A thread in which we put on our futurist hats and imagine what will become storytelling cliches a few decades hence. Imagine a version of “Ebert’s Little Movie Glossary” published for your grandkids, or the future evolution of tvtropes.
Please accept at given that (a) however long-form visual storytelling might evolve technologically, we will call them “movies” for the purpose of this thread, and (b) the 2050 date is completely arbitrary, used to make a punchy thread title, not meant to be taken literally.
I’ll get started with an example. The tvtropes format has a really long definition, so I’ll suggest we follow the Ebert style as a better model. Like this:
The Petroleum Principle. Whenever the movie calls specific attention to a vehicle being powered by a gasoline engine, this will be either (a) to establish the character of the driver as a crusty rebellious throwback who disregards environmental sensitivities, or (b) to justify destroying the car in a big spectacular old-fashioned petroleum explosion which today’s electric vehicles cannot produce.
Sound-a-Like Social Media. Whenever a movie is critical of early 21st century culture they will refer to what would have been known as a social media “site.” However, due to legal reasons, they will change the name slightly or combine two sites into one. Ex. Facebook would be called “LiveBook.” Twitter would become “Twaddle.” Instagram would become “Pictogram.” TikTok would becomes TokTok.
I love trope discussions, but this is a tough one. I took a stab at a couple, but neither works very well:
It was real all along!: The trope “protagonist thinks they’re living in reality but they’re actually in a virtual simulation” is old hat-- The Matrix came out almost as long ago as 2050 is to now. So I thought, turn the trope around-- protagonist thinks they’re in a virtual simulation all along, and therefore there aren’t consequences to what they do, but all along they’ve been existing in reality! Then I remembered that’s basically the twist ending to Ender’s Game, which is older than The Matrix.
Useless without AI: Current AI tropes usually boil down to “AI is evil and takes over humanity!”. But once AI becomes ubiquitous and normalized, a trope may be: when a person’s AI assistant goes down for a week or so, or they decide to go a week without it voluntarily on a bet or something (if such a thing is even allowed in 2050), they become as useless as an infant-- barely able to feed or dress themselves. Pretty much just an update to the hoary old comedy trope of today, where an urban / suburban person or family tries camping and is utterly incompetent without modern amenities.