# Unintentionally funny scenes in old movies due to "cutting edge" technology **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 14, 2004, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025 "2004-04-14T20:02:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2004, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/61 "2004-04-15T21:43:15Z")
> [@Art Vandelay](#): > > \*\*A.I. \*\*: Not dated 'cuz of the technology, but in the sequence depicting the ruins of “New York”, the WTC is clearly visible. In Escape from New York, the WTC in NY acts as a landing pad for Snake’s glider. But then again, the movie is set in 1997(just a 1997 where New York is a Giant Prison). And you have to ask, do you really want to give Spielberg an excuse to go back and digiatally “edit” his old movies? ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2004, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/62 "2004-04-15T21:46:23Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > If it’s set in the late 1970s, why would an 8-track tape be out of place? The '70s were the heyday of the 8-track. The _early_ 70s were the heyday of 8-tracks. By the time I was in third grade (1978), they were already considered a joke. Since the epic disaster that destroys most of humanity takes place at about that time, it still looks a bit anachronistic. (Early in the movie, there is a shot of an OLD calendar dated 1978, accompanied by “shockIng moment” theme music, to date thee film.) Anyway, the mention of airplanes in a few other posts made me think about “the Parrallax View,” an early 1970s thriller steeped in Watergate-esque paranoia. In one sequence, Warren Beatty is pursuing shadowy, no-good corporate types and tails them to an airport. Seeing the bad guys board a plane, Beatty follows them onto the plane (without having to pass through any type of security check whatsoever), and actually seats himself and purchases his ticket from a stewardess AFTER the plane has taken off! Ironically, Beatty’s character is trying to _prevent_ a bomb from going off, and thereby _saves_ the plane, something he’d never be able to do nowadays. I don’t imagine that, if a remake is ever made of the movie, that scene will be included. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2004, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/63 "2004-04-15T21:51:42Z")
> [@tracer](#): > > Yes – and my favorite example of this is the short story “Superiority,” written by, of all people, Arthur C. Clarke. > > A mighty galaxy-spanning empire is caught up in a terrible interstellar war that has raged for years. Even their miraculous invention of a torpedo that could annihilate all matter in a 5 kilometer radius hasn’t been enough to save them from the ever-advancing enemy. But there is yet hope. They had one ace up their sleeve the enemy wasn’t counting on. As their fantastic new top-secret invention to turn the tide of war, they build … the Battle Analyzer. It’s a **computer** … on a **space ship!** Imagine that! Its only problem is that it has about a million vacuum tubes, and requires a small army of field techs to replace all the tubes that keep burning out. Didn’t he mention somewhere in the story that it used tubes because they were immune to EMP and they could just dissapate the heat into space? Or did I justifying it after the fact somewhere along the line? ---
**Author:** ![Burrido](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Burrido](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Burrido)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2004, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/64 "2004-04-15T22:08:55Z")
Another one from hackers where their drooling over AJ’s laptop, paraphrasing “Pentium 500mhz processor, RISC archetecture(blah, i can’t spell)…” ---
**Author:** ![Pixiesnix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/898d66/32.png) [@Pixiesnix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixiesnix)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2004, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/65 "2004-04-15T22:20:49Z")
**DocCathode** , I can accept the explanation of lost technology. But really…_filing cabinets?_ ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2004, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/66 "2004-04-15T22:35:55Z")
> [@seriousart](#): > > I’m surprised noone’s mentioned , **Weird Science** yet. > These kids made a woman on a computer that probably wasn’t powerful enough to send email. > Funny stuff. At least they had it dial up a mainframe to do the heavy number crunching. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2004, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/67 "2004-04-15T22:42:00Z")
> [@ivylass](#): > > Thermal paper fax machines were around for what, 10 whole minutes? My SO has a thermal paper fax and a thermal paper photocopier. Thermal paper hasn’t completely gone the way of the Betamax. ---
**Author:** ![YellowTail](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5ac83/32.png) [@YellowTail](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YellowTail)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2004, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/68 "2004-04-15T23:13:33Z")
I’m betting the technology in \*Minority Report \* will seem pretty laughable in short order. ---
**Author:** ![Ilsa\_Lund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a6a055/32.png) [@Ilsa\_Lund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ilsa_Lund)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2004, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/69 "2004-04-15T23:34:02Z")
> [@YellowTail](#): > > I’m betting the technology in \*Minority Report \* will seem pretty laughable in short order. That was approximately .00124 seconds after the film was released. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/70 "2004-04-16T01:25:07Z")
**Dooku** , note: “smartass” is not necessarily an insult, and I didn’t mean it as such. You, on the other hand, are being needlessly snide, and I’ll thank you to mend your tone. (Regarding _The Omega Man_🙂 > [@](#): > > Originally Posted by Walloon > If it’s set in the late 1970s, why would an 8-track tape be out of place? The '70s were the heyday of the 8-track. > The early 70s were the heyday of 8-tracks. By the time I was in third grade (1978), they were already considered a joke. Since the epic disaster that destroys most of humanity takes place at about that time, it still looks a bit anachronistic. (Early in the movie, there is a shot of an OLD calendar dated 1978, accompanied by “shockIng moment” theme music, to date thee film.) The movie was made in 1971. The calendar says March 1975, which is supposed to be when biological warfare wiped out most of mankind. The action takes place a couple of years after that, but of course technology has stood still in the meantime. So 8-tracks are entirely reasonable. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/71 "2004-04-16T01:59:14Z")
> [@Ukulele Ike](#): > > I dunno, I _like_ this sort of thing. > > My favorite being Mike Hammer’s enormous reel-to-reel telephone answering machine – which seems to take up most of a wall – in Robert Aldrich’s great 1955 film noir, _Kiss Me Deadly_. Outstanding choice. I remember how proud of the system he was in that movie, too. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/72 "2004-04-16T02:16:44Z")
> [@misshannah](#): > > My favorite part of _Hackers_ is when the boys at the l337 party crowd around Angelina Jolie’s computer because she has a ::gasp:: **28.8kbps** modem!! I never saw _Hackers_, but I was heavily into the primitive online scene that existed at the time (actually, that’s probably WHY I didn’t see _Hackers_!), and IIRC a 28.8 wouldn’t have attracted a crowd even in 1995! I knew people who had them, and while I thought that was cool for them it didn’t make me drool or anything. My gear was far from cutting-edge then, but even I had a 14.4…although it wasn’t reliable unless you set it down to 9600. But most local BBSes had few/no lines that could handle anything faster than 2800 anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/73 "2004-04-16T04:19:48Z")
> [@Burrido](#): > > Another one from hackers where their drooling over AJ’s laptop, paraphrasing > “Pentium 500mhz processor, RISC archetecture(blah, i can’t spell)…” Actually, IIRC, that part was even funnier because the laptop was an Apple Powerbook. ---
**Author:** ![schplebordnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/91b2a8/32.png) [@schplebordnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/schplebordnik)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/74 "2004-04-16T04:47:05Z")
> [@Mr2001](#): > > Actually, IIRC, that part was even funnier because the laptop was an Apple Powerbook. Yeah, when Apple finally caves and goes Intel, them Pentiums will be going at about 4 GHz… ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/75 "2004-04-16T07:07:59Z")
There’s a scene in _Forbidden Planet_ where they unload stuff from the spaceship. Out comes a perfectly reasonable ray gun, some other duly futuristic-looking stuff … and a radio that it takes two guys to carry. They had the imagination to make a futuristic ray gun but not to throw away their pre-conceptions of what they knew a radio looked like. ---
**Author:** ![emekthian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecae2f/32.png) [@emekthian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emekthian)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/76 "2004-04-16T07:27:52Z")
Goldeneye. I’m willing to bet that a lot of the computer concepts they showed in the movie are laughably obsolete- I don’t know enough about “spiking”, or whatever that Russian computer nerd was doing, to know. But I did laugh when Natalya asked for a computer with a 200 Meg hard drive and 16 MB of RAM. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/77 "2004-04-16T07:53:39Z")
In the middle of the battle planning to defeat the Borg in “Best of Both Worlds Part 2,” the crew of the Enterprise-D throw out all kinds of wacky ideas like heavy graviton beams. Then Data turns to his 24th century colleagues and suggests “nanites,” and the response is “what are those?” For some reason I think it’s very amusing that a concept that exists today hasn’t generated enough interest or newsworthy breakthroughs for the crew to even realize that they _might_ actually be possible and, well, what they are. It’s not really an anachronism, but it makes me smile when I see it. ---
**Author:** ![RumMunkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@RumMunkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RumMunkey)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/78 "2004-04-16T11:51:33Z")
Oh, I love doing this stuff!! _ **The 'Net** _ with Sandra Bullock… the whole movie is filled with this stuff! I remember in **Twins** there was a phone in a rich man’s car, and Danny Devito seemed surprised when he broke into a car, and it had one of those new-fangled alarms! Another one from Die Hard 2, where Bruce Willis gets a page from his wife, so he calls her back. “Where are you, you landed?” “Honey, this is the 90s…we have _air phones_ now…” You want to see a movie that got it right? Check out **Back to the Future 2**. The scene in the antiques shop is great! Lots of little items that make you smile, including a nice little early Apple computer with the screen that was shaped like legal paper. The **80’s Cafe** had lots of great little things in it too. What bugs me is technology that never existed in the first place. Current movies do this all the time. How annoying would it be if each and every keystroke resulted in a beep from the computer?? I like the computer set up in **Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind** , it looked very real with hundreds of cables and big clunky SCSI ports all daisy-chained together. Looks like the area under my desk! ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/79 "2004-04-16T13:17:06Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m betting the technology in Minority Report will seem pretty laughable in short order. Errr… I’m not sure. I mean, they have a computer system that btracks every call made in the US from one location, matter where it gets connecvted from and to, can reproduce a man’s face precisely based on space-based telescopes, and track down shotgun mikes within minutes. And determine who’s talking on the phone by his voice, out of several million calls. That’s way better than anything we’ve got now. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/80 "2004-04-16T14:07:58Z")
> [@Manduck](#): > > It’s been a long time since I saw the movie, so I don’t recall specifically. It’s in at least one of the spaceships, though. Your note actually had me doubting my memory, but when I googled for “2001 odyssey nixie tube” I found enough offhand mentions to reassure me. No smoking-gun stills, though. Sure you weren’t watching it on a black and white TV 🙂 I’ve seen 2001 fifty times at least, and I don’t remember black and white displays - unless you are talking about the moon landing shots. I do remember the nixie tubes. HAL has umpteen displays to control. Now, they do show stuff that is pointless, but they are in color. The hardcopy Bowman and Poole get looks pretty modern also. The thing that gets me is that having your logo in2001 was the kiss of death. Pan Am, the Bell System, Howard Johnsons as a place that would ever be in orbit. Only IBM seemed to have survived product placement. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025.md?page=5)