I have a horrible habit of thinking of older movies as somehow being not as good as current movies. Only a small part of that is about plot; for instance, what seemed scary then doesn’t hold much weight now (Soylent Green is people!). That’s not to say I don’t love Soylent Green and think it’s an incredible movie, but come on, the end was a little underwhelming. The rest of it is more about the quality and technology. Old movies were in black and white, and they were grainy, and the sound was bad, and it makes me think of them as being not as good as the movies we have today. But if you ask an old person about the difference between the two, they don’t really see one. It’s not that they don’t see the improved quality in current movies, it’s that they don’t think of older movies as being lesser in any way. Which is because they grew up with them and love them. So my question is when I’m 140 and watching the classics from my era (Fight Club, Memento, etc.), what are my great grandkids going to be watching that makes my favorite movies look retarded? I mean, movies have reached a point where they are optical quality; what the camera shoots is essentially the same thing our eyes see. Can you even imagine what the next step would be? Holographic displays, or interactive simulation, or a holodeck? Oh man, a holodeck … god I can’t wait for the future.
January 19, 2008, 10:53pm
