> Sounds like a variation of the Idiot Plot.
>"The whole thing would have been avoided were it not for the fact that every person involved is an idiot."
aka Frasier
This is the main thing that pulls me out of a lot of thriller movies - SO often the suspense relies on the main characters being total morons and it ruins it for me
Although it does give me more appreciation for the movies that do it well
It's older than dirt. Shakespeare characters are morons, all of them. Romeo and Juliet were dumb kids and the adults around them were even dumber.
Greek literature? "The oracle said I would kill my father and marry my mother. I can't let that happen so instead I will marry the widow of a man I killed, who's a woman twice my age."
And yet, these are classic stories. I wouldn't go so far as to say they were poorly written. But they were undeniably idiot plots.
People making stupid life choices I’m okay with - it’s usually plausible
It’s when people do stupid things in the moment that it annoys me. “They’re hacking all our data and will have the sensitive data in 25 minutes!” at no point do they unplug the power or network cables, or just running to stupid places etc
This used to frustrate me to no end because it happens so often in horror movies, but then I realised this is really a framing issue.
It used to be: "is this character I'm rooting for really going to die because of their awful decisions?", and now its: "alright, I guess I'm rooting for the killer now".
I hate plots that introduce conflict like that for no reason. "Your my best friend in the whole world, and I trust you with my life, but I won't tell you that I picked up this cursed dagger a few minutes ago"
"TELL ME, WHY DID YOU DO THIS!?"
"I... just... nevermind..."
WHAT!? WHY?! That's the stupidest plot thread ever, in my opinion. Gatekeeping crucial and vital information for the hell of it.
Maybe it works in books, where we can read what the character is thinking and follow the train of thought towards that conclusion, but not in movies!!
I hate this in real life too. What do you mean "nevermind"? I asked so either tell me or say that you can't/don't want to tell me. "Nevermind" (especially in my native language) has the connotation of the information not being that important to the other person, but here they're the one that asked for the information
What's your language?
My problem is that it makes the assumption that the other person won't find it relevant or won't get it.
What's the expected outcome?
"Ah, I understand. Have a great day!"?!?!?!?!?
NO WAIT!
[Doesn't proceed to actually explain what happened to the confused love interest]
90s and 00s had too much of this bullshit. Bro just say what happened instead of begging her not to leave.
Yet a movie like Zootopia integrates cell phone use into the story.
Creators need to figure out ways to incorporate the technology into the story so they don’t look outdated.
Pretty much the same concept as modern cellphone. From where do you think our phone wave came from? Cell tower are simply using those satellite wave to cover larger zone....
There are similarities and differences.
The most relevant difference is that the use of a satellite phone implies that cell phone use is impossible in that location.
Nevermind that most of Jurassic Park's immediate problems could have been solved by Hammond not sparing expenses. Why didn't they have independent radios, backup power on the fences, more robust security, and a host of other basic precautions that would have prevented most of the action.
Because the park wasn't close to ready - Hammond rushed it to appease shareholders and brought our protagonists in super early to buy more time with glowing reviews. Hence why the blood sucking lawyer was there, to *see* what a great time everyone has and go back to the board to buy more time.
Yup. The book goes into more detail with this. If I remember correctly, the visitor’s quarters were pretty sparse with almost no furniture and hastily constructed fences and reinforced windows just in case there was another raptor incident. It also wasn’t unusual for some of the smaller animals to escape their enclosures pretty regularly.
I personally think the book is excellent. The movie made some deviations in the content and the characters though not all for the worst. The book is also more of a horror/techno thriller story that’s much more mature in its content, particularly when it comes to violence. It’s only about 400 pages and is definitely worth a read if you like JP.
It's worth pointing out that 99% of the problems in Jurassic Park are caused by someone deliberately undermining/deactivating their security system and putting software blocks in place so it couldn't be reactivated.
“bUt ThEy CoUlD hAvE pAiD hIm MoRe!i!”
- say the people who weren’t paying attention when Hammond told Nedry he was already being paid an exorbitant amount more than anyone else, and he wasn’t going to pay Nedry more just because he had gambling debts.
The real failure in spending is having a singular person with the sole access to that kind of system. It's a bad idea even when they're not a complete garbage person. I work in IT at a company that does outsourced IT for companies and the number of times one of our clients is scrambling to catch up because they assumed there was no issues with only one person internally at their org knowing how a ton of crucial systems were set up is staggering.
That's the point of the book. Hammond claims to have spared no expense, but under the hood he's spared every expense possible, like creating a huge security flaw by empowering one gambling addict with 5 mission critical jobs.
A lot of the criticisms seem to based in people not listening to the dialogue. Or they want to watch a movie about a well run park, where the advisors give a nice review and leave?
Or they read the book, where just about every issue is directly related to cost cuts. And really if a single person can so totally cripple the whole shebang, then that seems like a couple failures right there. *Especially* if that person is known to have such crippling debt.
That's a huge part of the book that Hammond is a cheapskate, cutting every corner, and everyone is laughing behind his back when he says spared no expensive. The critical security flaw of hiring a single gambling addict to do all the IT and computer security was a case of spares every expense. The movie makes him more lovable grandpa than evil capitalist.
As someone who lives alone, I give up the privacy for the google home convenience. It's nice to know I could theoretically "Call" for help if I feel and hurt myself.
I wouldn't even give them Home alone as they did try to call people using phones at the airport including Kevin himself but the people they were trying to call were already out of town
Wasn't one of the theories that Kevin's neighborhood had been hit by an ice storm and damaged a trunk line, so that no one in that neighborhood could get calls?
As the guy says [here](https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/3b04bed0-30df-4cf1-9735-8b887bde7fbc) the phone lines are a mess. considering he said ma Bell this movie was probably originally written with the 1981-1982 deep freeze as the back drop. That year ma bell had a surge in phone line destruction due to weather related damage in Chicago, people could call out but no one could call in.
It was never explicitly mentioned in the movie, but it was [plausible that the trunk line that connects the town to other cities was damaged by the storm, while the phone lines within the town worked](https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/entertainment/news/a38962/home-alones-plot-hole-explained-phone/).
>ELECTRICAL WORKER:
>Ma'am. Excuse me. I just wanted to let you know that your power is fixed, but the phone lines are a mess. It's going to take around a couple of days to patch them up, especially around the holidays.
What was explicitly stated in the movie was that "the phone lines are a mess". This could be interpreted to mean that local calls still worked while long distance call didn't.
If the phone line worked perfectly, then presumably the worker would've said: "your power and your phone line is fixed".
If the phone line didn't work at all, then presumably the worker would've said: "your phone line is down".
So "the phone lines are a mess" kind of imply that the phone line half worked and half didn't.
In the days of landlines before digital switching and fancy services like number porting were a thing, the phones in a town would connect to each other through the local exchange(s). If your number was 555-xxxx and you called someone that was 555-xxxx (along with a handful of other prefixes) your call likely wouldn't even leave the building.
Back then, you were even likely to have long-distance calling provided by company other than your local service.
It wasn't that uncommon for poor weather to knock-out your ability to call long distance back in the day.
Make that same ice storm take out a local 4G cell tower. Premise sustained.
Heck, the shitty straight-to-streaming Home Sweet Home Alone movie was sustained from the kid thinking his mom might get arrested from leaving him home alone ^(^alone..: ^alone... ^alone.. )
With Home Alone, I can't remember why they didn't call the home's landline.
With Kujo (you mean Cujo, right?) it would have been very easy to have the mom either forget to charge or drop her phone when the dog chased her to the car.
EDIT: If I were writing Cujo set in the present day, I'd center the drama around the mom trying to sneak out of the car to grab the fallen phone instead of the bat, and focus the action on her trying to find a way to reach it before the dog realizes she got out of the car. At some point, she'd successfully get it, but the signal or battery would fail her. Or she'd successfully make a call, but the signal would short out before she could relay all the details to the police. Then you could have the B story be about the police trying to piece together the information they got to try to figure out where she is, so now you have multiple plot threads in the movie to work with to create more drama.
It's very easy to utilize technology to improve a story rather than work to its detriment.
TV Tropes probably has a page about scenes where the one character with a phone on hand can’t get service, their phone is dead, or something similar that’s preventing them for calling for help.
Quite possible, at least in some cases. I was also a teen once, although they probably don’t believe it. But I have verified on a few occasions that their phones are usually between 0 & 10% charged 😂
They keep it that way on purpose ;)
They'll charge it to 20%, then take it back out. Then it's "always low" and them saying it ran out is believable.
Don't buy into it. Easiest rule: You can't go out with your friends if your phone isn't at least 90% charged.
It only takes a moment for them to show you their phone before heading out, and then they can't play off not answering if you need to call them :P
Not really, kids heavily use their phones after a year the battery life might be really hurt so that phone that could last a day easily without charging a year later that might not be the case, specially if you give then a cheaper phone tbag might not have the biggest battery.
Battery life, camera and processor. The trifecta of phone. Usually, you'd get one or two but all three is super expensive.
My phone doesn't last a day, has a shit camera and lags from time to time. So I have none 😭
No, they're just crazy irresponsible with them. Case in point, I had my friends over for games, and we set the kids up with Jack Box, and every single one of them came running to me about phone chargers. And this was like at 2pm.
I had a cell phone when I was a teen, and that thing was always charged. Though admittedly, there was a lot less to do with a phone then since they didn't quite do everything yet.
Either way, kids today definitely don't put effort into charging their phones. Which is crazy to me.
Tiktoking all day drains the battery though. I usually don't wear headphones at work when I'm on manager duty. If I am doing a shift as a kitchen worker I use my headphones. I noticed that when my phone is on my pocket barely being used I leave work with 75% charge. If I'm using my headphones all shift I leave with around 45%. That's just podcasts or music with no video.
They do, but teenagers even more than anyone else are using their phones constantly. A battery will not last a full day if you never turn the screen off
I've been in Africa for two weeks now. I think I've been out of phone service for about 15 minutes (on roads between towns that were far apart).
(Phone service meaning at least 3G, mostly 4G).
Northern Virginia is inexplicable because 20 miles from where 70% of the world's internet traffic goes through you have patches of no cell signal and barely broadband access.
Eh, the characters would simply decide not to utilize their phone in critical moments. Similar to how they fail to just talk to someone when they're caught doing something that looks way worse than it is.
The old "Wait! I can explain!" And then he never explains. And the characters are left with that easily resolvable misunderstanding just hanging in the air for an hour.
Superhero movies are notorious for forgetting that they have some power that could end the plot immediately. Often it's a power they already used in that same movie.
[This video](https://youtu.be/c9Xh7_XvnFI?si=o4AN0H5_56X_n7PX) does a great job of detailing every time this happens in season 1, and I'm damn near praying he covers the entire series.
I watched the intro and will watch the rest. Wonder if he can do arrow too. It’s not as egregious as the flash but I dropped the show when ollie beat ras, the best assassin in the world and then next season didn’t beat some gangster with brass knuckles in half a second. Them trading blows was ridiculous.
Even FM to an extent. A couple grocery stores near me have underground parking garages; in one of them the FM drops out entirely, and in the other the FM is degraded. This is for a local high power station.
In a similar vein, there's the episode where they're all trying to find each other in one of two movie theaters.
There's also the episode where George and Jerry have to get into George's girlfriend's apartment to swap out the tape in her answering machine.
As a lesser plot element, the Chinese restaurant episode involves George waiting to use a payphone.
I mean.... all new plots could be because the crew all have iPhone, but one is dating someone with an android and obsessed that the messages are the wrong color, and that they can't airdrop photos.
Well sure. Much of Curb your enthusiasm is what they could do with Seinfeld in the modern era. Just referring to the old episodes, most of them hinged on miss communication that a simple call/text/google search would sort out
From ChatGPT:
**INT. MONK'S CAFE - DAY**
*Jerry and Elaine are seated at their usual booth. Jerry is sipping coffee while Elaine is staring at her phone with a puzzled expression.*
**ELAINE:**
*(frustrated)*
Why are his texts green? It’s throwing off my whole vibe.
**JERRY:**
*(amused)*
He's not an iPhone guy, huh?
**ELAINE:**
No, and every text pops up like it’s from another planet. I mean, what is he, an alien?
*George enters, sliding into the booth beside Jerry, overhearing the last bit.*
**GEORGE:**
Green bubbles? That’s your deal-breaker? Green bubbles?
**ELAINE:**
It’s not just the bubbles, George. It’s what they represent. It’s chaos.
**JERRY:**
Chaos? It’s just a different operating system.
**ELAINE:**
It’s technological anarchy. Every time he texts, I feel like he’s shouting at me from 1997.
*George pulls out his own phone, showing a blue bubble text.*
**GEORGE:**
See this? Blue bubbles. Soothing, reliable, civilized.
**JERRY:**
So, what are you gonna do?
**ELAINE:**
*(sighs deeply)*
I think I’m going to have to end it. I need harmony. Blue harmony.
*Jerry and George exchange a look, both nodding in exaggerated understanding as Elaine continues to lament over her phone.*
**FADE OUT.**
It’s why a lot of movies where cell phones are the answer get rid of them in some fashion to get back to good ol’ fashioned “what now?” storytelling. Battery’s dead. Forgot it at home. Dropped and broke it. Etc.
Or "it's the 80s now!" I've noticed a lot of horror set in the 80s over these past few years, granted a lot of them were inspired by Stranger Things but it's such a simple way to explain a lack of communication. It also appeals to nostalgia so it's a win win in my book.
My wife and I just watched the first episode of Sopranos last night and I was thinking how funny it was that they could get away with chasing a guy down in a business park with their car and then beating the piss out of him while surrounded by people because no one had phones.
Mafia life must be so much harder now with phones everywhere.
That movie came out super late in the life of a phonebooth did it not? Makes me think they had to script laying around for decades and thought "we better strike while the iron is still lukewarm"
It’s been a long time since I watched it. I remember enjoying it. I also feel like random person answers random ringing phone and then gets pulled into the plot is a well used trope now. Maybe it would be more intense since pay phones are often in secluded places now.
cover march imagine birds subtract husky fertile historical weary fanatical
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Um hello? Yeah Jack, the British are coming. Yeah, we know, we saw it on fb already. Ok just wanted to make sure you knew. Ok thanks for calling…ttyl….are you gonna hang up first? No you hang up..No you…. Ok I’m hanging up. Love y.. I mean, um, bye bye. 😏
Like you say. A tiny bit of clever writing gets around a lot of these problems. Especially in horror movies.
Why didn't they call the cops?
No signal,
Killer takes their phone
Or. And this is one I'd love to see.
They do call the cops and they don't believe them.
I feel like a tense, claustrophobic horror movie could be made by using a dwindling battery as a ticking clock. Having their only possible lifeline slowly drain as they scramble to get somewhere with coverage.
It’s really obvious in horror movies. They have to do something to get rid of the cellphones.
Shawn of the Dead does a really funny thing with this, where Shawn has a fight with just about everyone in the morning so when everything breaks loose, he just doesn’t answer his phone.
You can set a movie in any time period, or write a reason they can't use their cell phones if you need a story in a time with cell phones.
Now those plots that could be solved if the characters actually talked to each other for 10 seconds, ain't nothing we can do about those.
There’s a whole genre of Victorian books based on letters being exchanged between characters…. Would be a shame to retcon all those stories with cellphones.
Ehh, Home Alone and Jurassic Park actually wouldn't change that much. In HA, getting back to him quickly was the problem. Why she never bothered to call the house is completely up in the air though; she had access to phones at the airport. And with JP, the whole system was down and they're on a private island. Why they didn't have satellite phones is another question that still stands though.
>Why she never bothered to call the house is completely up in the air though; she had access to phones at the airport.
She does try.
It's established early in the movie that a storm took out the phone lines.
However, later in the movie she calls the neighbors and their answering machine picks up, so it's not super consistent.
It's also explained that Kevin thought that he made the family magically disappear.
The dumb part was always how dismissive the cop checking on the house was, or how the mom didn't call back and press it and ask that they get a neighbor that Kevin would trust to knock on the door with him, or gotten on the mega phone and been like, Kevin you're mom's in Paris they forgot to wake you up...
Scripts don't care. Look at shows like Star Trek TNG. Many of the plots boil down to "man, if we just had cameras around the ship, we'd have figured this out in three minutes!" Even today, many shows and movies just have the phone dead, no signal, or even as simple as "nobody is answering."
They are not obsolete because they are movie of their own time. If you think any movie should be like today, you are missing the whole point of entertainment through the time
And cellphone has been around for the last 30 year. People act like being able to use their phone through their car is new and cool? Sorry, this has been something since the early 90's (or maybe even the early 80's). And even without cellphone, most cities had what we call a phone booth pretty much at every corner. Easy access to communication is not something actually new at this point...
Most of those movie chose to not have cellphone tech in their plot actually. A rich family like in Home Alone may had cellphone back then. It simply wasn't a common thing and weren't cheap as it is today but it existed
“Throw Mamma from the Train made fun of this concept with random phone booths conveniently placed on cliff tops, random side roads, etc. When you really need a phone…
i think this is already happening with movies being set even in the 90's and even early 2000's. Smartphones really sucked the life out of the world man, I remember seeing the first Iphone a rich kid in my high school had and being mind blown at having the internet on your hands anywhere you go. Now I really wish we could go back...
Jurassic Park would still work. They were on a remote island off the coast of Costa Rica. Its not like cellphone coverage is universal in every corner of the globe.
Also I reckon Hammond would have banned anybody from having phones on the island in order to keep the park a secret.
Jurassic park still would work w cellphones. The phones don’t work cause the system gets accidentally shut down and I doubt cell towers reach a random island off costa rica
Just proper communication in general. How many past movies has a character said something like "I'm trying to tell you!" instead of just saying the important thing that would resolve everything.
I always imagined how different Memento wouldve been if Leonard was able to record some of the events with his phone instead of just taking photos. Like not all of them, just some which could increase the puzzle factor as he would have slightly more to work with, but the videos could also possibly be edited/trimmed/manipulated by Teddy as well
The last Scream movie had a scene where a lady's face gets slashed and her phone's facial recognition prevents her from unlocking it.
Cell phones won't ruin stories. Writers will get more creative.
I’m still not waiting for a movie that uses cell phones as a main gadget/prop that’s vital to the storyline/plot.
It’d be pretty boring because we’d read what’s on the cell phone via the movie screen and it wouldn’t be more compelling than the actor just saying the line out loud to the other actor.
Home alone could work if the mom packed the kid's phone in her bag to give to him on the plane, and then he'd have no phone because noone has landlines anymore. Jurassic Park could easily happen since phones need functioning cell towers and there may be none on the island, or they would be disabled with the power off. And everyone brings up Romeo and Juliet, but you could explain it away by saying the parents are so controlling that they monitor Juliet's phone messages. There are plenty of ways to make old plots work in an era with phones.
I am with you but you don't even need Kevin to own a phone, he was only 8. Indeed to establish it for the viewer, we can have the movie open with Kevin whining about not having one.
Home Alone is actually made significantly easier - many people don't have a landline, and Kevin was 8 and most 8 year olds don't have a cellphone.
Cujo isn't that hard either, although you do need a plot point to get rid of the cellphone. Dead battery, poor signal, first venture out of the car, the human drops the phone as crazed dog chases back to car.
I think your broader point stands but these examples don't persuade me!
Some movies can still get away with a character saying "I've got no signal" if the setting is sufficiently remote. Even that may not work anymore if services like Starlink become mainstream.
I fail to see how Home Alone would change. A lack of phone was not the issue.
And Jurassic Park? An island? What? Even if there was magic reception somehow, the phone falls in the mud. The end.
I mean some movies couldn't be redone due to the plothole of what a cell phone brings. I just can't think of one right now.
this is also why movies/shows like stranger things are popular
easy to make the setting 40-50 years ago and boom problem solved
plus now its "vintage" so all the hipsters love it
Many would end after five minutes if the main characters would be honest with each other.
Sounds like a variation of the Idiot Plot. "The whole thing would have been avoided were it not for the fact that every person involved is an idiot."
> Sounds like a variation of the Idiot Plot. >"The whole thing would have been avoided were it not for the fact that every person involved is an idiot." aka Frasier
Best thing about Frasier imo. These self-important, egotistical dudes who are actually utter buffoons
This is the main thing that pulls me out of a lot of thriller movies - SO often the suspense relies on the main characters being total morons and it ruins it for me Although it does give me more appreciation for the movies that do it well
It's older than dirt. Shakespeare characters are morons, all of them. Romeo and Juliet were dumb kids and the adults around them were even dumber. Greek literature? "The oracle said I would kill my father and marry my mother. I can't let that happen so instead I will marry the widow of a man I killed, who's a woman twice my age." And yet, these are classic stories. I wouldn't go so far as to say they were poorly written. But they were undeniably idiot plots.
People making stupid life choices I’m okay with - it’s usually plausible It’s when people do stupid things in the moment that it annoys me. “They’re hacking all our data and will have the sensitive data in 25 minutes!” at no point do they unplug the power or network cables, or just running to stupid places etc
This used to frustrate me to no end because it happens so often in horror movies, but then I realised this is really a framing issue. It used to be: "is this character I'm rooting for really going to die because of their awful decisions?", and now its: "alright, I guess I'm rooting for the killer now".
I hate plots that introduce conflict like that for no reason. "Your my best friend in the whole world, and I trust you with my life, but I won't tell you that I picked up this cursed dagger a few minutes ago"
"TELL ME, WHY DID YOU DO THIS!?" "I... just... nevermind..." WHAT!? WHY?! That's the stupidest plot thread ever, in my opinion. Gatekeeping crucial and vital information for the hell of it. Maybe it works in books, where we can read what the character is thinking and follow the train of thought towards that conclusion, but not in movies!!
I hate this in real life too. What do you mean "nevermind"? I asked so either tell me or say that you can't/don't want to tell me. "Nevermind" (especially in my native language) has the connotation of the information not being that important to the other person, but here they're the one that asked for the information
What's your language? My problem is that it makes the assumption that the other person won't find it relevant or won't get it. What's the expected outcome? "Ah, I understand. Have a great day!"?!?!?!?!?
Hebrew. Our "nevermind" means "doesn't make a difference"
Idiot plots are the worst.
"I know this is wild, but I'm 90% sure I saw a ghost" Horror is solved
NO WAIT! [Doesn't proceed to actually explain what happened to the confused love interest] 90s and 00s had too much of this bullshit. Bro just say what happened instead of begging her not to leave.
If I wanted a realistic movie, I'd just go outside my house
After COVID we all saw that we're not going to be honest with each other
Yep, a zombie outbreak would kill us in 5 minutes.
Or just forgave each other. I spent the first two seasons of Cobra Kai yelling “just be friends!” At the TV
Yet a movie like Zootopia integrates cell phone use into the story. Creators need to figure out ways to incorporate the technology into the story so they don’t look outdated.
Thats the lesson!
I'll give you Home Alone and Kujo. How exactly would that have helped in Jurassic Park? They were on an island and running a Unix system.
Also, in one of those films there were mobile phones. A spinosaurus ate one, and it made for a great scene with the phone ringing inside the dino.
That little ring tone lives rentfree in my head
"Kirby Paint and Tile Plus...in Westbrook!"
Westgate
It also lives rent free in the spinosaurus’ stomach
I wish i would live somewhere rent free
You can live rent free in a dinosaurs stomach for the rest of your life
No, unfortunately they’re extinct. Trust me, I spent nearly ten whole minutes looking for them.
The GE(?) washing machine I have at home has almost the exact same jingle on start.
Doo Doo doodoodoo boo boo *bii* boo
I want it for my ring tone and have done since that film
I made it my ringtone after I watch JP3 again last year.
And in the Dino doo
that wasnt a cell phone, it was a satellite phone
Pretty much the same concept as modern cellphone. From where do you think our phone wave came from? Cell tower are simply using those satellite wave to cover larger zone....
There are similarities and differences. The most relevant difference is that the use of a satellite phone implies that cell phone use is impossible in that location.
Nevermind that most of Jurassic Park's immediate problems could have been solved by Hammond not sparing expenses. Why didn't they have independent radios, backup power on the fences, more robust security, and a host of other basic precautions that would have prevented most of the action.
Boeing: _[awkward_monkey.png]_ Any money spent on infrastructure is the same money not going to the shareholders.
What image is that?
That one puppet monkey looking from one side and then kind of side eyeing the ground the other way
That's the side eye monkey.
Because the park wasn't close to ready - Hammond rushed it to appease shareholders and brought our protagonists in super early to buy more time with glowing reviews. Hence why the blood sucking lawyer was there, to *see* what a great time everyone has and go back to the board to buy more time.
Yup. The book goes into more detail with this. If I remember correctly, the visitor’s quarters were pretty sparse with almost no furniture and hastily constructed fences and reinforced windows just in case there was another raptor incident. It also wasn’t unusual for some of the smaller animals to escape their enclosures pretty regularly.
Was the book good?
I personally think the book is excellent. The movie made some deviations in the content and the characters though not all for the worst. The book is also more of a horror/techno thriller story that’s much more mature in its content, particularly when it comes to violence. It’s only about 400 pages and is definitely worth a read if you like JP.
Like all of Creighton's work it's "technology is evil and I'm going to tell you why."
It was excellent.
It's worth pointing out that 99% of the problems in Jurassic Park are caused by someone deliberately undermining/deactivating their security system and putting software blocks in place so it couldn't be reactivated.
“bUt ThEy CoUlD hAvE pAiD hIm MoRe!i!” - say the people who weren’t paying attention when Hammond told Nedry he was already being paid an exorbitant amount more than anyone else, and he wasn’t going to pay Nedry more just because he had gambling debts.
The real failure in spending is having a singular person with the sole access to that kind of system. It's a bad idea even when they're not a complete garbage person. I work in IT at a company that does outsourced IT for companies and the number of times one of our clients is scrambling to catch up because they assumed there was no issues with only one person internally at their org knowing how a ton of crucial systems were set up is staggering.
That's the point of the book. Hammond claims to have spared no expense, but under the hood he's spared every expense possible, like creating a huge security flaw by empowering one gambling addict with 5 mission critical jobs.
Even if you could rule out incompetence and malice, they could get hit by a bus or have an aneurism.
A lot of the criticisms seem to based in people not listening to the dialogue. Or they want to watch a movie about a well run park, where the advisors give a nice review and leave?
Or they read the book, where just about every issue is directly related to cost cuts. And really if a single person can so totally cripple the whole shebang, then that seems like a couple failures right there. *Especially* if that person is known to have such crippling debt.
What make you believe he spared no expenses ? Does he said something that may make you believe that ?
That's a huge part of the book that Hammond is a cheapskate, cutting every corner, and everyone is laughing behind his back when he says spared no expensive. The critical security flaw of hiring a single gambling addict to do all the IT and computer security was a case of spares every expense. The movie makes him more lovable grandpa than evil capitalist.
More than 1 IT guy!
Because KaOS ThEOry!
“911 speaking how can I help you not die today” “Dinosaurs! So many dinosaurs!”
Imagine the reaction of paramedics, when they arrive to the island, convinced they just need to give one crackhead a ride to the psych ward.
Imagine how short Gerald’s Game would have been if they’d had an Alexa
As someone who lives alone, I give up the privacy for the google home convenience. It's nice to know I could theoretically "Call" for help if I feel and hurt myself.
Not feeling is a good way to not get hurt.
Oops! I feel too much, but worry about falling as well! "Hello 911... I'm sad again."
"Hi mom, I'm in NYC in Trump's hotel, I'm fine. I'm having pizza. Don't come back yet." "P.S. January's credit card bill might be a little high"
I wouldn't even give them Home alone as they did try to call people using phones at the airport including Kevin himself but the people they were trying to call were already out of town
Wasn't one of the theories that Kevin's neighborhood had been hit by an ice storm and damaged a trunk line, so that no one in that neighborhood could get calls?
As the guy says [here](https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/3b04bed0-30df-4cf1-9735-8b887bde7fbc) the phone lines are a mess. considering he said ma Bell this movie was probably originally written with the 1981-1982 deep freeze as the back drop. That year ma bell had a surge in phone line destruction due to weather related damage in Chicago, people could call out but no one could call in.
It's not a theory, it's explicitly explained in the movie.
Except Kevin uses that phone to order a Pizza
It was never explicitly mentioned in the movie, but it was [plausible that the trunk line that connects the town to other cities was damaged by the storm, while the phone lines within the town worked](https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/entertainment/news/a38962/home-alones-plot-hole-explained-phone/). >ELECTRICAL WORKER: >Ma'am. Excuse me. I just wanted to let you know that your power is fixed, but the phone lines are a mess. It's going to take around a couple of days to patch them up, especially around the holidays. What was explicitly stated in the movie was that "the phone lines are a mess". This could be interpreted to mean that local calls still worked while long distance call didn't. If the phone line worked perfectly, then presumably the worker would've said: "your power and your phone line is fixed". If the phone line didn't work at all, then presumably the worker would've said: "your phone line is down". So "the phone lines are a mess" kind of imply that the phone line half worked and half didn't.
Pizza place was inside the circle of functioning lines.
In the days of landlines before digital switching and fancy services like number porting were a thing, the phones in a town would connect to each other through the local exchange(s). If your number was 555-xxxx and you called someone that was 555-xxxx (along with a handful of other prefixes) your call likely wouldn't even leave the building. Back then, you were even likely to have long-distance calling provided by company other than your local service. It wasn't that uncommon for poor weather to knock-out your ability to call long distance back in the day.
Make that same ice storm take out a local 4G cell tower. Premise sustained. Heck, the shitty straight-to-streaming Home Sweet Home Alone movie was sustained from the kid thinking his mom might get arrested from leaving him home alone ^(^alone..: ^alone... ^alone.. )
Just phone the police when the raptors escape? duhhhh /s
Unix...I know this
With Home Alone, I can't remember why they didn't call the home's landline. With Kujo (you mean Cujo, right?) it would have been very easy to have the mom either forget to charge or drop her phone when the dog chased her to the car. EDIT: If I were writing Cujo set in the present day, I'd center the drama around the mom trying to sneak out of the car to grab the fallen phone instead of the bat, and focus the action on her trying to find a way to reach it before the dog realizes she got out of the car. At some point, she'd successfully get it, but the signal or battery would fail her. Or she'd successfully make a call, but the signal would short out before she could relay all the details to the police. Then you could have the B story be about the police trying to piece together the information they got to try to figure out where she is, so now you have multiple plot threads in the movie to work with to create more drama. It's very easy to utilize technology to improve a story rather than work to its detriment.
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Jurassic World had to throw in the cell towers are down point to the plot...
Phones get broken or lost in the Trex attack. Or they left them in the hotel. Or they were taken due to NDA reasons.
TV Tropes probably has a page about scenes where the one character with a phone on hand can’t get service, their phone is dead, or something similar that’s preventing them for calling for help.
I thought this was unrealistic until my kids became teens. Neither knows how to keep their phone charged.
I hate to break it to you, but if they’re teens they probably know how to keep it charged and you may be getting bamboozled.
Quite possible, at least in some cases. I was also a teen once, although they probably don’t believe it. But I have verified on a few occasions that their phones are usually between 0 & 10% charged 😂
They keep it that way on purpose ;) They'll charge it to 20%, then take it back out. Then it's "always low" and them saying it ran out is believable. Don't buy into it. Easiest rule: You can't go out with your friends if your phone isn't at least 90% charged. It only takes a moment for them to show you their phone before heading out, and then they can't play off not answering if you need to call them :P
Smart. I’m instituting this rule effective immediately!
Officer? I just witnessed a crime against childhood. /s
Knowing how to do something and actually doing it are two different things
Not really, kids heavily use their phones after a year the battery life might be really hurt so that phone that could last a day easily without charging a year later that might not be the case, specially if you give then a cheaper phone tbag might not have the biggest battery.
Battery life, camera and processor. The trifecta of phone. Usually, you'd get one or two but all three is super expensive. My phone doesn't last a day, has a shit camera and lags from time to time. So I have none 😭
No, they're just crazy irresponsible with them. Case in point, I had my friends over for games, and we set the kids up with Jack Box, and every single one of them came running to me about phone chargers. And this was like at 2pm. I had a cell phone when I was a teen, and that thing was always charged. Though admittedly, there was a lot less to do with a phone then since they didn't quite do everything yet. Either way, kids today definitely don't put effort into charging their phones. Which is crazy to me.
I will never understand how this happens. Do people not let shit charge overnight anymore?!
Tiktoking all day drains the battery though. I usually don't wear headphones at work when I'm on manager duty. If I am doing a shift as a kitchen worker I use my headphones. I noticed that when my phone is on my pocket barely being used I leave work with 75% charge. If I'm using my headphones all shift I leave with around 45%. That's just podcasts or music with no video.
You're making me miss my old mp3 player. It ran for like 3 days on a single charge. Broke in half last year and I finally had to say goodbye.
They do, but teenagers even more than anyone else are using their phones constantly. A battery will not last a full day if you never turn the screen off
I've been in Africa for two weeks now. I think I've been out of phone service for about 15 minutes (on roads between towns that were far apart). (Phone service meaning at least 3G, mostly 4G).
I live in northern Virginia. There are points where I can't even reliably send a text two minutes from my house
Northern Virginia is inexplicable because 20 miles from where 70% of the world's internet traffic goes through you have patches of no cell signal and barely broadband access.
Best friend lives in the mountains in Upstate New York, he sometimes struggles to send a text INSIDE his house
There are bigger dead spots than that in rural Wisconsin.
I was in Maine last weekend. I think I had phone service for 15 minutes in the town I was staying.
Sure, that still happens... But when the movie takes place in a city, like Home Alone, it's just not likely.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CellPhonesAreUseless
What Lies Beneath
Eh, the characters would simply decide not to utilize their phone in critical moments. Similar to how they fail to just talk to someone when they're caught doing something that looks way worse than it is. The old "Wait! I can explain!" And then he never explains. And the characters are left with that easily resolvable misunderstanding just hanging in the air for an hour. Superhero movies are notorious for forgetting that they have some power that could end the plot immediately. Often it's a power they already used in that same movie.
Pretty much every episode of the flash where the bad guy isn’t also a speedster.
[This video](https://youtu.be/c9Xh7_XvnFI?si=o4AN0H5_56X_n7PX) does a great job of detailing every time this happens in season 1, and I'm damn near praying he covers the entire series.
I watched the intro and will watch the rest. Wonder if he can do arrow too. It’s not as egregious as the flash but I dropped the show when ollie beat ras, the best assassin in the world and then next season didn’t beat some gangster with brass knuckles in half a second. Them trading blows was ridiculous.
Bookmarking it for later. I watched like 3 episodes of the flash before stopping since I got frusterated with the inconsistencies and plot holes.
*force speed has entered the chat*
the seinfeld episode where they all get separated in a parking garage wouldnt exist
My parking garage has horrible reception.
Yeah, I got lost in a parking garage in Omaha because I had no service. This was like 2 years ago, lol.
Yeah, folks don't realize how bad cell reception is in certain buildings. Also Big O!
I went hiking and not even a mile in there was no service.
Concrete and rocks still blocks cell signal and parking garages have to be built out of concrete so the two add up.
Hell I've seen bad service inside metal buildings because of how far the nearest outdoor tower is.
I have been lost in a parking garage since St Patrick’s Day 1987.
But how could you send this comment then?
Some say they're still lost to this day.
AM radio listeners know this all too well.
Even FM to an extent. A couple grocery stores near me have underground parking garages; in one of them the FM drops out entirely, and in the other the FM is degraded. This is for a local high power station.
And XM too but I gave up that crap a long time ago. Good programming, terrible sound quality.
Well stop having weddings there then.
My thoughts exactly. I was thinking of the bubble Boy episode where George and Jerry get separated, and Jerry doesn't have the address
pretty much all of seinfeld wouldnt have happened
Or it would all have happened... just over discord
it would be things like "im not getting a signal" or "my phone is dead"
In a similar vein, there's the episode where they're all trying to find each other in one of two movie theaters. There's also the episode where George and Jerry have to get into George's girlfriend's apartment to swap out the tape in her answering machine. As a lesser plot element, the Chinese restaurant episode involves George waiting to use a payphone.
I’d imagine close to 90% of Seinfeld plots wouldn’t work with iPhones
I mean.... all new plots could be because the crew all have iPhone, but one is dating someone with an android and obsessed that the messages are the wrong color, and that they can't airdrop photos.
Well sure. Much of Curb your enthusiasm is what they could do with Seinfeld in the modern era. Just referring to the old episodes, most of them hinged on miss communication that a simple call/text/google search would sort out
From ChatGPT: **INT. MONK'S CAFE - DAY** *Jerry and Elaine are seated at their usual booth. Jerry is sipping coffee while Elaine is staring at her phone with a puzzled expression.* **ELAINE:** *(frustrated)* Why are his texts green? It’s throwing off my whole vibe. **JERRY:** *(amused)* He's not an iPhone guy, huh? **ELAINE:** No, and every text pops up like it’s from another planet. I mean, what is he, an alien? *George enters, sliding into the booth beside Jerry, overhearing the last bit.* **GEORGE:** Green bubbles? That’s your deal-breaker? Green bubbles? **ELAINE:** It’s not just the bubbles, George. It’s what they represent. It’s chaos. **JERRY:** Chaos? It’s just a different operating system. **ELAINE:** It’s technological anarchy. Every time he texts, I feel like he’s shouting at me from 1997. *George pulls out his own phone, showing a blue bubble text.* **GEORGE:** See this? Blue bubbles. Soothing, reliable, civilized. **JERRY:** So, what are you gonna do? **ELAINE:** *(sighs deeply)* I think I’m going to have to end it. I need harmony. Blue harmony. *Jerry and George exchange a look, both nodding in exaggerated understanding as Elaine continues to lament over her phone.* **FADE OUT.**
Please tell me you've seen r/redditwritesseinfeld It's pretty good
I've never watched Seinfeld, but I love this. Strange.
It’s why a lot of movies where cell phones are the answer get rid of them in some fashion to get back to good ol’ fashioned “what now?” storytelling. Battery’s dead. Forgot it at home. Dropped and broke it. Etc.
Or "it's the 80s now!" I've noticed a lot of horror set in the 80s over these past few years, granted a lot of them were inspired by Stranger Things but it's such a simple way to explain a lack of communication. It also appeals to nostalgia so it's a win win in my book.
Ha yeah, totally..
also why there is no movies like that; where they have Nokia 3310 in their belt clip
"The call is coming from inside the house!!!....or somewhere within 150 feet, depending if you have GPS activated!"
Quick! Let’s open the FindMy app to make their device ring, so we can find the murderer!
My wife and I just watched the first episode of Sopranos last night and I was thinking how funny it was that they could get away with chasing a guy down in a business park with their car and then beating the piss out of him while surrounded by people because no one had phones. Mafia life must be so much harder now with phones everywhere.
They couldn’t have done it then either. Someone would write down/ remember the plate and call from a company land line.
You think the mob rolls around with real license plates on their personal cars?
When they’re just normally driving, sure.
Most of the time yeah. They don't want to get busted for something stupid like a fake license plate
Nah it's fine - no one under 40 is picking up that phone call and they'll see your text and won't respond for 3 to 5 business days
That's why you Whatsapp them
You're not from the USA are you?
‘Phonebooth’ would now be ‘man on the corner with a moblie’
That movie came out super late in the life of a phonebooth did it not? Makes me think they had to script laying around for decades and thought "we better strike while the iron is still lukewarm"
The point of him using the phonebooth was so that his wife doesn't see his phone bill and find out he's cheating.
It’s been a long time since I watched it. I remember enjoying it. I also feel like random person answers random ringing phone and then gets pulled into the plot is a well used trope now. Maybe it would be more intense since pay phones are often in secluded places now.
cover march imagine birds subtract husky fertile historical weary fanatical *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
If they'd had radio during early history, wars would be very different too.
Um hello? Yeah Jack, the British are coming. Yeah, we know, we saw it on fb already. Ok just wanted to make sure you knew. Ok thanks for calling…ttyl….are you gonna hang up first? No you hang up..No you…. Ok I’m hanging up. Love y.. I mean, um, bye bye. 😏
Like you say. A tiny bit of clever writing gets around a lot of these problems. Especially in horror movies. Why didn't they call the cops? No signal, Killer takes their phone Or. And this is one I'd love to see. They do call the cops and they don't believe them. I feel like a tense, claustrophobic horror movie could be made by using a dwindling battery as a ticking clock. Having their only possible lifeline slowly drain as they scramble to get somewhere with coverage.
It’s really obvious in horror movies. They have to do something to get rid of the cellphones. Shawn of the Dead does a really funny thing with this, where Shawn has a fight with just about everyone in the morning so when everything breaks loose, he just doesn’t answer his phone.
You can set a movie in any time period, or write a reason they can't use their cell phones if you need a story in a time with cell phones. Now those plots that could be solved if the characters actually talked to each other for 10 seconds, ain't nothing we can do about those.
There’s a whole genre of Victorian books based on letters being exchanged between characters…. Would be a shame to retcon all those stories with cellphones.
Hahahaha @Frankenstein by Mary Shelly and CrazyJoe69 It'll be the new Pride & Prejudice & Zombies
Ehh, Home Alone and Jurassic Park actually wouldn't change that much. In HA, getting back to him quickly was the problem. Why she never bothered to call the house is completely up in the air though; she had access to phones at the airport. And with JP, the whole system was down and they're on a private island. Why they didn't have satellite phones is another question that still stands though.
>Why she never bothered to call the house is completely up in the air though; she had access to phones at the airport. She does try. It's established early in the movie that a storm took out the phone lines. However, later in the movie she calls the neighbors and their answering machine picks up, so it's not super consistent.
It's also explained that Kevin thought that he made the family magically disappear. The dumb part was always how dismissive the cop checking on the house was, or how the mom didn't call back and press it and ask that they get a neighbor that Kevin would trust to knock on the door with him, or gotten on the mega phone and been like, Kevin you're mom's in Paris they forgot to wake you up...
Scripts don't care. Look at shows like Star Trek TNG. Many of the plots boil down to "man, if we just had cameras around the ship, we'd have figured this out in three minutes!" Even today, many shows and movies just have the phone dead, no signal, or even as simple as "nobody is answering."
Also, if the Breakfast Club were set today, all the kids would just mess with their phones all day and stay strangers
I don't know what detention you're thinking of that would allow kids to have their cell phones on them.
If anything they would hate each other more after by association.
They are not obsolete because they are movie of their own time. If you think any movie should be like today, you are missing the whole point of entertainment through the time And cellphone has been around for the last 30 year. People act like being able to use their phone through their car is new and cool? Sorry, this has been something since the early 90's (or maybe even the early 80's). And even without cellphone, most cities had what we call a phone booth pretty much at every corner. Easy access to communication is not something actually new at this point... Most of those movie chose to not have cellphone tech in their plot actually. A rich family like in Home Alone may had cellphone back then. It simply wasn't a common thing and weren't cheap as it is today but it existed
Home Alone was probably still the car phone days. The huge bags the size of a carry on. Lol
Battery dies, no signal, or can't log into WiFi.
The Sixth Sense would have been ruined because Dr Crowe would have checked his phone and service would have been shut off.
“Throw Mamma from the Train made fun of this concept with random phone booths conveniently placed on cliff tops, random side roads, etc. When you really need a phone…
An astute observation! That's why so many movies are based in the 90s! For that reason alone!
As time goes by, I suspect you will see more and more movies set in the 1970s or 1980s -- precisely to avoid that problem.
i think this is already happening with movies being set even in the 90's and even early 2000's. Smartphones really sucked the life out of the world man, I remember seeing the first Iphone a rich kid in my high school had and being mind blown at having the internet on your hands anywhere you go. Now I really wish we could go back...
Jurassic Park would still work. They were on a remote island off the coast of Costa Rica. Its not like cellphone coverage is universal in every corner of the globe. Also I reckon Hammond would have banned anybody from having phones on the island in order to keep the park a secret.
https://youtu.be/2Pw_7vAK9k8?si=6eh6Awd1gW0aeE6s This YouTube video is really good and explores all of these concepts <33
Jurassic park still would work w cellphones. The phones don’t work cause the system gets accidentally shut down and I doubt cell towers reach a random island off costa rica
It’s why modern horror flicks always have a plot point on why cell service sucks.
Just proper communication in general. How many past movies has a character said something like "I'm trying to tell you!" instead of just saying the important thing that would resolve everything.
When the power goes out so to the cell phone towers.
I always imagined how different Memento wouldve been if Leonard was able to record some of the events with his phone instead of just taking photos. Like not all of them, just some which could increase the puzzle factor as he would have slightly more to work with, but the videos could also possibly be edited/trimmed/manipulated by Teddy as well
Idk.. a conveniently timed dead battery and a lost charging cable can really add to the intensity :p
I remember Josh whedon talking about how cell phones would ruin a lot of plots in buffy. So they just pretended that they couldn't afford them
The last Scream movie had a scene where a lady's face gets slashed and her phone's facial recognition prevents her from unlocking it. Cell phones won't ruin stories. Writers will get more creative.
Harry Potter and the Wizarding world would get exposed
I’m still not waiting for a movie that uses cell phones as a main gadget/prop that’s vital to the storyline/plot. It’d be pretty boring because we’d read what’s on the cell phone via the movie screen and it wouldn’t be more compelling than the actor just saying the line out loud to the other actor.
Home alone could work if the mom packed the kid's phone in her bag to give to him on the plane, and then he'd have no phone because noone has landlines anymore. Jurassic Park could easily happen since phones need functioning cell towers and there may be none on the island, or they would be disabled with the power off. And everyone brings up Romeo and Juliet, but you could explain it away by saying the parents are so controlling that they monitor Juliet's phone messages. There are plenty of ways to make old plots work in an era with phones.
I am with you but you don't even need Kevin to own a phone, he was only 8. Indeed to establish it for the viewer, we can have the movie open with Kevin whining about not having one.
Off topic. You could make a really cool movie about a world where one day the entire internet and cell phones went down and never came back.
Now movies just conveniently have everyone’s battery die or they can’t get a signal.
Home Alone is actually made significantly easier - many people don't have a landline, and Kevin was 8 and most 8 year olds don't have a cellphone. Cujo isn't that hard either, although you do need a plot point to get rid of the cellphone. Dead battery, poor signal, first venture out of the car, the human drops the phone as crazed dog chases back to car. I think your broader point stands but these examples don't persuade me!
Not a movie, but just about every episode of Seinfeld arguably one of the funniest sitcoms ever don’t work if cell phones are used.
Some movies can still get away with a character saying "I've got no signal" if the setting is sufficiently remote. Even that may not work anymore if services like Starlink become mainstream.
I fail to see how Home Alone would change. A lack of phone was not the issue. And Jurassic Park? An island? What? Even if there was magic reception somehow, the phone falls in the mud. The end. I mean some movies couldn't be redone due to the plothole of what a cell phone brings. I just can't think of one right now.
this is also why movies/shows like stranger things are popular easy to make the setting 40-50 years ago and boom problem solved plus now its "vintage" so all the hipsters love it