When does a movie become "old"?
 

Similar to my thread about *when does a game become retro"?

Well, if we're talking about movies that are very reliant on special effects you can tell if one is old based on their outdated effects. But movies that don't have them? That's harder. I suppose you can judge by the image quality or the kind of plot and setting it has. For example, movies about genocides and war in Africa like Hotel Rwanda were once popular for a while in the early-mid 2000s. They're not popular anymore. Traditional action movies like the ones we saw in the 80s were kind of passe by the time the 21st century roled in.

I remember mentioning a movie from 2006 or so around 2009 or 2010 and being told "that movie is very old", which blew my mind. I was 19 at the time, as was the other guy. I know teenagers tend to think things that came out over a year or two ago are old but still...

But for example, Django Unchained. That movie is about a decade old by now or very close to it. Is it "old", though? And what about Batman Begins and The Dark Knight? Considering how common and popular superhero movies are nowadays, I don't think the Nolan Batman movies look or feel outdated in comparison to the latest superhero movies. At least not in terms of genre.

Movies like The Godfather and Rocky are obviously old, but they're classics and I'd still recommend them to anyone regardless of age these days.

Some say the first Die Hard movie is outdated because there were no mobile phones at the time it came out. And nowadays, the movie would finish faster due to the existence of phones.

Thoughts?

I think when a decade has passed you can at least make the case, but man, sometimes it hurts. And some of them definitely don't feel "old".

Ten years is inarguably a decent chunk of time, though. When I was a kid, it felt like Elvis had been dead Forever, but it hadn't even been ten years. Ten years seemed like forever.

So I'll just say "ten years" for the sake of simplicity and the fact that we use a decade as a standard measurement of time having passed.

You know MCU Spider-Man calls Empire Strikes Back and Aliens "old movies" to demonstrate how young he is, despite both of those movies being close to 30-40 years old by that point? And you know how how movies made in the 50's and 60's were considered old in the 80's and 90's despite being about as old as ESB and Aliens are now?

Old is kind of subjective.

... Although, I guess when the technology used to make the movie is obviously dated, that might be a good benchmark? So when a movie is in black and white, not because of a stylistic choice but because it was all they had or it was actually a budget thing back then, then one might call it old once color film was cheap enough to no longer justify black and white as the norm? That's probably not a good metric because it would mean Night of the Living Dead is "older" than The Wizard of Oz, which is objectively wrong.

Hm... How about this, a movie is old when it's been over 20 years after it's been released and there hasn't been a sequel or remake in over 10? Basically, when the studio don't care about it beyond DVD sales and streaming revenue and it's probably just going to be without derivatives until it enters the public domain. That's not objective either though.

Both good answers.

As for Elvis, well I have a similar example. I was born in 1990. But by the time I knew something about the world and about history, the Berlin Wall and the Cold War already felt like ancient events to me. Even though the Cold War only officially ended in 1991. But by 1998 or 1999, it all felt so ancient to me.

As for videogames, the NES was discontinued in 1993 I think. I remember it already being an old console by 1995 when I first played it. I mean, next to the SNES and the Mega Drive I could very well tell it was older.

The NES was discontinued in North America and Europe in August 1995 and in Japan in September 2003.

The NES was outdated by late 1992 and early 1993, when developers stopped caring for making any good NES games. The console experienced its last major Christmas in 1991 in North America, and in 1992 in Europe.

As a kid a good guide was that if a movie was airing in non-cable tv channels then it was OLD. No kid felt those movies were still current. I don't know how long it used to take back then but it felt forever. When movies finally came out on VHS they were still relevant, and when they hit cable they were old but still not too old. Goes without saying that any 80s movie always felt ancient to me.

I'm sure kids today think the MCU is from forever and it's true, I mean iron man has a non-ironic myspace joke, that's what I used when I was in highschool, forever ago. FB was only used by the "cool college" kids back then. It wasn't until the end of HS that anyone could register to FB and we all did when it was finally open, so long ago.

The wait from SWs episode 1 to 3 felt like a lifetime and it literally was for me, I went from being a kid who had not finished Elementary to a teenager worrying what college I would go to once HS finished.

Also this is why checking Wikipedia is silly, sure the NES might've had a game made in 1995 but that's console was not relevant at all, even the SNES felt older by that time compared to 3D games that were already coming out on consoles.

I'm hyped for Jurassic World 3 but JW2 which came out in 217 feels like a long time ago, hell anything prepandemic definitely feels old to me now. It also helps that the 2020s feel like a fresh new decade compared to the 2010s which further makes anything from that era seem older than it is.

Has there been any movies (not counting documentaries or things actually about CoVid, Fauci, etc) that have shown or referenced the pandemic? Like a movie about whatever else but you see people walking around with masks on or a 'get vaccinated' sign in the background or whatever?

I'm wondering if there'll be a time we watch a movie or TV show and some kid born post-pandemic asks why everyone is wearings masks we'll be like 'oh right, there was this pandemic back in 2020 to 20XX and this clown named Fauci..."

The average was about two years, same as now. It felt like "forever" because kids have only been alive a couple of years and thus have no concept of time. For example, Ghostbusters was released in 1984 and was on network TV by the Fall of 1986.

Suffice to say, two years is not long enough to make something "old", kids simply have no perspective.

The director of the most recent Halloween movie has said that the next one will be all about the pandemic. Which assures me that I'll never watch it.

Ah, but I mean like a normal movie that happens to have masks in it or something. Like idk.. people wearing masks in the background of idk.. the lastest romcom or some movie taking place in modern day or whatever cause that's just how it is.

Or I guess since the pandemic slowed movie production down it might explain why you don't see random people in Gotham walking around in masks or whatever.

You know nowadays if Batman breaks into some crowded building looking for answers someone is gonna ask 'whoa is that dude vaccinated???:

When I was a kid, 80s movies were already rather old for me but still not that old.

Truly old movies for me were black and white movies like Casablanca or colour movies like The Great Escape. Basically movies from before the 70s.

A movie is old to me when I am old.

Fun Fact: Both The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises came out in 2012...which is a decade ago now. Do they feel old to anyone?

In popular culture.

A couple of years ago = still relevant, and well-integrated into current popular culture.

10 years ago = Old and out. Almost forgotten.

20 years ago = nostalgia and experiences a Renaissance. In the world of video gaming, this is called retro.

Dark Knight Rises is a timeless meme factory thanks to Hardy's performance, "Where's The Trigger", and the CIA scene.

There was a horror movie called “host” that used the whole covid situation as a set up.

Michael Bay's Songbird.

I watched both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight a few years ago and they didn't feel old at all. They seem to have aged well. Plus nowadays superhero movies are everywhere like the plague, so it's definitely not a genre that's passé.

The only thing that might be outdated about those movies is the whole seriousness and darkness around them maybe? That's something that was more common in the first decade of the century for some reason.

Btw The Dark Knight has some lines that make it sound a bit pretentious and edgy. Like the "some men just want to watch the world burn" for example.

They're fine movies and all, but I don't understand why TDK became a GOAT movie for so many people. Also, Heath Ledger as the Joker isn't really as amazing as people say he is. I feel like the main reason people got that idea was due to him dying shortly before the movie came out. You know what people are like when someone famous dies. Suddenly they consider them their all time favourite and one of the greats.

Since this is a TMNT forum... the Bay Turtles turds are now rather old. I mean, the 2nd one came out a decade ago already.

It's strange because I remember all the rage inducing at the forums in the months leading to the first movie around 2013-2014, with CyberCubed losing his **** over White Shredder Eric Sachs.

I mean, it was an incredibly performance. I mean, Heath literally disappeared into the role. For people making 'gay cowboy' jokes when he was first announced to play the character, he was completely unrecognizable as himself when he played the role. For better or for worse, Nicholson Joker still looked (and sounded) like Nicholson with clown make up and a forced smile.

It was a 50/50. Cybercubed's rage was so palpable that PD decided to axe white Shredder to appease him but kept the nostrils to troll him. In fact, rumor has it the nostrils were meant to be nearly invisible but they purposely made them more pronounced just to spite Cybercubed. I mean, they had to bring in a random Japanese dude and waste money on reshoots. They had to get back at him somehow.

I'm with you on this one. If he hadn't died, he doesn't win. Maybe not even nominated. Superhero flicks aren't Oscar bait. Deserved or not.

I think it depends on the movie.

I would think Robocop is still relevant, despite some 80's future choices.

But my all-time favourite movie, Back to the Future is horribly dated. Kids today couldn't relate to Marty. in 1985 is more like 1955 than present day.

Marty is able to use a phone book to track down Doc and pay for a coffee for actual money. Not tapping his phone.

I'm not saying it wasn't a good performance by any means, mind you. Just that people overrated it a lot, saying it's one of the greatest interpretations by an actor in the history of cinema and that the world lost an amazing actor.

Exactly. I do think The Dark Knight is a good movie and all and better than your average superhero film I've seen, but I also find it slightly overrated. I liked it and all, but don't have much desire to rewatch it. It doesn't crack my personal top 10 or anything like that.

Well, I'm 35 years old and I don't remember the last time I even saw a phone book. Let alone use it to look up a phone number to call.

Paying for a coffee with actual money? I still do that often. That largely depends on the country. Here in Portugal, there's a lot of places that don't accept card or app payments for purchases under a certain amount. A cup of coffee here costs between 70 cents and €1. That's too low of a sum to be able to pay with card at many café's here. Their lowest limit is often €5. The other day I even went to a café whose limit was €3. I couldn't pay for my coffee + croissant breakfast with card since the total amount was about €2.25 iirc.

The modern Star Wars trilogy already began over 10 years ago. That's crazy to me. I feel like the prequel trilogy is 10 years ago but those are like 25 years ago now.

I say the same rules ought to apply as they do for classic cars: has to be at least 20 years before it's a true "classic."

Oh, that's a good shout!

"Classic" is a less vague term than "old". A game like The Witcher III is oldish by now since it came out in 2015 already. It's going to turn 11 in May this year. But I'm still refraining from calling it a classic. A classic is Super Mario World or Final Fantasy VII.

As for movies, I don't keep up with movies anywhere near as much as I keep up with video games, so I can't give you any examples of movies from 2015-2016 I might have watched. I did a quick google search of movies that came out in those years and I haven't seen a single one of them.

I've seen so many movies now than 10+ years ago, the illegal streaming websites really broke down the barrier for movies. Back in the day you either had to go to the theater, or buy the DVDs to watch a certain movie, or catch it randomly on regular TV but even that is rare.

Nowadays every movie is uploaded for free on the illegal streaming websites, so that "barrier" to watch things is over. I've watched far more movies over the last 10 years than I did for the first 25 years of my life when I only watched the big pop culture movies or action movies. Now I can watch everything at 1.5x speed and its glorious.

I know how piracy works, pal.

I've never said there was a "barrier" stopping me from watching a dozen of movies that come out every single year. I'm just... not interested in 99.9% of the big movies that have come out in the last decade or so. Shocking, I know.

I'd consider movies that came out when this thread was made as old.
Jurassic World Dominion had not done out yet and re hat movie is old. We now have a new reboot that already came out a year ago.

2015 is really over 10 years ago now, huh. It's funny, back when we were in 2015 it did feel like 2005 was a decade ago. But 2015-2025 does not feel like 10 years at all. Why is that.

A human generation so 20-25 years

Generation is a word that means different things to different people, I've noticed.

I've seen people saying things like "the 1992 generation and the 1993 generation" as if people born a year or less than 1 year apart belong to different generations.

And I also am not a fan of naming generations Millennials, Zoomers, etc. That made sense for Baby Boomers since that generation popped up after the biggest world conflict in history. But there was a much bigger variety of experiences between people from all over the world being born after that. Some people grew up in dictatorships, while others in democracies, for example. Some people did not have video game consoles we all can name here as kids.

I was born in 1990. I don't see myself as being part of the same generation as someone born in 1981. But I guess this is a subject matter for a different thread.

Traditionally, a generation was understood as approximately 40 years.

Which certainly does not apply to the names. Aside from Boomers, they all scope about 15 years each