orderandlaw

A Clockwork Orange and the Star Wars trilogy have. I think that films which contain invented words, phrases and things like that have a good chance of aging well, as they can give the film a timeless quality. Hypothetically, if A Clockwork Orange were to be remade today with the same script (with a good cast/director/etc., of course), I don't think it would lose anything, because the whole thing is written in a made-up dialect. It would be received, I think, in a quite similar way by today's audience to its original audience.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, because the visual style, aesthetic quality (or lack of) and sparse feel of the film gives it a rawness that is as realistic and believeable today as it was thirty years ago.

Every theatrically-released 2D Disney movie ever made has aged superbly. I think much of it is down to the fact that they all have more or less the same aesthetic, and most of them are based on old, classic stories that aren't set in the contemporary time.

I think part of aging well is not referencing and depicting things of the time. Back to the Future shows its age today because of the clothing and scenery, though Back to the Future III doesn't so much, because it's all set in the Old West. Annie Hall's themes, and the cinematic ways in which they're explored, are timeless, but the setting of the film is very much of its time (think about how cocaine is the 'new thing', for example). It's a problem I have with many films today - referencing the Internet is dangerous and tricky. I think that references to the Internet should, in theory, be okay, but the fact that it's constantly changing and updating means that filmmakers should be very careful to even show things like MSN Messenger or Mac OS X on screen, let alone include them in dialogue. It's one of the biggest issues I had with Transformers (and that's a film with a lot of issues): not only is eBay mentioned early on, but Sam's username is brought up, and we soon realise that in fact, the eBay item in the film is the entire catalyst for the plot! This immediately dates the film (as well as being lame and shit). If you want to show a chat program, it's best to invent some proprietary program to show in the movie that has no identifiable menu bars, on an operating system that, similarly, can't be recognised. It's not fatal, by any means, to include modern technology in a film; making it identifiable is.

This is part of the reason that sci-fi and hacker films don't suffer from this particular problem. Look at Swordfish (a film I really like). It may not last forever, and I'm not saying that, but when it ages it won't be because they logged on to Hotmail to get the message from the bad guy. In sci-fi and that type of stuff, all that computer stuff is proprietary, it doesn't bear resemblence to software in the real world, so you can get away with it very easily. Think about The Matrix. The entire world of that series is based around a future war, and yes, computers and networks play a big part, but everything's made up. The hackers don't code in DOS, it's just some green letters on an otherwise blank screen. Probably the only thing that dates those films will be the cars on the motorway (and most of them are fairly ambiguous, could-equally-come-from-1980-or-2003 vehicles), and the Nokia that Neo's given in the first film. Everything else, while looking modern to us, doesn't immediately tell you what era the films come from, and that'll probably help the films age quite well.

Shannon Nutt

Casablanca has aged VERY well. It's one of the few "old" movies that doesn't seem old when you watch it (other than the B&W, of course).

I think BTTF plays just fine. The movie is set in 1985/1955 and it reflects those two years perfectly.

Oh, and here's a Disney 2D movie that HASN'T aged well: Aladdin

GradVT06

Hackers. Man, I'd STILL kill to get that new 56k modem they drool over!!!!

islandclaws

The Thing. It will continue to gain the praise it so rightfully deserves as one of the best horror films ever made in the history of the known universe.

jeffkjoe

Here's one that's aged TERRIBLY:

WARGAMES.

All that computer equipment? Ancient!

project86

The Dark Knight

orderandlaw

Why's that? Kids still love that movie. Catchy tunes, fun plot and all.

Decker

Perhaps the Arsino shout out? There are aspects that are dated, but overall, I think it's still fine and my kids love it.

Rockmjd23

The original Star Wars trilogy has aged better than Phantom Menace. PM relies on CGI so much but 1999 CGI doesn't look that good anymore.

notkevinbacon

This is the first one that popped into my head.

taa455

First one I thought of is Blade Runner.

Damed

Not too terribly old, but The Crow is as striking now as it was upon release.

Daytripper

Alien and Blade Runner both have a brand new feel. Still.

lawyer goodwill

I love movies - old and new - but I always think about how using tech (especially branded tech) is dangerous territory, like the OP mentioned.

When it comes to non-branded tech, two great movies that come to mind are Midnight Run (saving information on computer discs was a big deal in the mid-80s) and Manhunter (watching Will Petersen receive a "facsimile" with wide-eyed enthusiasm is a treat). They are very minor parts of terrific movies, but those little things can sometimes take viewers out of the story.

But as others have mentioned, they are very much of the time and some movies wouldn't be accurate without 'em. On the flip side, it would be like wondering why Bogey isn't at least trying to google some of them shady folk in The Maltese Falcon.

Besides tech, I think the phrasing and cadences used by actors before The Method and naturalistic acting came around dates movies for some viewers. Dialogue and staging from Ford-Duke Westerns in the 40s are delivered differently than words in Unforgiven and Tombstone. This may not be the best example, and I realize they are many exceptions as well, but there is certainly a difference "in form" of how actors do things then vs. now.

Mr. Cinema

John Carpenter's The Thing
Terminator 2
Taxi Driver

RichC2

The Thing
Videodrome (more relavent than ever)
Beetlejuice
Blade Runner
The Wicker Man ('73)

coli

I have really noticed in the past 10 years of CGI, that the movies with real sets, real locations, and real models have aged alot better. Movies like Star Wars, Bladerunner, and Aliens have aged really well. Although the movies that use CGI just to enhance the movie like T2 have aged just as well, cause it doesn't look like one big video game.

Decker

Alien has aged remarkably well. It was made for so little money and so long ago. it's remarkable that it still is so effective today. Compared to the many knock offs that have come since (like Species or Pitch Black), it just seems so much fresher and scarier. It's a testament to the immense talents involved in front and behind the cameras (many of whom were largely unkown back then) as well to the skill of the effects crew. Als it just shows that physical effects can age better than early computer generated effects.

Mondo Kane

The Tin Drum

When I first saw it about a few years ago, I assumed it was a brand new movie.

eiker_ir

Every time i see Alien i'm amazed at how it looks like it was made today, except for Mother, everything else doesn't feel dated at all

orderandlaw

You're right about how well it portrays the times in which it's set, but my point is that it's still very clear that it's based, primarily, in 1985 (by which I mean that although much of the film takes place in 1955, 1985 is the time in which the characters originally live). Of course, this is important to the film as the sense of era is crucial to much of it, but the point remains that the Eighties world we see is dated - so yes, I agree, viewed in its own right this works the film's favor. I suppose that the problem is that the importance of defining the different eras in order to give the film coherence leads to the problem that, in its nature, achieving this clear contemporary setting gets in the way of the film's hope to achieve a timeless quality. Certainly, the quality of the film in other ways gives it that, but you still encounter the issue that placing the film very definitely in the contemporary time means that it will very much be a film of that time. Through the creation of contemporary Eighties Americana, which includes things like the house designs, the cars, the clothing, the color palette and so on, the film is inexorably an Eighties film. And as I say, while that's no bad thing, I think it does limit how well it ages.

In fact, BTTF 2 has arguably aged the worst of the three, as the futuristic setting contains many staples of the way that people, years ago, imagined that the future would be like. Although it's created partially for comic effect, of course. But still, bits such as the 3D holographic Jaws that attacks Marty, while good, betray the film's age with the quality of the effects, and the stereotypical notion of what the future will bring.

Again, this works, in part, in the film's favor, but I think it's still hard to argue that the film isn't dated.

I get the feeling that this would make an interesting subject for a dissertation... ¬_¬

Oh, and don't get me wrong, I love the BTTF films. I think they're geniunely very good, exciting, funny, interesting films, and I could watch them from now every day until I die. I'm not just ragging on them because I hate them, it's because I genuinely think there's a case for my point, regardless of how much I like the movies.



Oh, and the 2D Disney film I'd say hasn't aged as well as the others is Beauty and the Beast - the 3D backgrounds created for scenes such as the ballroom dance may have been groundbreaking at the time, but these days look like Windows 95. On the other hand, I found the use of CGI in Aladdin (which, as far as I recall, was used only for the giant lion's head in the sand and the tower that Jafar sends them off in) stands up today; the textures and colors of the 3D models work within their settings, and probably the only slightly bad thing is the animation of the lion's mouth when it talks, because it's a bit too smooth and too neat, compared to the bespoke, hand-drawn and rotoscoped animation of the 2D characters. I hope that's what you were referring to when you said that Aladdin's aged badly, otherwise I'm lost.

Rockmjd23

Yeah that's what I was getting at with Phantom Menace. The Mummy Returns looks like a Sci Fi Channel Original now.

jeffkjoe

STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980)

Mark Hamill Harrison Ford Carrie Fisher Billy Dee Williams and Anthony Daniels

Brent L

The 2001: A Space Odyssey Blu-ray looks like it was just filmed yesterday.

Decker

Thanks for including the names of the cast members. I couldn't remember who was in that film.