It’s not that TOS didn’t have some terrible episodes, it’s that TNG has some truly excremental episodes.
I bought the original Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on DVD (the BBC series) and was goiddy with anticipation of reliving one of y favorite childhood experiences. And then I watched it and i still find it kind of funny, but I was also like, “Ugh, this is almost unwatchable.” for stretches I haven’t watched it since, so I cannot remember what turned me off so much, but I think one of the problems is we tend to idealize stuff in our memories and then they rarely match our expectations. We then become very disappointed.
Has it not aged well? Did you expect it to? I haven’t seen it since it came out in VHS.
The Pirates of Penzance Gilbert and Sullivan’s timeless work, amazing performance by Kevin Kline and a wonderfully “stagy” set and decor. So what hurts it? The producers cheaped out and had an all synthesizer score, instead of hiring an orchestra. It sticks out like a sore thumb, and makes what should be timeless firmly nailed to the 80s.
And as much as it pains me, the same thing applies to my beloved The Princess Bride. The rest of it is so wonderful that you can overlook it, but I really would like, one of these days, for the producers to go back and add a proper orchestra score to this wonderful movie.
I always felt the movie Aladdin suffered from Robin William’s dated references that only got more and more dated whereas most Disney moves are Timeless.
Pump up the Volume.
The movie has nothing wrong with it, other than being rendered moot and unsympathetic to any teen target audience of the present or future. Technology and societal mores are now so far supplanted form the movie’s assumptions, that a parent today living the events of that movie would simply think “Whew, a quiet day, at least the kids kept out of trouble”.
I watched Sneakers again last night – a cute heist film starring Robert Redford, Sydney Poitier, Dan Ackroyd, River Phoenix, Mary McDonnell, Ben Kingsley, and David Straithairn. Oh and James Earl Jones in a cameo, and character actors Stephen Tobolowsky and Donal Logue in small roles. Sounds like a recipe for magic, right? I saw it when it first came out in the early 1990s and thought it was adorable.
Unfortunately, the success of all the suspenseful moments was highly dependent on what was cutting edge technology in 1992. Since the technology is really outdated to 2013 eyes (holy shit, that movie is 20 years old, I’m so old), none of the suspense is there. A kid watching this today would shrug and say she could do all this on her iphone in 20 minutes, and would probably be right. Not only that, but all the “zoom…ENHANCE” moments (and comparable things) are super staid cliches now.
The chemistry among the cast was still sparkling, I’ll give it that.
I love Ladyhawke except for the craptastic music. I wish someone would put better music to it, and re-release it.
I can’t say for sure, but I have deliberately avoided seeing The Big Chill since it was new. I suspect it’s aged very very badly.
Was just going to say this one. While I don’t feel that The Princess Bride is hurt by its music (I barely even registered that it even had music), ***Ladyhawke ***is rendered almost unwatchable by that classic 80s cheap-Casio soundtrack. shudder
I’d add Trading Spaces to the list. My recollection from seeing it in the theater when I was in college was that it was a funny caper flick. then I rented it and showed it to my young kids. Somehow I had completely forgotten the bare breasted Jamie Lee Curtis scene.
Nothing dates a movie to that mid70’s -early 80’s era like gratuitous nudity.
Do you mean Trading Places?
I disagree sir. It was on HBO recently and I think it still holds up over time (even if Jamie Lee didn’t). Although nothing dates a movie to that mid70’s -early 80’s era like the tiny green mainframe dumb terminals used by businesses in those days.
This is probably sacrilege, but…“Young Frankenstein.”
My friends raved about this movie, telling me that it was hilarious, one of the funniest movies ever made, and that I would love it. I thought it would be a slam-dunk because I also love Gene Wilder.
They showed it at the local theater on Halloween. We went. I fell asleep through parts of it. Talk about sloooooow! And the jokes were kind of stupid. Maybe they were fresh and new when the movie came out, but now they just seem…bad.
I mentioned this to a couple of the friends who’d recommended it and one had to admit, “Yeah, it’s kind of slow nowadays. I guess it didn’t age well.”
There’s no way you could show Blazing Saddles in a theater now.
People keep saying this and I’ll I can say is that they obviously haven’t watched a single movie or TV show in the last 30 years.
I came here to post exactly this. I did the same thing with my nephew.. and was amazed how bad it was. In my mind, it was so much more beautiful and enthralling, and I’d forgotten the bad parts.
You could show a double-feature with Django Unchained.
Yeah, but honestly I remember thinking the music was stunningly craptastic when the film was first released :). It’s has to be about the worst mismatch between soundtrack and ( halfway decent ) film, ever. I don’t know what the hell the director/producers were thinking.
Waldo beat me to it, but you could definitely make and air Blazing Saddles today.
E.T. was released in 1982 and as a six year old child I absolutely loved that movie. When it came out on video just six short years later I found the movie to be absolutely unwatchable.