Errm, is this Minority Report (Tom Cruise) you are referencing? I don’t remember space-based telescopes. Sounds more like Enemy of the State (Will Smith, Gene Hackman).
Incidentally, Communicators (the TNG version, not the TOS cell phone bricks) are sort of being used now. Cool!
After having read this thread, I have to side with baldwin.
If I could drag you back in time to when a lot of these movies were made, I’d bet you’d have been hard pressed to guess what pieces of technology weren’t going to last. This is pure Monday-morning quarterbacking.
Do you also laugh at Quest for Fire and say “oooh how quaint, rubbing sticks together for fire”?
Not the same concept, BwanaBob. If QfF was set in the future and the characters whipped out a Commodore 64 to tap into EINIAC, we’d laugh just as hard.
And yes, of course this is Monday Morning Quaterbacking. Nothing inherently wrong with that.
You are quite correct, as realized about 2 minutes before I read your post. :smack:
However, the same holds true for Minority Report. I mean, scanners thta can accurately pick out your eyeballs from a distance of no less than 30 feet and identify you out of a database of at least a hundred million people instantly, auto-driving cars on vertical freeways, ordinary apartments 100 stories up, 3D video screens, and drugs that activate the memory centers of the brain, and a prison system that locks people into partial unconsciousness indefinitely?
Who cares about the silly pulse gun?
[exasperated sigh…]
Read post #26 for the missing links. It’s on page 1 of this thread.
Yes, Trek (and many others) had some goofy things. But, they also were very cutting edge in other things.
See also: “The Mote In God’s Eye” meets real life for other Sci-Fi hits.
The communicators on the original series were hardly brick size. They fit into the palm of the hand, no larger than a compact electric razor.
In fact, I’ve seen an outtake in which Kirk opens his communicator. Rather than the proper sound effect, there’s a kind of buzzing noise. After a second or two, he and the rest of the men begin using the comunicators to shave.
Let’s not forget the Phaser Cutting Phasers of TOS’ Devil In The Dark.
Sort of opposite to the OP, I got a kick out of the retro electronics in Brazil
For more of the same, see also Max Headroom.
No, I say “Starting a fire with a stick and some dry grass? COOL! I wish I could do that!” I was in Boy Scouts but could never get a fire started without matches. I flunked both the bow drill and flint & steel methods.
You have to be nude. Or nearly so.
That Apollo 13 movie was hoot! Giant rockets! Monochrome CRTs! Plymouths!
Hee!
Which kind of suggests you use your pubes for tinder, doesn’t it?
They don’t even have to be old. Any movie/tv series ever that has any of these features:
- Computers that make beeping noises every time the screen updates (i.e. Ronin’s map computer).
- Spy/thief gadgets with beeping sounds and blinking lights. Most of these movies ignore both the beeping and the blinking and allow the secret agent or thief to be stealthy while using said gadget.
- Bombs have to have the same features as said spy gadgets. For example in Alias, there’s a shack that’s raised a bit off the ground that’s laced underneath with explosives. Agents approach the shack very silently with night vision goggles on, but don’t hear the sound of the beeps nor see the light of the blinking LEDs before one of them bends down to look underneath the shack.
Most of these would be hilarious if I wasn’t such a suspension of disbelief junkie. As it is, for me, it’s just irritating and annoying as it breaks said suspension of disbelief.
What I loved about this wasn’t so much the machine, but the outgoing message, IIRC. “THIS IS AN AUTOMATED TELEPHONE ANSWERING DEVICE.”
Theres a bit in Fled where Laurence Fishburne and whichever Baldwin brother it is are going back to check Baldwin’s computer. He’s really amped about telling LB he’s got a 5500/180 Mac with a 56k modem or something.
I watched this when it came out on video in 96 or whenever and 5500s were about 3 years out of date then.
Also, in Enemy of the State, Will Smith makes a call on a payphone, even though 2 minutes later Hackman makes him trash his cellphone, that at that point of the film he didnt know was bugged.