside observer, and explains how spaceship stealth systems work. It furthermore describes the weaponization of element zero, it's effect on biology, and how the interstellar 'extranet' allocates bandwidth on its priority levels.
Visually, the geth and the Reapers are probably technology porn. (And the mass relays. And the Citadel.)
In the Modern Warfare series (and in the latest Call of Duty game) during loading screens, there are occasionally long sequences showing the exact design parameters and armaments of whatever vehicle will be involved in the next scene.
Deus Ex Human Revolution, judging by the trailers, is looking to be crammed to the gills with this, not at all unlike Ghost In The Shell.
The Ghost Recon video games contain a lot of attention to details regarding weapon performance and other military hardware.
The mission briefings in Golden Eye Wii before each new locale is a cavalcade of tactical maps, personnel profiles, and target identifiers all spinning, sliding, and panning in rapid choreography.
The Myst series as each sequel came out. Oh yes. In this troper's opinion, probably the most notorious would have to be Myst III: Exile. In fact, one of the worlds (Amateria) in Myst III has giant, automatic mechanics as its main motif.
The ARS in Vanquish sure likes to shift and reconfigure, as does the BLADE.
The Autovista mode in Forza Motorsport 4, which lets you explore a select number of cars with absurdly detailed bodywork and interiors. Detailed diagrams appear in the air above the cars like holograms, the narrator describes all the technology in the car, the engine revs, and Jeremy Clarkson gives his blunt opinion about the cars.
Western Animation
Dexters Laboratory spent ludicrous amounts of time on this kind of thing, usually combined with some sort of montage.
Just about every kid in the 90s wanted a room like Arnold's in Hey Arnold!.
