I was watching a 1984 non-classic movie called “Up the Creek”. It’s a bit “Animal House”-lite and besides sentimentality, not a lot of value to do it. In an early scene, the protagonists are on the road and a passenger announces that the “bar is open” and begins handing everyone bloody marys. Another scene shows a heroine drinking wine while driving too.
Almost a quarter century later, violence hasn’t waned but drinking and driving would be completely taboo.
So what other casual bits of movies wouldn’t be shown anymore?
What comes to my mind first is the slaughtering of a live cow in Apocalypse Now. If I remember right, the extras in the film were going to kill it anyhow and Coppola managed to catch it on film.
Nowadays, I can’t see that as an excuse to include real death in a movie. That scene still gets me though.
Scenes that were iconic in particular movies will probably never be emulated in other movies. I’ll bet that no one will ever film a crucifix-fucking scene or pea soup fountain outside of a remake of The Exorcist.
(Or maybe a porno version of that movie. The Erotocist? The Sexxorcist?)
A lot of the action in older Hong Kong movies will probably never be done again, now that computer graphics make it possible to present reckless action without endangering anyone’s life. I’m thinking of Jackie Chan jumping – with no safety support – to catch a rope ladder hanging from a helicopter, or the scene in Police Story where the bad guys fly through the windshield of the bus and land smack on the hard pavement.
That scene in G.I. Joe the Movie where Lt. Falcon flirtingly slaps Jinx on the rear, long before they’re a couple, or even on particularly good terms at the moment.*
Of course, Falcon was kind of a jackass. Both by design, and by inept execution. But you’d be hard pressed including that in a cartoon at all these days, let alone with a character who wasn’t an outright villain—much less one you were going to “redeem” into the de-facto hero.
*Also solidifying his reputation as a complete idiot. You slap a trained ninja who’s working on an engine—and thus probably has a wrench or something—on the ass, when you’re both alone in a garage, she’s already mad at you, and no one else on the base even likes you—including your C.O., who’s your damn brother?
Forget fragging…this guy’s going to end up dumped in an disused diesel oil tank some night, while everyone else uses his paychecks for beer.
In War Games, when the kid searches around a phone booth for a pop-top, then disassembles the phone to short out whatever and get a dial tone.
Today, there’s no more phone booths, pop-tops or phones that can be unscrewed - they’re generally glued together so there’s one less way vandals can break a phone.
I dunno. Not so long ago when the movie Ong-Bak came out, it was very heavily advertised as not using any CG. It’s all real was the big selling point, and it definitely was the closest thing to an old Jackie Chan movie in a long time. The more common CG becomes the more there will be an incentive to stand out by selling yourself as “not fake”. If anything is going to kill death-defying stunts, it’s labour standards.
I’ll nominate cultural changes that are too subtle to be remembered. As an example, I was watching an old Dragnet episode from 1952. The suspect, played by Lee Marvin, is taken out for dinner by Friday and Jacobs. From the narration:
It struck me that in a modern movie, or tv show, no one would order something like that, especially for a late dinner. Even in a period film, having a big bowl of yogurt to go along your burger, would just be a bit too jarring to include.
At the end of one of the Timothy Dalton James Bond movies they put a notice that James Bond didn’t use tobacco products – and in that one, he didn’t. It was utterly unlike the Ian Fleming hero who indulged his grittier adult passions.
It looked like a bad trend, but they got over it – Bond did start smoking again later.
Yeah, I would have taken that description as a quick way to establish that the guy was a “health food nut”. (Anybody else remember the days when “health food” wasn’t complete without “nut” at the end?)
I agree. There are some things that just are better using real people and props.
I remember when I saw a double feature of The Matrix Reloaded and The Italian Job. The long fight scene on the highway in the former lacked any real sense of danger and was just plain boring. However, in The Italian Job
They actually flew a full-sized helicopter inside a parking garage