What are some technology markers that date a TV show are movie for you? e.g. two things that really place something in the last 20-30 years or so are smart phones and the shift from CRT to flat screen monitors.
defunct airlines/countries
telegraph pager newspaper-as-date-frame (~2010s) Obvious Product Placement (~2010s) Obvious Attempt To Use Meme/"in" Words/phrases vehicle/wheel types "type of light/image" (esp. clear on older films to now) image ratio, format (anamorphic), framerate camera angle/usage
I remember watching a documentary about Obamas presidential run and being kind of surprised they didnt have smartphones yet iPhone was still a novelty in 2007
It`s going to be interesting to see which shows and movies will actually acknowledge that a pandemic happened, or just ignore it
Landlines! And what do you think will be the next marker? Paying in cash?
Slide rules. See it! Terror from beyond space. (They also have grenades and guns in a space ship.)
I read The Martian recently, and one thing that made that felt very dated was that a lack of available rockets was a serious plot concern. (I know rockets arent interchangeable and its more complicated than that, but in a world with SpaceX it felt very strange.)
Older models of smartphone. One weird side effect of smartphones becoming fashion accessories is that I can often tell when somebody is using an old phone. (e.g. the iPhone 4 is v recognisable, and theres no way a TV millionaire would be using one a decade after release.)
Desktop computers. I know they havent actually gone away, but the explosive growth of smartphones, tablets and laptops means they often look weird in whatever context theyre being used in on a TV show.
Payphones, pagers, lack of omnipresent GPS.
Banks of 9-track tape drives.
Any predicament that could have been easily solved by one of the main characters having a mobile phone, smart or otherwise.
The smart phone marker is mostly confusing, but as soon as I see a CRT it looks like it`s from the dark ages.
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