Ever wondered how Norman Bates would carry out his psychotic rampage if his mother’s motel had been reviewed on TripAdvisor? Although it may have helped spare poor Marion Crane, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 classic would have been decidedly duller.
Now, film fans can see how all the best films of the last century would have been altered irretrievably with 21st century technology. A new tool from SunLife shows how modern technology ruined classic movies of yesteryear, with often hilarious consequences. For example, musical fantasy film The Wizard of Oz was nominated for 6 Academy Awards and is often on lists of films to see before you die, but SunLife point out that the 1939 classic would have been considerably shorter if Dorothy and her travel companions had access to Google Maps.
Other old films that would be ruined by new technology include Shawshank Redemption and Casablanca, and although modern technology may destroy these cinematic masterpieces, it probably would help the characters themselves. Rose and Jack’s budding but ultimately tragically short romance may well have gone from strength to strength if the Titanic had a decent radar system!
It makes you think, what other famous movies would have been completely ruined by technology? The invention of camera phones would surely have hampered Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn’s anonymity in Roman Holiday and Cary Grant’s unfortunate case of mistaken identity in North by Northwest could be solved by taking a look at his social media accounts.
Although imagining how modern technology would alter classic films is fascinating, what about contemporary movies? Cinematic scenarios that would have been feasible a few years ago have become outdated now everybody has access to a phone, camera, computer and GPS map all on one device. Hollywood directors must be faced with an interesting predicament, do they ignore this huge part of modern life to maintain the drama of a film, or do they try and use technology to create new plot-lines? The latter has been seen in modern films such as Unfriended, a social media-based horror where a group of teenagers are stalked online by the ghost of their deceased friend, or 2017’s The Circle, a film starring Emma Watson and Tom Hanks where a tech giant turns sinister when it starts exploiting user’s privacy. Who could imagine such a thing?
