Three Minutes Of The Condor

October 30, 2017 1:59 PM

Michael McKean wonders: how can you ruin old movies with cellphone technology?
posted by Chrysostom (70 comments total)

Yelp Review

Leatherface's Texas Meat Emporium

Zero Stars

So my bf wanted me to go here because he's all locally sourced meats, but I was like AS IF! because it totes smells bad!
posted by jonp72 at 2:05 PM on October 30, 2017 [2 favorites]

Was just watching Blair Witch on cable the other week. I kept yelling at them "just follow the goddamn river!" but they didn't listen to me. I know it's supernatural witchcraft, but FFS, follow the damned river!
posted by jeff-o-matic at 2:08 PM on October 30, 2017 [13 favorites]

Perhaps movies will have to gin up elaborate reasons why phones temporarily won't work, like they had to do with Star Trek communicators
posted by thelonius at 2:19 PM on October 30, 2017 [3 favorites]

Is this article worth reading past the first paragraph? Because it's already just wrong about nearly every movie it discusses.

You really have to feel sorry for today’s screenwriters. With modern technology, those old movie chestnut tropes of getting lost or trapped are no longer what they once were. Thanks to cell phones, Google Maps could have saved those Blair Witch campers, and the stuck-in-a-well victims in Silence Of The Lambs could have called for help. With a few simple texts, the star-crossed lovers of An Affair To Remember likely wouldn’t have been kept apart. Kevin McAllister wouldn’t have been Home Alone for long. And sending Star Wars’ Death Star plans electronically makes a lot more sense than hiding them in R2-D2.

In the Blair Witch Project they're deep in the woods in a rural area where even today you almost certainly wouldn't get reception. The victim in Silence of the Lambs was being held captive by the killer who presumably would not have let her keep her cell phone. In An Affair To Remember Terry intentionally refrains from contacting Nickie after her accident because she is ashamed of her disability. The phone problem existed even in the far-off past of 1990 and Home Alone explicitly sets up a situation where the phones don't work/won't be answered. Star Wars may be the only one listed that actually might matter, but the simple answer would be that Leia had no means of transmission and no time to find one before capture.
posted by Sangermaine at 2:21 PM on October 30, 2017 [21 favorites]

jonp72, no, their stuff is great
posted by thelonius at 2:22 PM on October 30, 2017 [1 favorite]

Perhaps movies will have to gin up elaborate reasons why phones temporarily won't work

They really wouldn't have to be elaborate reasons, just the same everyday ones that we all have to deal with. Although they would just be temporary. I thought it was funny that Star Wars could be disrupted with something as seemingly primitive in their galaxy as cell phones.
posted by TedW at 2:23 PM on October 30, 2017 [2 favorites]

Stand By Me: “The next train is in 5 minutes, let's wait for that to pass and then we'll cross the bridge.”
You've Got Mail: “I KNOW YOU'RE CATFISHING ME ASSHOLE, I CHECKED YOUR IP ADDRESS, YOU'RE JOE FOX. UGH, WE'RE SO DONE!”
SCREAM: *looks at Caller ID* “Huh...unknown caller. I'm not answering that.” *goes back to making popcorn*
posted by Fizz at 2:25 PM on October 30, 2017 [8 favorites]

In the Blair Witch Project they're deep in the woods in a rural area where even today you almost certainly wouldn't get reception.

The phone's GPS would still work, though, and should have enough offline map data to at least get them pointed to a trailhead or something.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:26 PM on October 30, 2017 [8 favorites]

Burkittsville, MD is only about five miles from Frederick, it's not THAT rural.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:33 PM on October 30, 2017 [6 favorites]

Didn't we already play this game with Seinfeld episodes?
posted by thecjm at 2:39 PM on October 30, 2017 [4 favorites]

I was going to make a Die Hard joke but I also can't help but remember the Bataclan and the French club kids who were using their cellphones to call for help as they were gunned down and it doesn't sound like a joke anymore.
posted by bl1nk at 2:51 PM on October 30, 2017 [2 favorites]

Because it's already just wrong about nearly every movie it discusses.

I don't think Three Days of the Condor falls apart, either. The hero cannot trust anyone and is being hunted by the government. That's a scenario in which a cellphone is genuinely useless.
posted by Iridic at 3:00 PM on October 30, 2017 [7 favorites]

Cell phones are useless (warning: TV Tropes)
posted by octothorpe at 3:01 PM on October 30, 2017 [2 favorites]

The phone's GPS would still work, though, and should have enough offline map data to at least get them pointed to a trailhead or something.

this is bean plating territory, but whenever I've hiked, the idea that my phone could actually be a useful navigation device, much less an adequate replacement for a map that was thrown away, is not just hilarious but dangerously naive.
posted by bl1nk at 3:04 PM on October 30, 2017 [14 favorites]

"Hey mom! No, I'm not in the car." - Kevin McCallister
posted by notorious medium at 3:05 PM on October 30, 2017 [4 favorites]

thelonius: Perhaps movies will have to gin up elaborate reasons why phones temporarily won't work, like they had to do with Star Trek communicators

That was a key part to a heist in Breaking Bad.

Sangermaine: In the Blair Witch Project they're deep in the woods in a rural area where even today you almost certainly wouldn't get reception.

Exactly! And like that, technology is again part of the plot.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:08 PM on October 30, 2017

Phone Booth would never have been made at all.
posted by Splunge at 3:09 PM on October 30, 2017 [1 favorite]

Sangermaine: Star Wars may be the only one listed that actually might matter, but the simple answer would be that Leia had no means of transmission and no time to find one before capture.

Rogue One made the transmission of a large amount of data a key part of the plot, and even if there were a cell phone, you could make the case that large amounts of data simply can't be sent quickly enough to elude some impending doom.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:12 PM on October 30, 2017 [3 favorites]

I mean, in Die Hard the terrorists would have gone through and taken the hostages' phones, and John McClane left his charging in his wife's desk and didn't have a chance to grab it when he had to slip out the door quickly. Argyle already had cell phone so no change there. Also, Wikipedia exists so the news knows ahead of time not to book that one moron who keeps talking about Helsinki Syndrome. The only real trick is finding a way to get the news to call a white guy a terrorist.
posted by ckape at 3:18 PM on October 30, 2017 [9 favorites]

McSweeneys did it!
posted by Naberius at 3:24 PM on October 30, 2017 [4 favorites]

I remember watching one of the teen comedies of the 00s sometime last year, and first thing I did was send an email to a friend of mine mentioning the premise would be absolutely dead on arrival in 201x. It had something to do with a VHS tape.
posted by lmfsilva at 3:25 PM on October 30, 2017

How many hold movie romances would survive the modern curse of AskMe?

Is my ex using me to get her and her new man out of Morocco? DTMFA.

Should I dump my husband and go off with a new man I met at the station? You have a right to be happy!

Should I finish with Woody Allen? Deleted by cortex 'We're too busy with the Trump thread'.
posted by biffa at 3:31 PM on October 30, 2017 [14 favorites]

Honestly now I kind of want overconfidence in trailfinding by cellphone to be a plot device in Blair Witch that just lands these kids in even more trouble.
posted by bl1nk at 3:40 PM on October 30, 2017 [8 favorites]

Didn't we already play this game with Seinfeld episodes?

related

in that about 2 out of every 3 tweets has to do with a cellphone...
posted by randomkeystrike at 3:53 PM on October 30, 2017

Honestly now I kind of want overconfidence in trailfinding by cellphone to be a plot device in Blair Witch that just lands these kids in even more trouble.

Michael Williams: You know what? I uninstalled the fu... I'm sorry it's fucked up. It's fucked up but I uninstalled that fucking app yesterday! It was useless! The GPS wasn't even calibrated.
[laughs hysterically]
Heather Donahue: I fucking hope he's kidding.
Michael Williams: WAHOO! WOW!
Joshua Leonard: Mike...
Michael Williams: [laughing] Holy shit.
Heather Donahue: I really fucking hope he's kidding.
Joshua Leonard: Mike are you kidding?
Heather Donahue: I really fucking hope he's kidding.
Joshua Leonard: Mike, are you fucking kidding?
Michael Williams: [laughing] I'm sorry, man.
Heather Donahue: You have gotta be kidding me. You have gotta fucking be kidding me!
posted by Fizz at 3:54 PM on October 30, 2017 [4 favorites]

It actually works just as well. Mike is still a dick for getting rid of their only resource of navigation. And they're so far out, they don't have access to mobile data to even try to download the app again. They're just as fucked.
posted by Fizz at 3:56 PM on October 30, 2017 [2 favorites]

Romeo: what be this magick square of luminous onyx, which an apple crest hath on its moonlight pane emblazon'd?

Mercutio: [a bunch of May queen stuff]

Romeo: Now it says no service.

exeunt, play proceeds as normal
posted by condour75 at 3:58 PM on October 30, 2017 [20 favorites]

The Blair Witch is probably the worst example they could use. I'm not sure even the compass works properly without a network connection.
posted by Brocktoon at 4:22 PM on October 30, 2017 [1 favorite]

I know that the recent Blair Witch reboot/sequel had one of the characters using a drone with a mounted camera. So they were able to pan out and see things from up above. If they had one of those they would have been able to find a way out of the woods.

Though the purpose of these films has always been to document a particular supernatural/mysterious circumstance, so that driving action is still going to push them onwards. Phones or map be damned.
posted by Fizz at 4:30 PM on October 30, 2017

Alternate Die Hard scenario: John has his phone, but his battery, already low from a cross-country flight, runs out in the middle of calling 911. Throughout the movie he looks for a charge cable, but he's got a micro-usb phone and all he can ever find are usb-c or lightning.
posted by ckape at 4:43 PM on October 30, 2017 [34 favorites]

I'm pretty sure our heroine makes use of caller ID in "Scream 2" when someone is trying to call her and fuck with her.
posted by rmd1023 at 4:48 PM on October 30, 2017

I think the flip side of this is things like Mulder and Scully being able to call each other on cellphones when one of them is, like, in a missile silo. It's an example of cellphones being magic and working everywhere (even in deep underground spaces), similar to how the crew in Leverage had always-on earpieces and yet were always able to figure out who was talking to whom and not go mad from conversations in their ears all the time.
posted by rmd1023 at 4:50 PM on October 30, 2017 [6 favorites]

I remember reading some article in which either Chris Carter or some other X-Files writer comments on how many if not most or all X-Files plots are only possible thanks to cell phones. So you win some, you lose some.
posted by ejs at 5:31 PM on October 30, 2017 [5 favorites]

A writer on Cheers once remarked that the one question they could never allow themselves to ask in story conferences was "Why wouldn't Sam just call Diane and straighten this whole thing out?" Because the second you ask that, the whole plot disappears.
posted by Paul Slade at 6:07 PM on October 30, 2017 [2 favorites]

Forrest Gump: Hey, wait. This phone that the fruit company sent me says that I don't even need to wait for the bus and can actually just walk to Jenny's house. Well, I guess I won't take up 2 hours telling various strangers my amazing life story or sharing my chocolates. Good bye!
posted by FJT at 7:26 PM on October 30, 2017 [4 favorites]

Collegehumor tackled this back in 2008. A lot of the same films come up.

Bonus: if movies had internet.
posted by Orange Pamplemousse at 8:48 PM on October 30, 2017 [3 favorites]

Is this article worth reading past the first paragraph? Because it's already just wrong about nearly every movie it discusses.

Modern technology is magic. End of discussion.

If they were realistic we'd watch someone on the screen for 20 minutes swiping on their phone saying "wait a second, one second, it's right here, I had it before, hold on..."
posted by bongo_x at 9:21 PM on October 30, 2017 [1 favorite]

So, when you guys talk about cell phones ruining Star Wars, you're talking about some kind of hypothetical sci-fi cell phone that sends signals over interstellar distances instantaneously, right? Call me picky, but I don't think that counts.
posted by baf at 11:11 PM on October 30, 2017 [4 favorites]

And College Humor did it from the other direction too, with a version of “24” set in 1994.
posted by lackutrol at 11:24 PM on October 30, 2017 [3 favorites]

I think that Clickhole's version is pretty definitive.
posted by Saxon Kane at 11:41 PM on October 30, 2017 [3 favorites]

Rogue One made the transmission of a large amount of data a key part of the plot, and even if there were a cell phone, you could make the case that large amounts of data simply can't be sent quickly enough to elude some impending doom.

Although what bothered the shit out of me was the RIDICULOUS storage facility that the Empire had constructed to store their hard drives. Why the fuck would you put them in giant rotating pillars with a fucking video arcade grabby-claw-thing as the retrieval mechanism? That's the most unnecessarily complicated filing cabinet ever. Totally there to manufacture suspense with a nonsensical video game puzzle.
posted by Saxon Kane at 11:49 PM on October 30, 2017 [7 favorites]

filthy light thief: "Rogue One made the transmission of a large amount of data a key part of the plot, and even if there were a cell phone, you could make the case that large amounts of data simply can't be sent quickly enough to elude some impending doom."

What's interesting about this is that, when George Lucas made Star Wars he was unable to conceive of the futuristic idea of transmitting a wedge of data some other way than by mailbox-shaped droid. No one in any theater anywhere in 1978 was sitting their thinking "geez why don't they just upload the files?"

But by the time they made Rogue One, duh, that's how everyone transmits big files. I'm still surprised the data send wasn't branded in some way ("Send your Death Star plans using WeTransfer!").
posted by chavenet at 2:37 AM on October 31, 2017 [5 favorites]

How modern movies insert cellphone technology in plot mechanics is more interesting I think. In Personal shopper, Kirsten Stewart's character spends a good part of the movie texting and here's director Olivier Assayas take about this.
posted by elgilito at 4:29 AM on October 31, 2017

I don't think Three Days of the Condor falls apart, either.

Except it works as a great headline for this piece ...
posted by oheso at 4:35 AM on October 31, 2017

Burkittsville, MD is only about five miles from Frederick, it's not THAT rural.

Sorry, but fuck, that's the sticks!
posted by oheso at 4:36 AM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]

Because the second you ask that, the whole plot disappears.

AKA Why don't they ever just get rid of Frank Burns?
posted by oheso at 4:44 AM on October 31, 2017 [3 favorites]

Since I'm the only one in this thread anymore, maybe now is a good time to mention the time my friend's "just friends" coworker freaked out and tried to seriously either rape or murder her, and the whole thing would have been over in a jiffy if she'd had a cell phone on her (and how, whenever I tell the story, I have to say, "... but we didn't all just have mobiles in those days.").

(She got in her car and locked the doors before he could do anything serious, and she just waited it out ... )
posted by oheso at 4:51 AM on October 31, 2017

Alternate Die Hard scenario: John has his phone, but his battery, already low from a cross-country flight, runs out in the middle of calling 911. Throughout the movie he looks for a charge cable, but he's got a micro-usb phone and all he can ever find are usb-c or lightning.

Hans (to Karl): "Shoot. The. Google. Glass."
posted by AndrewInDC at 6:02 AM on October 31, 2017 [3 favorites]

Perhaps movies will have to gin up elaborate reasons why phones temporarily won't work, like they had to do with Star Trek communicators

I'd like to see that in a romantic comedy. "We're sorry. The number you have dialed cannot be reached due to verteron radiation in the upper ionosphere. Please hang up, or reverse the polarity of the neutron flow."
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 7:29 AM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]

In the Blair Witch Project they're deep in the woods in a rural area where even today you almost certainly wouldn't get reception.

In 2013, I had a "Windows Phone" with Nokia Here maps - which worked without any data connection... Of course, you had to pre-download your region, but...

Ok... not a phone, but even in the Blair Witch Project era (1998/99), a used GPS device was pretty cheap... ($100 at a pawn shop)...
posted by jkaczor at 7:34 AM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]

Why the fuck would you put them in giant rotating pillars with a fucking video arcade grabby-claw-thing as the retrieval mechanism? That's the most unnecessarily complicated filing cabinet ever. Totally there to manufacture suspense with a nonsensical video game puzzle.

Apologies if you're being ironic, but smaller-scale versions of pretty much this are real and in use unless they've all been decommissioned. *googles* The Powderhorn 9310.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:42 AM on October 31, 2017 [3 favorites]

Chris Carter or some other X-Files writer comments on how many if not most or all X-Files plots are only possible thanks to cell phones. So you win some, you lose some.

Heh - I think they either did a retro episode (possibly "Unusual Suspects", set in 1999), or a cross-over with either "The Lone Gunmen" or "Millennium" which was set in the 80's, where Fox Mulder was using a GIANT cellphone...
posted by jkaczor at 7:42 AM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]

In Blair Witch or any other supernatural horror movie your GPS/phone would just be wrong, luring you deeper into the woods when you think you’re following a path out.
posted by ejs at 7:46 AM on October 31, 2017 [3 favorites]

supernatural horror movie your GPS/phone would just be wrong

Sigh. ok, yes... but for anyone who has a remotely technical background, we are going to be asking how exactly where and when did the (ghost/witch/demon) learn to do a combination of the following:
- re-program the firmware - or program software in general.
- attack an existing operating system and/or multiple applications written by multiple companies/people and then inject/mess hack their operations.
- interfere / decode data radio signals - GPS operates by receiving multiple data streams from multiple satellites in the sky at any given time.
- interfere with your "data" signals (LTE, WiFi), which are actually spread across a wide spectrum of shifting/hopping individual radio frequencies, each of which if "listened" to, sounds like a bit of noise...

Did they go to night school? I guess they have alot of spare time, so that is a possibility...

It is one thing to suspend disbelief about lights flicking and TV's/radios turning on/off - or "tuning" to another channel, but...

... so... just have your characters drop their phones while trying to use them... or water-damage (oops... apparently not with iPhone 7/8/x)... or ... no battery...
posted by jkaczor at 7:53 AM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]

possibly "Unusual Suspects", set in 1999

1989... man, I am getting old...
posted by jkaczor at 7:59 AM on October 31, 2017

when did the (ghost/witch/demon) learn to do a combination of the following

-The demon is hijacking the victim's senses. The woods are finite, the GPS is functioning normally, but the victim sees a geometrically impossible forest and an ominously glitchy screen.
-The ghost's substance is of a different order than regular matter, and it cannot truly interact with the world. However, Leibniz's principle of pre-established harmony is operating in its favor; God has ordained events in just such a way that the victim's GPS glitches out of its own accord when the ghost is near. (This theory assumes God is a bit of a scamp.)
-The witch has a few Codecademy courses under her belt.
posted by Iridic at 8:19 AM on October 31, 2017 [5 favorites]

The demon is hijacking the victim's senses. The woods are finite, the GPS is functioning normally, but the victim sees a geometrically impossible forest and an ominously glitchy screen.

If that's the case, then the "simulation argument" is true and everything is mutable and anything is possible. (i.e. Matrix, etc.)

Therefore Ghosts/Demons/Witches have ways of interacting with the system - or are viruses/mutations or outside simulation controllers. So... if while they interfere with our senses, can they interfere with electronic recordings? (This is going to get even more difficult when the phones are built into our heads in the future)

And... where did they go to future-school to learn to hack biological optics...

Heh... everything falls down if you do too much beanplating...
posted by jkaczor at 8:48 AM on October 31, 2017

#SaveFerris: 29 years later, what would Ferris Bueller's day off be like today?
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:15 AM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]

jkaczor: "Ok... not a phone, but even in the Blair Witch Project era (1998/99), a used GPS device was pretty cheap... ($100 at a pawn shop)..."

People get lost in the woods all the time right here in cell phone enabled 2017. I'd bet SARS somewhere is out looking for someone with a cellphone right now. We even have $100 spot beacons available, brand new.
posted by Mitheral at 10:10 AM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]

People get lost in the woods all the time right here in cell phone enabled 2017

True - personally, I wouldn't rely on anything but a dedicated, GPS unit if I was going into the woods for a serious trip.

And even then, they won't really work in dense woods, deep valleys, etc. People also tend to fall into the "always working" fallacy of their 2017 devices and make few non-digital backup plans...

Personally - I would never trust cached maps (like how Google offline maps work) versus dedicated, downloaded maps - and even then, for outdoors purposes, the maps Google/Waze/Apple/MS use are designed for roads, you need topographic and low-level detail maps.

And even then (say one of these), I would be concerned about battery life.
posted by jkaczor at 10:39 AM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]

Although what bothered the shit out of me was the RIDICULOUS storage facility that the Empire had constructed to store their hard drives. Why the fuck would you put them in giant rotating pillars with a fucking video arcade grabby-claw-thing as the retrieval mechanism? That's the most unnecessarily complicated filing cabinet ever. Totally there to manufacture suspense with a nonsensical video game puzzle.

Is there even a single instance of Imperial technology that's not bizarrely engineered? Their whole deal is to maximize impressiveness, usually at the cost of usability and safety. If you told me they put the stupid Death Star trench and incredibly vulnerable exhaust port in just to have the possibility of an extremely dramatic explosion, I wouldn't be that surprised. It's kind of like the Nazi obsession with building things that would leave aesthetically pleasing ruins but accelerated.
posted by Copronymus at 10:41 AM on October 31, 2017 [3 favorites]

jcaczor, you’re the character in the movie who insists “this all has a perfectly rational explanation!” Just before the ghost/demon/witch kills him horribly.
posted by ejs at 10:49 AM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]

Just before the ghost/demon/witch kills him horribly.

Yep - I would most likely be "that" guy. Heh - about a year ago, I was outside on a dark and stormy night with my partner and her cousin - the wind was gale force. As we were admiring it's power, we heard a gigantic "crack" of a tree/branch coming down - but from where? Everyone else ran frantically - I stood where I was... Ultimately, the next day, when we could see - they had been running towards the downed tree...

I figured... by the time you hear it, it's probably too late... Yup, definitely "that" guy...
posted by jkaczor at 10:55 AM on October 31, 2017

It's interesting that people are so enamored of this kind of tech story. I can't really see how it's different than how changed some stories would have been before and after the invention of cars, telephones, telegraph, radio, etc.
posted by bongo_x at 11:21 AM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]

What if Spartacus has a Piper Cub?
posted by ejs at 12:26 PM on October 31, 2017 [2 favorites]

Offline maps, like maps.me, are still a thing, and battery packs are available, and Became popular with Pokémon Go.

I've kept these handy for years when I travel, and I now figure I'm safe because who's making thrillers about someone with sysadmin habits?
posted by Pronoiac at 1:33 PM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]

who's making thrillers about someone with sysadmin habits?

He thought he didn't need to validate the backups. He thought the ancient words of power were a mere legend. He was wrong on both counts. Before this night is over, he'll regret typing

rm -rf

A Tale of Madness
posted by Iridic at 2:02 PM on October 31, 2017 [5 favorites]

See also the 2004 movie Cellular, which is basically an exercise in brainstorming plot complications cell phones can enable to replace the ones they disable.
posted by baf at 2:38 PM on October 31, 2017 [1 favorite]

bongo_x: "It's interesting that people are so enamored of this kind of tech story. I can't really see how it's different than how changed some stories would have been before and after the invention of cars, telephones, telegraph, radio, etc."

I think because it has an Only Yesterday quality to it. If you watch Three Days of the Condor, it's in color. People are wearing clothes not too dissimilar to what they wear today. They work at recognizable jobs in a city that's still recognizable. Heck, if you're watching it, you probably remember things being that way. It's not 22 centuries ago like Spartacus. But now, the plot doesn't work.

For me, it's stuff from the 90s that makes me think about this. I was alive then, it wasn't THAT long ago, I feel basically the same, but there's been this enormous change dropped on society that invalidates a lot of what happened before. And that change propagated outwards more quickly than say, the automobile - people used horses for many, many years afterwards.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:57 PM on October 31, 2017

I watched Heist (2001) a year or two ago, and in the time between when it was made and when I watched it, sitting on a bench reading the newspaper went from being a good way to blend in to absurdly conspicuous.
posted by ckape at 4:55 PM on October 31, 2017 [3 favorites]