Pfft. That was the OLD timeline.
Windows was unable to reach anyone before Blair destroyed the radio due to the storm.
Vincent calls Lance to tell him about how Mia ODed on the stuff Lance sold him and he is bringing her over, then Lance freaks out, “Wait a minute, are you on a mobile? I don’t know you! Prank call! Prank call!” Fact is, when I saw it in a theater when it came out, that seemed a bit unconvincing, even though I had a friend who said he could listen to cell conversations (analog) on his radio, now of course it just falls flat on the face of it.
I’d be hellaciously impressed if he had it all in his head. Even more if he understood it and could access it at will. Imagine carrying n times the amount of information on the internet IN YOUR HEAD (where n is the stuff that hasn’t made it into the computers yet).
I think my brain would burst.
I had the impression Lance did that out of fear that cops and/or Feds could more easily monitor cellphone traffic. Not necessarily correct, now or then, but he’s a drug dealer, not a communications engineer or civil-rights lawyer, and it was kinda amusing anyway.
Yeah. The guy would be able to tell us exactly what’s up with Robert/Roberta Lukanen on that other thread.
You’re right, of course. I need to break out those DVDs again!:o However, it’s still the case that the plot of “Fade In” depended on the audience having little idea that a game showing on a TV could have been time-shifted.
Tried to add: And as well-written as that show usually was, I suspect that a viewing of the aforesaid DVDs might turn up additional examples of tech-dependent plots. In the 1970s, when the best episodes appeared, there was an explosion of newly-available consumer devices, and I suspect that the makers of *Columbo *found it timely to showcase these new parts of daily life in their stories.
Lots of technology dates stuff quickly. It’s the reason most 20-year-old episodes of Law & Order are less dated than some 10-year-old episodes of CSI.
Good point.
It’s also one reason for the greenlighting of “period” projects (both in television and in movies). The makers know that at least they’ll escape the Outdated phenomenon.
Michigan ditched inspections many years ago, after everyone realized they were a pointless waste of time & money. The vehicles they were trying to catch were older cars that were grandfathered out of the inspection process .
I saw a 1938 Nancy Drew flick on TV the other night. The battery in the '37 or '38 Ford convertible with another person hiding in the rumble seat died as she and her flunky boyfriend tried to escape the bad guys.
“Crank it!” she ordered, handing him a very long starting handle, which, luckily, was on the floor behind the seat.
“What’s a crank, Daddy?”
“Your mother.”
“What’s a rumble seat?”
“It’s where the Jets and the Sharks fight.”
Hah! I love that movie! I’ve seen all those Bonita Granville Nancy Drew movies from the 30s.
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That reminds me of the time where the show Curb Your Enthusiasm played a part in proving a man not guilty or murder when it happened to catch him in the background during a shot that took place at Dodger Stadium.
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Apart from the obvious flaws, in the movie 2010, near the beginning, they show an oddball Honda-brand recumbent tadpole trike (it is a protracted telephoto shot, so everything is moving pretty slowly). There has been a soft abundance of recumbent tadpoles for at least a decade, but the Honda is a rather ridiculous design that never caught on, today’s trikes are actually practical in comparison, and generally much more compact.
It seems like a good chunk of Seinfeld plots, especially in the early seasons, would be resolved if the had cell phones or the internet (of the top of my head, George waiting for a call at the Chinese restaurant, not knowing Mulva’s name, pretty much any story involving them getting separated from each other). It’s funny that the very last episode had a plot point involving whether or not you should make an important phone call from a cell phone.
Love it! (I bet that man is now a lifelong fan of all Larry David projects–yes, even “Clear History.” :p)
Your post got me thinking about the use of time stamps in plots. The old magnetic tape video recorders had the time stamp right on the footage, but isn’t it the case that digital recorders don’t do this unless programmed to do so? Isn’t the time of shooting available only somewhere in the file…not on the video as it’s seen by the viewer?
I’m ignorant of these matters, but do seem to recall a discussion of it somewhere. If the time stamp can be manipulated (and can be made to show up) then that would have plot implications that wouldn’t exist if the time stamp is in a hard-to-access part of the digital file that constitutes the video.
I recently watched Back to the Future for the first time in ages, and it occurred to me that it’s essential to the plot that Marty’s girlfriend Jennifer not have a cellphone. Jennifer is going to visit her grandmother and has to write down her grandmother’s phone number so Marty can call her there. She uses the back of the “Save the Clock Tower” flier, and this is the only reason why Marty keeps the flier. Without the flyer, he wouldn’t have know the exact date and time of the crucial lightning strike.
Some necessary exposition is introduced a little later because Jennifer tried to call Marty at home while he was outside looking at the wrecked family car. This is what prompts Lorraine’s speech about how she wasn’t so forward when she was in high school, as well as her story about how she fell in love with George McFly. (Marty has heard all this before, but the audience hasn’t.) It would be easy to update this to instead have Lorraine annoyed that Marty is texting Jennifer at the dinner table, though.
Other now-dated technology plays a role in the story, like Doc’s video camera, Marty’s cassette player, and even the photograph of Marty with his siblings, but the plot would be unchanged if Marty instead had a cellphone that he used for making videos, playing music, and looking at personal photos.
Yeah well, I know People In Movies Don’t Shit and that the only ones who shower while not in a locker room are female murder victims to be, but that kind of thing wasn’t very logical way back then either.
Not just old movies.
A lot of modern films either forget mobile phones exist, or at some critical point the protagonists’ phone battery runs out, or they don’t have signal.
Can’t search for a list right now, but there are a number of montages and lists I’ve seen.
I think it’s because in some senses mobile phones are a “spoiler” technology.
Similar to how the existence of guns can spoil the potential for epic melee fights. So, many films either pretend guns don’t exist, or you get some contrivance like the main two guys run out of ammo at the same moment.