# 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:** 5
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/81 "2004-04-16T15:34:16Z")
> [@DakotaDog](#): > > 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?? The terminal in my local library did that (cir 1990). No big deal as it was only used to look up books to see if they were in the collection and if they were in stock or out on loan, but it would have been annoying if you did word processing or something else that require a large amount of input on that machine. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/82 "2004-04-16T18:48:01Z")
> [@DakotaDog](#): > > 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! Ah, Twins - that bastion of realistically portrayed technology. You may recall the central premise was to in-vitro fertilise a woman with the sperm of twelve men to create a child with all their different desirable traits. ---
**Author:** ![hazel-rah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@hazel-rah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hazel-rah)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/83 "2004-04-16T19:04:50Z")
Note to screenwriters: the more features or specs your character mentions in order to brag about how badass their new laptop is, the funnier it will be when people see your movie about three years down the road. Just don’t do it. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/84 "2004-04-16T19:16:43Z")
> [@Fish](#): > > 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?” The real kicker is…the [nanites](http://www.startreklives.de/cultures/nanites.htm) had already been featured in an earlier episode of TNG. Where they’d _taken over the Enterprise._ And they weren’t high-tech prototypes, or alien artifacts, even…they were standard-issue Starfleet hardware, designed for medical use. The Federation probably had _warehouses_ full of the damn things. (SMALL warehouses, sure…) ---
**Author:** ![Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4da419/32.png) [@Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gala_Matrix_Fire)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/85 "2004-04-16T20:13:47Z")
I recently re-watched **The Firm** , in which Gene Hackman, as a multimillionaire senior partner in a law firm, needs to make a phone call. So he goes to a phone booth! Awesome. I wonder at what day and time the last wealthy American used a payphone in real life. I like to believe it still happens. ---
**Author:** ![Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4da419/32.png) [@Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gala_Matrix_Fire)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/86 "2004-04-16T20:15:29Z")
Oops, sorry. It wasn’t funny, it was cool. I forgot the original point of the thread. I apologize. ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/87 "2004-04-17T00:49:06Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > 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. I think we got our wires crossed somewhere. I didn’t say anything about black-and-white displays. I mentioned the nixie tubes, though in my ignorance I called them “glowing filament” displays. ---
**Author:** ![Swede\_Hollow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@Swede\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swede_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/88 "2004-04-17T20:00:37Z")
How about **Tango & Cash**? When I last watched it it took me a while to realize what was on Cash’s (Kurt Russell) gun. He has a laser site that is the size of a small scope with a huge battery pack attached to it. The whole unit is about the size of the gun itself! Impressive in 1989 perhaps, but HUGE to modern eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/89 "2004-04-18T00:18:53Z")
> [@seriousart](#): > > Just thought of a 50s B-movie worth mentioning, though I regret I don’t remember the name. Something like “Mission to the Moon”. > > Anyway, at one point after our brave explorers land on the moon in horribly inadequate space suits, they split up and send part of the group off to “look for oxygen”. > > If that isn’t a F-you mission, I don’t know what is. Although, if my memory serves, they _did_ find some. > > Can anybody ID this movie? Possibly [Amazon Women on the Moon](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092546/) Which definitely had a scene like that. It is, however, a deliberately funny parody of bad 1950’s movies. It also shows the president of the USA speaking to the astronaughts from memory the quote is approximately “in this year, 1980, the governors of all 48 states join me in wishing you success in your mission” AWOTM is a parody of [Queen of Outer Space](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052104/plotsummary), among others and you might have seen the original. I’ve not seen it, so I can’t be sure. ==================== You goota love the way Robocop runs in MS/DOS ---
**Author:** ![SanibelMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@SanibelMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanibelMan)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/90 "2004-04-18T04:36:57Z")
One film that’s great (or really crappy, depending on your standards) for cheesy computer usage is _Overdrawn at the Memory Bank,_ a film starring Raul Julia made by New York’s public television station in the early 1980’s. Really, really bad computer graphics used _everywhere_ and a plot that revolved around the unauthorized viewing of “cinemas,” specifically, Casablanca. As Tom Servo said, “Never show a good movie in the middle of your crappy movie.” > [@lissener](#): > > This reminds me of the unintentionally funny scene in The Exorcist where the mother is talking to the doctor in his office. As he’s discussing Regan’s diagnosis (he suggests she try Ritalin; I’m sure a lot of parents of ADHD kids empathized with her), he’s smoking. His office fills with smoke as he gestures and waves the cigarette around. The mother never seems to notice it. > > Somehow, cigarettes in older movies aren’t as jarring: they’re just part of the idiom of Noir. But in a more recent movie, they look out of place: the office in All the President’s Men, where everyone’s desk is in the same big hangarlike room. Some of the people are smoking; they have ashtrays on their desks. So everyone, like it or not, has to spend 8 hours a day in a smokefilled room. Eesh. When I saw _The Exorcist_ for the first time back when it was re-released to theaters a couple of years ago, everyone laughed as the doctor described the new, untested drug “Ritalin” and how it might help. In _All the President’s Men,_ there is one scene where Woodward and Bernstein get into an elevator where Bernstien’s still smoking, and Woodward turns to him and says, “Is there anyplace you _don’t_ smoke?” So apparently there was some realization that it could be obnoxious. I just think it’s funny that they probably could have figured out the Watergate scandal in ten minutes with today’s technology. “Bob, listen, I think I’ve got something, I don’t know what it is. But somewhere in this world there is a Kenneth H. Dahlberg, and we gotta get to him before the New York Times does, because I think they’ve got the same information.” Why not just Google him? Jeez! And having to ask for an outside line from the operator, and pick up messages, and typewriters… Wow, I’m glad I’m a journalist now rather than then. Of course, today, the Watergate cronies would have just hacked the Post’s computers and erased their notes and had them killed. So maybe there was an advantage. > [@seriousart](#): > > Just thought of a 50s B-movie worth mentioning, though I regret I don’t remember the name. Something like “Mission to the Moon”. > > Anyway, at one point after our brave explorers land on the moon in horribly inadequate space suits, they split up and send part of the group off to “look for oxygen”. > > If that isn’t a F-you mission, I don’t know what is. Although, if my memory serves, they did find some. > > Can anybody ID this movie? This sounds a lot like _Twelve to the Moon,_ an MST3K film in which two of the astronauts set off with what looked like a car battery with a diaphragm to look for air. They found it in a cavern filled with exploding urinal cakes before the Moon Men froze them behind and ice wall and kept them there until the rest of the astronauts agreed to leave behind two cats. (No, it doesn’t make any more sense if you watch it.) Do you remember if the astronauts in the movie you were watching turned on their “invisible shields” that protected them from the total lack of atmosphere on the moon? ---
**Author:** ![Darkhold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@Darkhold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darkhold)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/91 "2004-04-18T04:56:47Z")
[hijack] All this O2 on the moon talk reminded me of an old movie where an astronaut was left behind on the moon (don’t remember why) and ended up in an oxygen filled cave. He resecued a slave girl who fed him O2 pills…even at the expense of her own life (I think there was a male slave as well who ended up being killed for some reaosn). I remember they also had a thin ‘covering’ in front of the cave that kept the O2 in :smack:. Does anyone know what that movie was? I must have been 12 or so when I saw it on TV so it would have been made before the late 80’s. [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/92 "2004-04-18T10:51:38Z")
There is a really dreadful movie called ‘Twelve To The Moon’. It is so bad it is a real hoot. Anyway, it was made in the fifties (I think) and it is about some space pioneers going to the moon in the latest spacecraft. There is a fire on board the ship, and what alerts the crew? Not an alarm, but the faithful dog barking! It is like Lassie in Space. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/93 "2004-04-18T12:01:48Z")
> [@Evil Death](#): > > Which is how Stephen Hawking’s on-the-fly voice generator sounds today. Do you have a point? Funny you should say that. I heard recently that his voice synthesizer is wearing out and they don’t make ones that sound like that anymore. Which means that Hawking’s “voice” will change, something about which he is rather annoyed. [http://www.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=35697&cat=Science](http://www.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=35697&cat=Science) ---
**Author:** ![ColonelDax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@ColonelDax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColonelDax)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/94 "2004-04-18T14:42:39Z")
How about\*\* The Terminator\*\*? Those computer graphics you see in the views through Arnie’s eyeball look charmingly retro now. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/95 "2004-04-18T15:58:07Z")
Fitz Lang’s _Metropolis_ still looks good today, then amazing view of the big future city is breathtaking … apart from the single-propeller biplanes circling in the sky. Even with flaw, its still better than Blade Runner. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2004, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/96 "2004-04-19T02:36:40Z")
> [@Darkhold](#): > > [hijack] > All this O2 on the moon talk reminded me of an old movie where an astronaut was left behind on the moon (don’t remember why) and ended up in an oxygen filled cave. He resecued a slave girl who fed him O2 pills…even at the expense of her own life (I think there was a male slave as well who ended up being killed for some reaosn). I remember they also had a thin ‘covering’ in front of the cave that kept the O2 in :smack:. Does anyone know what that movie was? I must have been 12 or so when I saw it on TV so it would have been made before the late 80’s. > [/hijack] That sounds like [Robinson Crusoe On Mars](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058530/). The astronaut is left stranded on mars with a monkey. He must find food, water, and oxygen. He discovers that when a certain rock is crushed, it releases oxygen. He develops tanks filled with silt and a sand alarm clock so that he can sleep without risk of suffocation He later sees aliens using slave labor to mine. One of the slaves, Friday of course, escapes and befriends the astronaut. Friday shares his oxygen pills with Crusoe, and does indeed risk his own life in order to leave more pills for him. ---
**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2004, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/97 "2004-04-19T04:07:41Z")
> [@Baldwin](#): > > So, if I’m making a contemporary movie, should I avoid showing any state-of-the art consumer electronics, because twenty years in the future some smartass will laugh at it? Someone will laugh at you, no matter what you do. The safest thing is to just watch other people’s movies… and laugh at them. ---
**Author:** ![Darkhold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@Darkhold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darkhold)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2004, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/98 "2004-04-19T06:10:00Z")
**DocCathode** , sounds exactly right. Thank you that was starting to bug me. Weird I remember the slave as a girl. Must have been merged with some other strainded with a space hooker…er I mean native with little attire. ---
**Author:** ![Achren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/898d66/32.png) [@Achren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achren)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2004, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/99 "2004-04-19T06:29:08Z")
> [@bluethree](#): > > I recently re-watched **The Firm** , in which Gene Hackman, as a multimillionaire senior partner in a law firm, needs to make a phone call. So he goes to a phone booth! Awesome. I wonder at what day and time the last wealthy American used a payphone in real life. > > I like to believe it still happens. I haven’t seen the movie for awhile, but I’m guessing it had something to do with his personal phone been bugged. As we all know, when your phones are bugged, use those handy, dandy phone booths. 🙂 I’ve been re-watching the first/second season of the X-Files. I almost fell out of my chair when I heard Scully say she was going to “modem” some info to Mulder. And here I thought “modem” was a noun! I never knew it was a verb! ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2004, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025/100 "2004-04-19T08:06:39Z")
> [@bughunter](#): > > Actually, **Star Trek** TOS pegged a lot of things pretty accurately… and influenced tech design to the point where reality mimicked art. Like what? The sliding automatic supermarket door? I was also partial to the “UNIX” system that Jurasic Park runs on. Of course, I am in favor of any security system (Jurasic Park, Die Hard, Matrix: Reloaded) where cutting the power not only nuetralizes the alarms but also causes the doors to unlock and fly open. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unintentionally-funny-scenes-in-old-movies-due-to-cutting-edge-technology/240025.md?page=6)