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Many movie plots become obsolete due to cell phones, amirite?
by Howerosella1 month ago
the seinfeld episode where they all get separated in a parking garage wouldnt exist
by Anonymous1 month ago
My parking garage has horrible reception.
by Anonymous1 month ago
Yeah, I got lost in a parking garage in Omaha because I had no service. This was like 2 years ago, lol.
by Anonymous1 month ago
Yeah, folks don't realize how bad cell reception is in certain buildings. Also Big O!
by dortha041 month ago
I went hiking and not even a mile in there was no service.
by ksimonis1 month ago
Some say they're still lost to this day.
by Anonymous1 month ago
AM radio listeners know this all too well.
by Anonymous1 month ago
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.
by Over_Tumbleweed_44701 month ago
And XM too but I gave up that crap a long time ago. Good programming, terrible sound quality.
by Anonymous1 month ago
pretty much all of seinfeld wouldnt have happened
by Anonymous1 month ago
Or it would all have happened... just over discord
by Anonymous1 month ago
it would be things like "im not getting a signal" or "my phone is dead"
by Anonymous1 month ago
It was... "The Mooks." One of the best jokes of my childhood (since my class literally learned about The Moors the previous week) probably wouldn't have existed since the info would be easy to look up.
by Anonymous1 month ago
moops
by Anonymous1 month ago
Just for the sake of keeping the joke going, I'm going to double down on The Mooks and not look it up.
by Anonymous1 month ago
Its Moors!! Misprint on Trivial Pursuit
by Glass-Effective1231 month ago
"Moops." (Also I did look it up because I need to have more integrity than George, and it was Moops.)
by Anonymous1 month ago
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.
by Anonymous1 month ago
I'd imagine close to 90% of Seinfeld plots wouldn't work with iPhones
by No-Instruction1 month ago
Yeah I used to crush that
by Anonymous1 month ago
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.
by Anonymous1 month ago
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.
by Anonymous1 month ago
that wasnt a cell phone, it was a satellite phone
by Anonymous1 month ago
They werent common use.
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
For the military/corporate people on the island it was for the most part
by Chackett4 weeks ago
That little ring tone lives rentfree in my head
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
And in the Dino doo
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
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.
by hgleason4 weeks ago
Or just paid the guy doing all the computer stuff more money.
by Krodriguez4 weeks ago
Boeing: [awkward_monkey.png] Any money spent on infrastructure is the same money not going to the shareholders.
by luettgenlulu4 weeks ago
Because KaOS ThEOry!
by rosenbaumfreder4 weeks ago
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.
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
What's Kujo?...I remember a book about a dog named Cujo🤷♂️
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
Cujo sounds like the name of a former Toronto Maple Leafs goalie
by Over_Tumbleweed_44704 weeks ago
Just phone the police when the raptors escape? duhhhh /s
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
Imagine how short Gerald's Game would have been if they'd had an Alexa
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
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
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
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?
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
It's not a theory, it's explicitly explained in the movie.
by hgleason4 weeks ago
Except Kevin uses that phone to order a Pizza
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
Pizza place was inside the circle of functioning lines.
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
These ancient lines right?
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
As the guy says here 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.
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
And also the phone lines were down
by mitchellbud4 weeks ago
But if you have a mobile you're never "out of town".
by rosenbaumfreder4 weeks ago
No you are still out of town. You can't just walk next door from Hawaii to Northbrook Illinois to go grab Kevin
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
"It's all about shot placement bro"
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
Hello, this is Army? Im stuck on an island with dinos. Can you please help me… Hello…. Hello? Also good luck trying to kill a grizzly with a pistol.
by NecessaryYear10244 weeks ago
A handgun may not be the most ideal way to fend off a bear, but they're certainly capable of getting the job done.
by kassulkezakary4 weeks ago
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.
by DiscussionReady99514 weeks ago
force speed has entered the chat
by Pale_Fail45634 weeks ago
Pretty much every episode of the flash where the bad guy isn't also a speedster.
by MusicianCold84194 weeks ago
Many would end after five minutes if the main characters would be honest with each other.
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
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.
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
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).
by rosenbaumfreder4 weeks ago
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.
by Lueilwitzmaymie4 weeks ago
‘Phonebooth' would now be ‘man on the corner with a moblie'
by aprice4 weeks ago
"The call is coming from inside the house!!!....or somewhere within 150 feet, depending if you have GPS activated!"
by Edhuels4 weeks ago
Quick! Let's open the FindMy app to make their device ring, so we can find the murderer!
by Lumpy_Honey4 weeks ago
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
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
That's why you Whatsapp them
by rosenbaumfreder4 weeks ago
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.
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
If they'd had radio during early history, wars would be very different too.
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
Battery dies, no signal, or can't log into WiFi.
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
When the power goes out so to the cell phone towers.
by santino124 weeks ago
Cellphone towers don't have backup power? Here in Africa they do.
by rosenbaumfreder4 weeks ago
Cell towers here only have about 8 hours of backup power.
by santino124 weeks ago
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.
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
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."
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
Harry Potter and the Wizarding world would get exposed
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
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.
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
they can just have the character not have reception, or leave their phone somewhere, or out of battery.
by Daynemurphy4 weeks ago
Phone Booth with Colin Farrell just wouldn't have happened at all
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
The entirety of Seinfeld would never have happened had mobile phones been more accessible at that time
by Hunterleffler4 weeks ago
80s and 90s sitcoms suffer from this far more than films IMO.
by Any_Possession4 weeks ago
With the bad reception one has in some countries, like Germany, some plots still work.
by Live_Anything4 weeks ago
Not getting service is still common though
by Wonderful_Flight4 weeks ago
Halloween 3 could have had slightly better results, given a phones capability to record. Hell, at least Dan could have somehow saved his children.
by New_Mastodon20384 weeks ago
It's kind of the opposite but there's a hilarious scene in HIMYM where they are all arguing about something but then one of them Google's it on their phone and puts an end to the argument. Before phones they would have massive discussions about something but then phones made their debates boring as they could find the answer immediately.
by Hayleegerlach4 weeks ago
At my film school they literally say the greatest difficulty to write scripts nowdays is cellphones. That's why in most media the phone is casually out of battery,no signal,etc
by Anonymous4 weeks ago
There's a reason some shows and movies pick a certain time period before the mass adoption of cell phones.
by InternationalBoat1484 weeks ago
The movie red eye is also obsolete because of cellphones
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