Audiences love period dramas but also love films with a futuristic or utopian/dystopian theme, too. It’s perhaps no surprise that the box office is saturated with a weird blend of movies that cover all aspects of the past/future. But what about the present?
Of course, going into the past helps pull us audiences in through historical appeal, while aiming into the future has long let us dream ideas of what could one day be. Today, we find ourselves in a special place, thanks to how far our technological prowess has developed.
In the contemporary age of film, ideas that were once confined to science fiction are becoming less fantasy and more reality. Alongside this development, concepts like technological utopias and dystopias are increasingly believable eventualities. This process has opened up how the film world develops, but along the way it’s introduced some problems of its own.
The Now and Then
One of the most well-worn tropes in media is when issues arise due to a simple lack of communication. Classic horror and thriller movies are especially bad in this regard, where a failure of mobile phones means an inability to share vital information when needed. Mobile network coverage has long reached more than 99% of countries like the US, for example, which would cause problems for those killers looking to stalk their victims without being noticed.
Movies like 2001’s Joy Ride would end much differently if modern tech was properly respected and utilized, and here lies the crux of the improving tech problem. How many romantic comedies reach the mid-point where one party storms off thanks to a misinterpreted situation? How many times could this kind of complexity be solved with a simple text or Facebook message? How often would it be difficult to find the right person to deliver key information to in the age of social media? In the modern day, these kinds of problems aren’t believable.
On the other end of the spectrum are new cutting-edge technologies like virtual reality and brain-computer interfaces. These have been staples of fiction for decades, and today they’re taking off as real physical and attainable devices. They might not be able to offer the depth of experiences as demonstrated by something like The Matrix, but the concepts behind them are far beyond their first steps. Progress here gives contemporary media a way to bridge for stories that, while not completely accurate to real life in their technological claims, are still within arms reach.
Balancing the New and Unfamiliar
The film world ignoring technological and physical realities to drive a story forward has always been a part of what makes movies work. James Bond wouldn’t be half the series it is without the gadgets like a machinegun-loaded Aston Martin DB5. If you know cars, you know there’s no place for those guns to fit, let alone the hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Even if you don’t know cars, chances are you understand that vehicles can’t vanish under cloaks of invisibility.
Herein lies a more complicated part of working with technology in film. Films need to ride the line between what the public knows to be possible, where they’re okay with fantasy, and what general ignorance will allow. 2019’s The Drone illustrates one way to approach these complications, ostensibly asking viewers what happens when technology goes wrong. We know drones, and we know the technology can be dangerous so that part works just fine. The portion about uploading a serial killer’s consciousness into the eponymous drone to turn it ‘evil’, that much is where we have to convince ourselves to stop asking questions.
The counterpoint here is that contemporary developments in tech and culture can also affect how we address long-standing staples. Like Westerns no longer being immediately understandable in a modern zeitgeist, modern life has changed how we approach many more ideas and industries. Films set in casinos used to be huge, for example, but today, people are just as familiar with digital versions of formerly physical-only games. Many players today are so familiar with the net that they’ll instantly understand the best online poker sites like Guts and Ladbrokes, but they might never have stepped foot in a physical casino. Additions like deposit matches in the online realm might be recognizable, while a physical casino floor could be nearly alien. In other words, progress isn’t simply linear, and it can take away from old understandings as much as it adds new ones.
At the heart of it all is the idea that contemporary film has allowed a broader range of stories and ideas and technologies to come across as realistic than ever before. Even if films do take an additional step into fantasy, the rapid evolution with which we’re constantly experiencing means we can accept so much more without breaking a suspension of disbelief.
The challenges and effects that technology introduces to modern filmmaking as just one element to balance, and a master craftsman knows when contradictions matter and when they don’t. At some point we have to be okay with taking a step back and accepting that technology might as well be magic sometimes, and today, this is easier than ever.
