We all know what dates older movies already: Afros, Big Hair in general, bell bottoms, black and white, “give me a [nickel/dime/quarter] for the payphone”…etc. What’s going to date movies from the 90’s and early 00’s?
Here’s a short list I’ve come up with so far:
Dial-Up Modems: already on the way out.
Fake Graphical User Interfaces: More people know computers now and won’t be fooled with real time 3D effects when someone says “This is a UNIX system!”
Payphones: Could payphones go the way of the dinosaur with the current popularity of cell phones? Probably not completely but I can already see them being used less and less in movies.
Film: Is it only a matter of time until film is an antiquity? Maybe, maybe not, I’m not quite sure.
‘Matrix-style’ effects. These have been way too prominent in the post-Matrix era. Could future generations laugh at them and MST3K them?
What else? What kind of cars and clothes will especially date recent movies? What kind of technology? What kind of filming techniques?
VCRs, cordless phones with a long telescoping metal antenna, product logos, the products themselves (e.g. Pepsi Free being mentioned in Back to the Future).
I noticed a weird gaffe in a 1999 (I think) Showtime movie, “In the Company of Spies”. The topic (political situation N. Korea) will probably date it anyway, but there was a conversation between two characters where one asks the other how Mrs. Smith (or whoever) is doing. Apparently, the other says, Mrs. Smith isn’t doing too well. Still thinks that President Bush is in office. Poor deluded soul.
Inevitably, women’s hairstyles and makeup date a movie. Even if it’s a period movie, elements of contemporary fashions make their way into the movie. For example, the bouffant hairdo and frosted lipstick Julie Christie wore in Bolshevik-era Russia in Dr. Zhivago (1965). Or the elaborately long perms women have in Westerns made in the 1970s and 1980s.
Oh, I forgot a recent one that’s been talked about alot lately. Some people think Legolas’s skateboarding stunt in The Two Towers will date that movie. Still not quite sure whether I agree with that or not.
All the ‘boarding’ in recent Disney movies (Tarzan, Treasure Planet off the top of my head) will probably date them.
I think the Matrix effects will be like those 60s effects where the person looks like they are moving backward in a tunnel of decreasing sized versions of themselves, or the “kaleidoscope” effects.
Music and credits sequences will date a movie. Any movie that used the Seven-style credits sequence will be instantly pegged as a mid-90’s production. In fact, I predict that in about 5 or 10 years, every David Fincher movie will look as dated as Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Mahaloth said special effects; you can already see this going on. CG gimmicks like motion blur and lens flare and all the “quick zoom” effects in Attack of the Clones can date a movie even down to the year it was made. All through Minority Report I couldn’t help thinking that in 5 or 10 years, this movie is going to scream out “This movie was made in 2002.”
I saw Blade Runner for the first time in years and was surprised at how well it holds up. In fact, the only things that date it are the music, and the scenes in Tyrell’s office when talking to Rachel. All the smoke and the light coming through venetian blinds are so mid-80’s it could’ve come straight out of an episode of Miami Vice. (Not to mention Edward James Olmos’ costume).
Refer to the first Lethal Weapon, where Danny Glover totes around a hilariously large and cumbersome mobile cell phone in several scenes. 1987, I believe.
CRTs for computer monitors are rapidly being replaced by flat screens, and TV screens are also beginning to make the transition. Also, most references to European currencies other than the euro. And in the U.S., it appears that eventually even most local phone calls will need an area code.