It’s amazing just how dated something appears when it gets the tech wrong. This is a massive problem for movies and a significant problem for writers of all types. Coming from an IT background I notice these things pronto. So do most millenials I’m told. Let’s talk about a few examples.
The Net (1995)
I don’t think I’ve ever seen this entire movie. It is on my rental list because I’ve seen bits and pieces and I’ve read some “wish they hadn’t written it” reviews. Yes, even reviewers have to get the tech right. I poked around on-line but could no longer find the review. It was a classic example of “if you don’t understand tech keep your mouth shut.” I think it was even in one of the “selling things to geeks” magazines.
The reviewer went on and on about all of the tech they thought was wrong. In particular they talked about a scene where Sandra Bullock was using a laptop in a hotel without having to plug into the wall to get on the net. I imagine the person who wrote that review has long since purged it from the Web. The only time millenials plug into the wall is to charge. Wireless networks weren’t common then, but a few were around. Today if you check into a hotel that doesn’t have free wifi you ask if you are in a third world country.
Hangmen (1987)
Yes, I mentioned this movie in another post. Yes, it’s another Sandra Bullock movie, sort of. Even in 1987 this tech was old. Putting a handset into the mushies on an acoustic coupler modem was soooo 1979. Hayes released the Smartmodem 1200 in the spring of 1982.
Yes, it had a list of $700, but, knock-offs came at a furious pace. By 1987 there were an awful lot of sub $50 modem cards out there. I never saw an acoustic couple modem with a BAUD rate of more than 300. There was a technical problem with trying to make them work faster. The microphone listening to the hand set would pick up all of the noises in the room, typing, music, whatever, introducing garbage characters in the transmission.
WarGames (1983)
This movie got it right! It is required for everyone to watch this. It came out close enough to the tech sea change to be forgiven the modem. One can almost forgive the use of tape drives.
NOTE: Even in this day and age, if you do not explicitly spell out the appearance of a data center in your writing set designers will resurrect a few upright mag reel tape drives. Why? Because hard drives and thumb drives aren’t visual. Most hard drives don’t even have those little flashing lights on them anymore. The mag reels stutter spin back and forth.
Before hard drives became something completely hidden within a cabinet they used to come with face plates that had a 2 wire connector. When you connected that the little light on the face plate would light up with ether read or write activity (depending on the channel the 2 pins were fed from.) Putting a bunch of them externally facing in large cabinets could create something which would visually entertain people if you wrote software to randomly read/write to every drive.
WarGames: The Dead Code (2008)
They still got it right AND they honored the past! Gotta love the scene where he pulls out that great big floppy to reboot WOPR. Okay, so it booted waaaay faster than any floppy based system I ever booted, but, coolness none the less.
Hackers (1995)
You are required to watch this movie many times. Women think guys worship Angelina Jolie for her body and the sexy stuff she put out. Nope. She was Acid Burn. This is one of the best done tech movies of all time. They didn’t push it, they didn’t fake it, they got the tech right. This movie is even more relevant today than it was when it came out. Hacking was innocent back then. Now it is a global criminal enterprise and a good many of the penetrations happening today are the same ones outlined in this movie.
Stargate SG-1 (1997)
The entire series focused on getting the tech right. There were even some pre-season behind the scenes shows which took to explaining how most everything in the show was based on actual science, including the aliens.
Okay, I hear some of you complaining. “But I write novels, why do you keep posting about movies?” Because some of the best writing happens in film. Some of the best writing you will ever do will be to take a single scene, say, Diz’s funeral in the original Starship Troopers movie, and try to write it as you would for a novel. Don’t short it! Manage to get the look in Rico’s eyes as he talks about what it means to be a citizen. Capture the mood and look of the room. Be sure to capture the impact his words have on the silent actors standing cadence. Most of us cannot create that scene on a page and do it justice, can you?
How many of you reading this have half a novel in a drawer somewhere? What? Paper too old school for you? Your novel on a 3.5” floppy and you just have to find a drive to read it? Did you dutifully copy your Word Perfect 5 file to every machine you have bought since and now only have to hope something can read it? Oh, you used WordStar? Hmmmm . . .
A novel not yet born is a perishable commodity.
Does your novel have a writer banging away on a typewriter? Honestly, when is the last time you saw a typewriter?
Do you have people calling from land line phones? Seriously, the bulk of the world has been getting rid of those for years, it’s why most 911 systems are broke. The tax to fund 911 was put on land lines, not cell phones.
Does your novel have any technology you are not well versed in or which is currently obsolete? Just because you still own an 8-track tape player doesn’t mean it is current era tech. Get the tech right.
Make sure your tech, and language, are period era correct.
For more movie rental ideas please see list one and list two.