Movies that Could Not Be Made Today (for reasons other than political correctness)
The Blind Eternities forum
Posted on July 10, 2023, 8:26 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
I have read numerous articles online that discuss classic movies from previous decades that could not be made today due, to changing political and cultural beliefs, but I wonder about movies that are now outdated for reasons other than political correctness, so I would like to start a discuss about such movies.
The first movies that I shall mention are the first two Home Alone movies, because, with the prevalence of cell phones, today, if a family left behind one of their children, the parents likely would be able to call their child and know that the child was still home and in no danger. Also, airport security since the September 11 attacks has become far stricter, so it is highly unlikely that passengers would be able to board an airplane only minutes before takeoff or that a young child would be allowed to board an airplane alone.
Another movie that could not be made today is Revenge of the Nerds, which does contain some elements that most audience would consider to be culturally insensitive, today, but that is not why I am mentioning that movie, here. Today, "normal" people no longer view nerds as outcasts or weirdos, so the idea of nerds needing to exact revenge would not make much sense.
Finally, I shall mention the movie Airheads, in which a band of musicians take control of a radio station to promote their music, and they need to find a cassette tape, as well as a machine that can play said cassette, but, today, most musicians would likely store their music on digital formats, and could also use the internet to promote their material, without needing to invade a radio station.
What does everyone else have to say about this? What are some movies that would not be made, today, for reasons other than political correctness?
KnightsBattlecry001 says... #3
Blazing Saddles would be the movie I think off the top of my head that could never be remade. Then again not a single Mel Brooks movie should be remade because those movies are too good.
July 11, 2023 8:32 a.m.
I'm pretty sure Mel Brooks himself has joked that you couldn't make Blazing Saddles then either (to paraphrase). IMHO he found a way to mix some left wing ideas with some relatively right wing jokes and it was able to appeal to a much wider audience than if it had been staunchly left leaning. I think Brooks understands that the US's adult population has been spoon fed right wing ideas from early childhood, and that most American film is to an extent right wing propaganda, meaning if you try to market something too far left they'll crucify you.
In a similar vein, many, many Monty Python sketches won't make sense to kids being born now/couldn't really be made now. It's not necessarily the offensiveness, I'm more talking about all the tech/topical jokes, like a record that's stuck on the line "...the record's stuck...", or going to a record store to listen to a record titled "The Ronettes Sing Medieval Agrarian History", as well as two soldiers in the trenches in WW1 passing pictures around, kids being born now won't learn much/anything about WW1 other than from movies and the idea of carrying around a picture to pass around is just not going to make sense. I guess you can pass your phone? Anyways, that's just from one bit, there are tons of great bits of comedy that are going to age into irrelevance, and weirdly it'll be the slapstick stuff that ages best, that and the more universal stuff. Who knows, maybe 1000 years from now people will be more interested in Charlie Chaplin than in anything we're making now, because while that stuff feels dated to us, our stuff may seem not just dated but staggeringly pretentious and wildly beyond it's best before date because so many of our jokes are topical/contextual and will age like the finest of bananas.
July 11, 2023 9:28 a.m.
I will note, OP specifically requested - both in title and text - this thread is NOT to discuss politics. Nor is TappedOut the place for such discussions. Let us try to respect the OP’s wishes and remain on topic, not veering this thread into conversations which very easily could spiral into it having to (unfairly to OP) be shut down.
Tossing that out there since there are posts above which seem to start down that track.
My nomination would be Doctor Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. A strong contender for the best comedy ever made, it very much is a product of its era of history. Released just two years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the film oozes an irreverence for its unique era of history - and the potential for small missteps to lead to catastrophe. From the script, to the acting, to the direction, the film’s satire very much is a product of that time and that time alone, encapsulating and mocking the trigger-happy paranoia of its era.
July 11, 2023 9:47 a.m. Edited.
Dr Strangelove is also an excellent one, and I will say, I think that Mel Brooks' style cannot be done for modern movies because I don't think big movie franchises would be as on board with a parody anymore. People had a confidence in Mel Brooks that he would make a really funny movie, to the point where even George Lucas said, yep, rip my movie apart and do it as funny as you can. There just isn't a comedic writer out there right now where major movie franchises would say, you'll do a great job making fun of us. The closest thing now maybe is the Lego movies, but little in-jokes is not the same as an entire parody movie, and I don't think we really will see another great parody series, sad as it is.
July 11, 2023 12:10 p.m.
Niko9 - Brooks is a genius, to be sure - he is not an EGOT winner for nothing. But I am not sure I agree with your analysis on why Brooks-style parodies no longer exist.
Parody does not require the approval of the subject of the product to get made. Brooks was a class act and did things like ask Lucas first, but he did not need to do so - as the plethora of bad Star Wars parody films can attest to.
Further, I think it is unfair to say there are not comedic writers with the talent to pull off a Brooks-style movie today. Brooks’ movies work because he had two key traits - he is funny and he had an intimate knowledge of the content he was spoofing and thus could expertly deconstruct and build it back up.
There are plenty of writers who can do that. Taika Waititi, for example, consistently makes content that exhibits his understanding of certain source materials and ability to apply comedy thereto.
The problem has nothing to do with lack of comedic talent (that clearly exists) or a studio’s reluctance to allow parody (that is unnecessary) - but more to do with the rash of really bad parody movies throughout the early 2000s. Following up on the success of Brooks and some renewed success of parody with films like Austin Powers in the late 90s, we saw a huge number of Scary Movie, Disaster Movie, Epic Movie (really anything with X Movie as the title), Meet the Spartans, etc. styled movies, which kind of killed the genera.
Over-saturation of bad movies can drown out some exceptional examples of Parody - your Shawn of the Dead’s (2008) and Cabin in the Woods (2011), turning audiences off of the genera and making those types of film financially risk to studios.
July 11, 2023 12:42 p.m.
Metroid_Hybrid says... #8
One Hour Photo
The "one-two punch" of general innovations in digital camera technology over time, followed by the vast ubiquity cellphone cameras have made one-hour photo places virtually obsolete, seemingly overnight, over a decade ago & counting..
The movie itself is way better than it has any right to be, mainly thanks to Robin Williams's brilliantly creepy portrayal of 'Sy, the photo guy'..
July 11, 2023 6:43 p.m.
Phone Booth
When was the last time you saw a phone booth?
July 11, 2023 7:15 p.m.
Caerwyn That's true : ) There are really great comedy writers out there who could absolutely do great things with spoof movies, but maybe I was thinking more directly to Spaceballs having George Lucas and ILM involved (and I think I heard he also signed off on the Family Guy thing but I don't really know much) The Flight of the Conchords people and Taika Waititi are great examples of who can make it really fun, and What They Do in the Shadows is kind of a classic horror spoof movie, which is very Young Frankenstein in a way.
I just don't think we will get spoofs of big budget movies other than the ones you mentioned, Austin Powers, Disaster Movie, things that always have to dance that fine line of, never say "shaken not stirred" Men in Tights may be a better example now that I think about it because it is so directly a parody on the Kevin Costner Robin Hood, and I really don't think you could do that now.
July 11, 2023 7:33 p.m.
I feel like a bunch of the 80's popcorn movies that "jumped the shark" & required that a large audience suspend belief would be hard to make @ least on such a large blockbuster scale. I feel like "The Goonies" would not fly the same way anymore. TMNT live-action. Indiana Jones. There seem to be a lot of those types & I'm thinking of these not even from the reboot perspective, no, more like trying to envision those titles just releasing with the same premise for the first time now
July 12, 2023 1:46 a.m.
FormOverFunction says... #12
It can also be fun to look at made-for-tv movies, like “Wild Palms” or even “Twin Peaks,” that sort of seem different enough to me from the indie films and streaming series that we see on Apple/Amazon/etc. They were made to fit ads inside... which made a very gentle but (I think) distinct structural change. I know they aren’t proper movies... but after they ended they were GONE, unless you personally taped them (or found someone in the back of a magazine who did). This is tangentially related, but I thought I’d mention it. TV movies just don’t seem to exist any more, as streamed shows feel totally different. [end-old-man-musings]
July 12, 2023 3:40 p.m.
Haha FormOverFunction I like the tangent though. The Sam Neil - Merlin was my white whale for years.
July 12, 2023 5 p.m.
Ha, oh we just watched Merlin at home. I think it was on prime video or something. I just really wish that they could somehow put those up with the commercials of the time in between so it would really feel like the old vhs that I've definitely lost somewhere.
July 12, 2023 6:39 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #15
It seems that a common element among many of the movies that users have mentioned in this thread is that they are now outdated due to advancing technology, and I certainly can understand that.
July 12, 2023 9:21 p.m.
I think if you exclude politics explicitly (which I obviously find difficult, sorry!), the main reason context will change dramatically almost has to be technology or fashion. Fashion's changes are usually just superficial, so they don't really matter much (and it's trends tend to be cyclical), that leaves tech as the major thing that can change over time.
Not sure if this is the right place/if this is a derail, but I thought of this thread while I watched the CollegeHumor vid "Grant is a Huge Klutz Idiot'. I laughed, I cried, my core muscles got a good workout, I stand by my assertion that physical comedy will probably age better than contextual, but that sounds like a classic 'do you want to be famous now or celebrated long after your death?'. Could you have made the same video 100 years ago and still have it be funny? Yes, 100% you could. Could you probably take "Grant is a Huge Klutz Idiot" anywhere, even thousands of years in the future, and make people laugh? I think you could, even if they don't speak English anymore. For contrast I'd like you to consider "Grant Forgets he Sucks", which is very context driven and will age like the finest banana eventually, because nobody will know what Memento was or get any of the jokes. Both are hilarious skits, but you could show one of them to literally anyone who's ever lived and they'd have a laugh, the other appeals to some of the people who've seen Memento (not even all of them), but to that tiny demographic "Grant Forgets he Sucks" is probably funnier, because the slapstick stuff 'isn't sophisticated'. It's a strange lens to look at art through, 'how will this art age?' is a valid and potentially interesting question.
Niko9 says... #2
Bwhaha, Home Alone is such a great example of this. I really love stories from that era because there was a sense of being alone and being out of touch that just doesn't happen so much now. So many films now use phones or even that "character holds their ear and is always in perfect contact with the team" thingy, and I miss when characters were just put into situations and then that feeling of, I'm alone and now I have to deal.
Horror, especially slasher horror is the biggest one I can think of. Jamie Lee Curtis would have had the police on her block in a heartbeat. The stranded team of The Thing could just keep a groupchat up and then they could all see if one person gets gooed.
Oh, and also Uncle Buck, they can never remake it, simply because John Candy was and always will be Uncle Buck : )
July 10, 2023 9:57 p.m.