Films that wouldn't work the same way today

[Ginger1982]

Just following on from the Mrs Doubtfire thread, I was just wondering what, fairly recent films, just wouldn't work the same way today?

My first thought was Home Alone. I mean, Kevin's mum would just ring his mobile or message him somehow, right? Plus, the Wet Bandits would have probably been all over social media. And Kevin could have avoided the problems buying his toothbrush if he had just used the self service check out!

Any others out there?

Not quite the same but I remember reading somewhere one of the stars or Dirty Dancing saying it would never get made today because the abortion storyline is too positive. Interesting thought, and probably true.

4 Weddings & A Funeral; everything would have been all over Facebook and they all would have been on Tinder!

Pretty Woman. I watched it in my teens when it first came out and swooned. I watched it again not so long ago and was shocked at how far my opinions had swung in he opposite direction. It just seemed so icky.

Dirty dancing wouldn't get made because there's something a bit grim about an older dance teacher seducing a naive teen on her family holiday

Well yes, drama, that too I suppose!

I was watching Bridget Jones's Diary the other day.

It really hasn't aged well.

Casual sexual harassment? Bridget's uncle is constantly groping her arse and it's made into a joke.

She's desperate for a man at age 30?

Her friends, instead of telling her how beautiful she is the way she is, tell her how to make herself look better.

There's a bunch of other stuff in there that I was a bit shocked at. I loved it when it came out as well 🤔

Brief encounter or an affair to remember...

YY to Bridget Jones. I watched it the other day too for the first time in years. The Japanese being a "cruel race" and calling her friend a "total poof" were particularly shocking comments.

But in the spirit of the OP's question - Bridget would not have a diary, but a blog, and she would be body positive (she was thin anyway!!)

Poltergeist. The ghosts would have never got in because TV stops anymore. Unless the family were haunted by JML 'infomercials'

Bridget Jones - living in her own flat in Borough on a junior publicist/producer salary?? Hahahaha as if!!

Flashdance! 18year old stripper has relationship with boss in his late 30s after he sees her erotic dancing?! What !!!

Jaws. Greenpeace or David Attenborough would have had the boat scuppered for animal cruelty. RSPCA would have taken em to court for the publicity.

Phone Booth. Not much call for phone boxes nowadays!

On the flip side, I watched Life of Brian and the discussion about Loretta wanting to have a baby “you can’t, you haven’t got a womb’ is very appropriate in these trans times.

@mum2jakie. Likewise The Matrix

@RhubarbIsEvil 😂😂😂 incredibly prophetic for Monty Python really

Clockwise, with John Cleese. Although I think it was one of the funniest films ever, it didn't age well, and the Americans didn't "get" it.

When John Cleese misses his train for his headmasters' conference:

• no central locking on his car; his wife has to unlock his passenger door from inside to let him in. (Do you remember doing this? And the usual MN gripe is that the car would be unlocked anyway.)
• he's reduced to phoning ahead from a phone box;
• he can't get a taxi;
• he can't locate his wife to drive him there;
• he gets hopelessly lost after a wrong turning, and uses a paper atlas instead of sat nav;
• he hitches a lift from one of his pupils (who is of course, female).

None of the above would happen nowadays! Even in 1985, headmasters of posh schools might have had mobile phones or car phones, but the main point of the film was that "I will be the first chairman in the whole of history who is headmaster of a common or garden state comprehensive school".

Also some dialogue between two headmasters, wondering why he hasn't turned up:
"Police looking for him now?!"
"Oh no. Little boys?"

Mind you, I expect not much has changed with the school routines since then, the assemblies, and rigid timetables, and the snobbery of private schools; and we see him checking the school timetable on a computer (one which was typical of the eighties).

@RhubarbIsEvil You're so right about "Loretta" in Life of Brian, very prophetic indeed!

Why can’t brief encounter happen with a modern setting? Two people like each other, have tea but don’t actually physically have an affair. These days it would be called an emotional affair. That happens still surely?

Gigi:

Maurice Chevalier is in the Bois de Boulogne looking for Leeetel Gurlz. He finds Leslie Caron and introduces her to Louis Jordan who gets her drunk, etc.

Not a film, but the song 'Radar Love' by Golden Earring has been rendered obsolete by the mobile phone.

Can't help wondering how Romeo and Juliet would work these days. I have a feeling patchy mobile reception/running out of phone credit and GHB/Fentanyl use might figure heavily in the closing scenes.

Oh I love Clockwise, it's fabulous. But yes, I've often thought that absolutely none of it would work nowadays as it's completely based on people just missing each other with vital bits of information.

Stuart Little. Mice no longer speak

All the rom coms with the "persistent suitor", now clearly recognised as stalkers.

I agree about Pretty Woman. I enjoyed it when it came out, but watched it more recently and it just seemed so grubby, and wrong in a number of ways.

@NameChangeNugget Hahahaha