When do things become "recognizably modern" to you?

[Queequeg]

I watched some historic Sci-Fi movies recently that got me thinking about this, and came up with "the late 70s."  Partially inspired by my reading of Strange Rebels and on Deng Xiaoping.  But cause this is Languish I think I'll frame this around the Sci-Fi movies.

1936's Things to Come:
The world in Things to Come is, to me, almost completely unrecognizable.  H.G. Well's antidemocratic, technocratic impulses get free reign as a group of vanguard technocrats based in Basra, Iraq (!) conquer the world with the last remaining airplanes after a devastating, multi-generational war that is quite likely the first depiction of a post-apocalyptic society on film. 

Coming from the early-21st Century it's hard to find almost any assumption here that isn't horribly dated;
1) Democracy, private ownership and the nation-state are inefficient, will be replaced with a vaguely socialist, technocratic world order
2) Violence against uncooperative social elements is a-okay, healthy, inevitable
3) The planet's resources exist entirely so that we can extract them.  There's a rather hilarious 10 minute montage of BIG MACHINES DOING GREAT THINGS that would not fly in the West after Silent Spring and the enviornmental movement.
4) People are a-okay with living underground because for some stupid reason it's considered more efficient
5) Humanity is awesome, and we'll either conquer the universe or we won't do anything.

I don't think it is possible for anyone in the past 30 years to have made a movie with any of these assumptions and not have it criticized extremely harshly.

1968's 2001
I watched this today, and it struck me as a lot less dated than I remember.  I remember there being a focus on the then-inevitable Soviet-American Democratic Socialist synthesis, as America becomes more progressive and the USSR becomes more democratic.  That's not really present.  There's a BBC 16 (indicating 15 other BBC channels), but there's also clearly a corporate presence in space; there's a PAN AM spaceship, IBM everywhere, Hilton, HoJo's, etc....From a technological perspective I think the movie has also aged way better than just about any other Sci Fi film ever made; the crew uses an iPad, a lot of the computers look incredibly modern for the time of production, and no one is wearing unitards or Mao suits. 

However, the tone seems to date it more than anything.  Space cooperation has brought detente to the stars, and some Wells-y Utopianism is still at play. 

1979's Alien

I would argue that this is the best movie here, but that's a matter of taste.  Although the technology in 2001 has aged a lot better, (Alien's Mother is hilariously dated), the tone and universe of Alien mean it could plausibly have been released at any point in the last 4 decades, though the relative subtlety of the production would have been a no-no at any other time.

1) Nation-state no longer seems as important, replaced in large part by domineering corporate interests.  Weyland-Yutani's full power is never explained in detail, but it's relatively clear that we're dealing more with something like the British East India Company or (to tie in to Nostromo's Conrad reference) the Congo Free State than any modern corporation.  No reference to Socialism or the USSR.
2) Paranoia exists in the future.  Weyland-Yutani is basically using the crew of the Nostromo as test-subjects to poke at the alien life form at LV-421.  It's never explained how much they know about the life on the planet, but I think it's safe to assume they understood that it was dangerous.
3) World is big, scary and old.  Guys on the space ship wear Hawaiian shirts, look at porn, a lot of tech on the Nostromo looks 20+ years old.  There's an industrial feel of wear and tear.

[Admiral Yi]

What's the question?

[mongers]

What's the question?

Yeah, I'm a little confused too.

Is it about when older sci-fi film reflect the 'modern' world ? 

[Ed Anger]

Somebody got wasted watching movies.

[Jacob]

The question is whether you agree with his contention that aesthetically and culturally our world view isn't too different from how it was in the 70s onward, but if we go back to the 60s or earlier there are some fundamental differences about how the world works, what shapes the future, and also in the aesthetic goals we like to see our movie making strive for.

... and if you disagree, he implicitly asks where you'd put the break between the modern of the present and the alien past (and why).

[jimmy olsen]

It depends on what you mean by modern. When I read the title as I was looking over the board the date that immediately popped into my head was 1860.

[CountDeMoney]

It took me 5 minutes yesterday to figure out how to use a coin-operated locker.  I pretended I was texting while I figured it out.

[Ideologue]

I watched some historic Sci-Fi movies recently that got me thinking about this, and came up with "the late 70s."  Partially inspired by my reading of Strange Rebels and on Deng Xiaoping.  But cause this is Languish I think I'll frame this around the Sci-Fi movies.

1936's Things to Come:
The world in Things to Come is, to me, almost completely unrecognizable.  H.G. Well's antidemocratic, technocratic impulses get free reign as a group of vanguard technocrats based in Basra, Iraq (!) conquer the world with the last remaining airplanes after a devastating, multi-generational war that is quite likely the first depiction of a post-apocalyptic society on film. 

NETFLIX QUEUE.

[grumbler]

The more recent the movie, the more modern it seems?

Okay, I can buy that.

[Neil]

1914, when civilization ended.

[Ideologue]

To answer the general question, 1945.

Coming from the early-21st Century it's hard to find almost any assumption here that isn't horribly dated;
1) Democracy, private ownership and the nation-state are inefficient, will be replaced with a vaguely socialist, technocratic world order

Post-1990 examples of this: Dark Knight Trilogy, Star Trek: The Next Generation (explicitly), Terminator (implicitly), Miracleman, Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

2) Violence against uncooperative social elements is a-okay, healthy, inevitable

Post-1990 example of this: every action movie made in the past twenty-three years.

3) The planet's resources exist entirely so that we can extract them.  There's a rather hilarious 10 minute montage of BIG MACHINES DOING GREAT THINGS that would not fly in the West after Silent Spring and the enviornmental movement.

OK, concur.  Environmentalism has become so widely accepted that it's hard to even be reasonable about it.

4) People are a-okay with living underground because for some stupid reason it's considered more efficient

Concur.  It would be more efficient.  But it is not generally given life in fiction.  In fact, it was rare before the world became "recognizably modern."  The only other work I can think of that uses this idea is Clarke's Imperial Earth.  Which is awesome.

5) Humanity is awesome, and we'll either conquer the universe or we won't do anything.

Star Trek.

I don't think it is possible for anyone in the past 30 years to have made a movie with any of these assumptions and not have it criticized extremely harshly.

1968's 2001
I watched this today, and it struck me as a lot less dated than I remember.  I remember there being a focus on the then-inevitable Soviet-American Democratic Socialist synthesis, as America becomes more progressive and the USSR becomes more democratic.  That's not really present.  There's a BBC 16 (indicating 15 other BBC channels), but there's also clearly a corporate presence in space; there's a PAN AM spaceship, IBM everywhere, Hilton, HoJo's, etc....From a technological perspective I think the movie has also aged way better than just about any other Sci Fi film ever made; the crew uses an iPad, a lot of the computers look incredibly modern for the time of production, and no one is wearing unitards or Mao suits. 

However, the tone seems to date it more than anything.  Space cooperation has brought detente to the stars, and some Wells-y Utopianism is still at play. 

Of course there is.  It's Arthur Clarke.

1979's Alien

I would argue that this is the best movie here, but that's a matter of taste.

Yeah, bad taste.  Alien > 2001.  No wonder you didn't like Sinister.  You're nuts.

[Eddie Teach]

Somewhere between Columbus, Luther, and Copernicus.

[Razgovory]

I think I get what Spell-us is getting at.  Movies reflecting a mind-set you find most familiar.  It is interesting the way he's framing it around sci-fi (which often predicts the future), but newer movies much more likely to fit the mind-set then past ones.

[mongers]

'Brazil' in part reflects how the modern world is/doesn't work.   

[Queequeg]

I think I get what Spell-us is getting at.  Movies reflecting a mind-set you find most familiar.  It is interesting the way he's framing it around sci-fi (which often predicts the future), but newer movies much more likely to fit the mind-set then past ones.

I wasn't clear enough in the post because the post title itself makes it pretty clear.

A lot of contemporary movies are about personal drama or about "eternal" topics.  My thinking here was inspired by how people of the past believed the future was going to look, as it's way more obviously dated than, say, class politics in Dassin movie.