"It's Too Hot to Think": Old Scifi Films
Yesterday the spouse was watching one of those cheezy old scifi (and I use the term on purpose) films. I never liked them when I was a kid. I loathed monsters. I still do. They used to terrorize me, then they just seemed ugly and boring. Monster fights always signal time to get a snack, or read another few pages, until the story starts up again. So do Hollywoodized sex scenes.
ANyway, I hadn't seen one of those for decades. Amazing how similar tropes appeared in them all. It's like filmmakers had all agreed through the zeitgeist that there would be a certain "look" to the future, and for the most part, that was fueled by imagining an ease to life, but where was the thought behind some of the details?
That het men did most of the design seems real obvious now: Big upward pointy vehicles (remember the fins on cars, you people my age?) lots of circles of various sizes. That was supposed to be futuristic and cool.
The women all in incredibly short skirts and B-52 bras, teetering on spike heels even when they were supposed to be efficient androids or futuristic worker-women (around the house, of course. Or in a factory.). Scientists' daughters show a particular prediliction for outfits like cashmere sweaters up to their necks, but skirts barely long enough to cover their butts. Belted to a fare-thee-well, of course. I guess Good Girls of the future signalled their goodness by keeping those collarbones strictly out of sight.
The machines all sounded either like toilets flushing in a gigantic hall, or like shortwave radios trying to bring in a signal. You know, beeeee-euoooooKSSSSH! wrdlwrdlwrdlwrdlWOOO!.
Machines also had TV monitors on them with lots of wavy lines and spectral blurps, I guess indicating subatomic power sources. (Remember radium clocks? Have your own glowing clock conveniently close by your head when you sleep, so you can always check the time!) Viewscreens shaped like triangles? In fact, what was it with the triangles, an inconvenient, off-balance shape if there ever was one? Why would we want things in triangles in the future? Did someone think they actually looked cool, or just . . . weird? Like the silvery bodysuits that were skin tight, with no zipper or flap in the back? Maybe in the future, since we were eating food in the shape of nourishment-cubes, there wouldn't be any bathroom visits.
The future was supposed to be easy--food in convenient pill form, and flying cars--but weird. So the sliding-whistle music, with random bleeps and bloops added. Labs with all the gigandor computers on altar-daises, because those extra steps up and down as you perform Arcane Science Rituals add to the futuristic weirdness. Mechanical dogs that whir and jolt, because nobody would want the trouble of a warm, loving pup.
I wonder if there's a parallel world where Earth really did develop like that. Euw. I never liked the Golden Age of Science Fiction partly because of the ugly, mechanistic futurama, partly because the women were incredibly boring (so, actually, were the two-fisted manly men) except for the mad scientists, but they had the social skills of kumquats. I guess in the future there wasn't any social life, either.
ANyway, I hadn't seen one of those for decades. Amazing how similar tropes appeared in them all. It's like filmmakers had all agreed through the zeitgeist that there would be a certain "look" to the future, and for the most part, that was fueled by imagining an ease to life, but where was the thought behind some of the details?
That het men did most of the design seems real obvious now: Big upward pointy vehicles (remember the fins on cars, you people my age?) lots of circles of various sizes. That was supposed to be futuristic and cool.
The women all in incredibly short skirts and B-52 bras, teetering on spike heels even when they were supposed to be efficient androids or futuristic worker-women (around the house, of course. Or in a factory.). Scientists' daughters show a particular prediliction for outfits like cashmere sweaters up to their necks, but skirts barely long enough to cover their butts. Belted to a fare-thee-well, of course. I guess Good Girls of the future signalled their goodness by keeping those collarbones strictly out of sight.
The machines all sounded either like toilets flushing in a gigantic hall, or like shortwave radios trying to bring in a signal. You know, beeeee-euoooooKSSSSH! wrdlwrdlwrdlwrdlWOOO!.
Machines also had TV monitors on them with lots of wavy lines and spectral blurps, I guess indicating subatomic power sources. (Remember radium clocks? Have your own glowing clock conveniently close by your head when you sleep, so you can always check the time!) Viewscreens shaped like triangles? In fact, what was it with the triangles, an inconvenient, off-balance shape if there ever was one? Why would we want things in triangles in the future? Did someone think they actually looked cool, or just . . . weird? Like the silvery bodysuits that were skin tight, with no zipper or flap in the back? Maybe in the future, since we were eating food in the shape of nourishment-cubes, there wouldn't be any bathroom visits.
The future was supposed to be easy--food in convenient pill form, and flying cars--but weird. So the sliding-whistle music, with random bleeps and bloops added. Labs with all the gigandor computers on altar-daises, because those extra steps up and down as you perform Arcane Science Rituals add to the futuristic weirdness. Mechanical dogs that whir and jolt, because nobody would want the trouble of a warm, loving pup.
I wonder if there's a parallel world where Earth really did develop like that. Euw. I never liked the Golden Age of Science Fiction partly because of the ugly, mechanistic futurama, partly because the women were incredibly boring (so, actually, were the two-fisted manly men) except for the mad scientists, but they had the social skills of kumquats. I guess in the future there wasn't any social life, either.