I was reading in the "What Movies Can't be Remade" thread yesterday where someone stated that if Psycho were made today the issue could be solved easily with the use of cell phones. That got me thinking... will this new technology ruin the classics for future generations?

Most of us here remember a time oh so long ago when cell phones, GPS etc weren't popular or pretty much non existant. So watching older movies where they don't use this technology doesn't seem odd to us.

I'm singling out cell phone and GPS because there seem to be a lot of older movies from the beginning of talkies to say 1995 where the simple availability of cell phones would render the plot obselete.

But what about 50 years from now? Movies will adapt. They will accomodate this technology into their scripts... but will people be watching the movies we consider classics thinking "Why don't they just use their cell phone!", this ruining their enjoyment of the movie? Will Psycho have the same effect it did on us?

Even the whole "there's no service in this area" is becoming quickly outdated.

You just watch the movie and know it's a period piece. They didn't have cell phones back then. They didn't have PC's back then. They didn't have the internet back then. You just have to understand that going in and it can actually enhance the movie.

As in - how the hell did they solve those kind of crimes without that technology??

It can actually make the classics more interesting showing how people got through things without the technology that is taken for granted today.

Yes. I watch westerns now and wonder why horses don't have GPS.

They can remake Psycho. As Mr. Ho 78 alludes, you just set it in an era before cellphones, etc.

How DID they find where they were going without it???

It's not like there were a bunch of road signs on the freeway telling them which way to go....

Classics are classics for a reason... Because they stand the test of time.

So, to answer your question. no.

If someone is watching the original (and only, in my opinion) Psycho, and is wondering why they don't use a cell phone - well they should probably go back to watching to watching Tyler Perry DVDs.

What's really killing the classics is...

Today's youthful image -- with no desire to see what was before them. Everyone forgets about the past and the greats as a whole.

Today's movie audience probably has no clue who John Wayne, John Ford or Vivian Lee is...


Why do you think all these remakes are being made? Most audience are like, OH its a remake of a Horror movie (but most audience have never seen the source material).

No offense but...it's understandable for people to not now who Ford, though it's sad but some directors never get HUGE popularity by name among the average crowd like Spielberg, or Lee, hell I barely know about her, was. John Wayne though...you bring up a western you get Wayne or Eastwood. Wayne is the posterboy for the Western. I doubt anybody will forget who he was. They may not watch his films, I own a many film yet own very few Wayne films, 3 in fact. HELL I knew who he was and I never saw a film of his till I was like 14, I was born in '86, found out about him when I was eight cuz my mom brought him up as I saw The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly on TV. Wayne will never be forgotten. You go to Mexico, bring up a Western..Wayne. Ditto for Europe and Asia I'd assume, with an Eastwood here and there.

Just watched Casablanca on HD DVD with my 10-year old last night. He asked be how old the movie was but stayed and finished it with me. He also enjoyed Blade Runner in HD which he could not get into on SD, maybe because he was younger

Exactly. Why in the world would someone watch a movie that clearly takes place in the 50s or 60s and wonder why no one is using cell phones? That doesn't make sense.

No.

But it does an awesome job of remastering the picture and audio quality.

Have you SEEN that latest Criterion release of 'Seven Samurai'?

Amazing.

I'm sorry, but what a ridiculous topic.

When I was a kid, watching movies from the 30s through the 60s, I wasn't wondering why nobody was using their PCs, video game systems, microwave ovens, CD players, etc. It was extraordinarily simple to understand the movie was made years or even decades before such techological advancements.

In fact, it was never even given a second thought.

If I'm ever watching "The Maltese Falcon" with my kids and they ask why Humphrey Bogart didn't do a Google search on his client before taking on the case, I'm taking them on a one-way trip to Nebraska.

uh a compass? [shrugs]



no, they just asked a Native American Indian and then shot them after getting directions.

But do they know who Vivien Leigh is?

Hang on, what? In the other thread I said a remake of Psycho would be pointless because of cell tracking. I didn't say "a remake set in the present" because I assumed it went without saying. How retarded would you have to be to watch a film made in 1960, set in roughly the same time, and wonder where the cell phones are? I know the education system in the U.S. teeters on the edge of collapse, but surely it's not that bad.


And no, technology will never harm the classics, at least not in the bizarre way you mean. Advances in effects can make older films look obviously fake when they were revolutionary at the time, but even that does not harm them.

Most kids these days believe the previous generation to be tamer more than anything, and it is a common misconception with a lot of people. Even my parents ask me why I'm watching an older film from time to time.

Of course, many of these people were never exposed to the glory of 80s schlock.

To further refute this thought is a movie like Zodiac, made today and set in the 70's. The whole movie was a meditation on previous technologies and police procedures, when police departments didn't have computers, DNA testing, and other technological advances. I don't think there were any threads on the forum asking why they never found the Zodiac killer.

Also, a show like Life on Mars would never work, if people think that technology has always been around.

Technology advances so quickly, that in ten years the kids of today will remember when all we had were cell phones, GPS devices, and clunky MP3 players, way before hologram blue tooth brain modules.

tomatoe - tomato

I'm not going to lie -- When I was in High School I couldnt get into the silent film or foreign film genre. However, now that is all I seem to want to watch.

Alot of the American fare is very bland.

If anything...I can't stand Bollywood, I have no respect for it's cinema except for some films..and it's amazing issues with copyrights, illegal remakes etc.

BUT let's not just take down our own cinema here. Each Country has it's own way of story, and the presentation of it. Japan for example to me hasn't been critically as huge since the 80s I think. The new films from there are good and different but more an easy cash in. Mexico only now has begun, well from early 90s, begin a great surge in great and different films. America has and always will possibly be the greatest gray figure in Cinema. We have amazing resources to receive and create great entertainment. We have the easy entertainment films like Spidey, Bourne, and Star Wars films but we also create great films like Taxi Driver, The Searchers, Being John Malkovich, Rocky, Wall-E, etc. Films that entertain but are also an art to the craft, not to say that the former 3 films aren't art but you know what I mean.

come on really ? technology killing classics?

"man those guys in ben hur really could have used some machine guns" - let's have a little faith in people

But "My battery is dead" will be with us forever, if my friends are any indication.

"My battery is dead" = "I'm sick of talking to you. Gotta go"