The anticommunist politics behind Bond are on topic. Chavez was the off-topic issue you raised. As for debate? You can't win. There's no honest way to justify your support for the coup attempt. There's no decent way to justify your desire for an East Colombia or South Honduras where off-duty police and out of uniform soldiers murder people you don't like.
Are some things better done retro?
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
The anticommunist politics behind Bond are on topic. Chavez was the off-topic issue you raised. As for debate? You can't win. There's no honest way to justify your support for the coup attempt. There's no decent way to justify your desire for an East Colombia or South Honduras where off-duty police and out of uniform soldiers murder people you don't like.
No.
But of course, using an historical setting is not the same thing as "retro."
Yes, you are correct. The recent Captain America, for example, was not retro.
Exactly so.
No.
But of course, using an historical setting is not the same thing as "retro."
Yes, you are correct. The recent Captain America, for example, was not retro. Doing a Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers movie in the style of the original serials would be--and that would be kind of a cool movie to see as well.
Just mincing words I think. Things I like are historical, things I don't are retro.
Captain America's uniform was depicted as it would've looked historically. A spaceship in a Flash Gordon movie set in the 30's would be retro.
No.
But of course, using an historical setting is not the same thing as "retro."
Yes, you are correct. The recent Captain America, for example, was not retro. Doing a Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers movie in the style of the original serials would be--and that would be kind of a cool movie to see as well.
Just mincing words I think. Things I like are historical, things I don't are retro.
Captain America's uniform was depicted as it would've looked historically.
No it wasn't, they do a bit of hand-waving so he can have an outfit that looks modern - or are you talking about the joke outfit he wears for a brief period?
That was my point, sorry if it didn't come across, that was meant to be a continuation of the attitude of those who display the attitude that "Things I like are historical, things I don't are retro.".
What does any of that have to do with whether making the film sets and ship designs look like they came right out of 1967 would have still have ended in a successful film?
Someone should probably post an authoritative definition of retro.
I nominate—someone else!
I nominate—someone else!
In the purest sense "retro" refers to an aesthetic or style that harkens back to an earlier time, maybe about 20 years or more. You often see the term used in regard to styles of fashion or architecture or all manner of design where an aesthetic style of the past is adapted into something contemporary.
A contemporary Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro, Dodge Challenger, Volkswagen Beetle and Mini as well as many other things are all retro designs, thoroughly modern objects yet deliberately styled to evoke an earlier era. Retro is often seen in hairstyles and fashion.
In film retro would most accurately be a visual or even storytelling style from the past used to tell a contemporary story. Admittedly it gets blurry from there. In television shows like Mad Men, Pan Am, Boardwalk Empire and others are not retro but rather period pieces since they are deliberately trying to recreate a past era. I wouldn't call Peter Jackson's King Kong retro in the purest sense since he was adapting the original 1933 film yet using modern techniques and resources.
Captain America wasn't retro on the face of it while being set in the WW2 era, but we did see a lot of sophisticated sic-fi tech and hardware retroactively added to the period that most certainly did not really exist then. And so we saw advanced science yet with a retro veneer to its form to depict what it could have looked like if it had actually existed back in the '40s.
A contemporary Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro, Dodge Challenger, Volkswagen Beetle and Mini as well as many other things are all retro designs, thoroughly modern objects yet deliberately styled to evoke an earlier era. Retro is often seen in hairstyles and fashion.
In film retro would most accurately be a visual or even storytelling style from the past used to tell a contemporary story. Admittedly it gets blurry from there. In television shows like Mad Men, Pan Am, Boardwalk Empire and others are not retro but rather period pieces since they are deliberately trying to recreate a past era. I wouldn't call Peter Jackson's King Kong retro in the purest sense since he was adapting the original 1933 film yet using modern techniques and resources.
Captain America wasn't retro on the face of it while being set in the WW2 era, but we did see a lot of sophisticated sic-fi tech and hardware retroactively added to the period that most certainly did not really exist then. And so we saw advanced science yet with a retro veneer to its form to depict what it could have looked like if it had actually existed back in the '40s.
This one's especially funny given how dour Bruce Willis' life is in The Fifth Element!
It explained why such a film could be successful.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Argo are two films (regardless of what one thinks of them in terms of entertainment) that have gone great lengths to appear to have been made in the period they purport to depict (the 1970s). This goes beyond costumes and set design and goes to film stock selection, lighting, the avoidance of any visual aesthetics that would suggest a current film production (uses of special effects are subtle and there are no "camera tricks"--things that would have been impossible with the cameras of the 70s--to draw us out of the period). Argo even opens with the Warner Bros. logo of the day, rather than the one in use now (which is, itself, "retro" in a way as it harkens to the original logo).
Are these films "retro"? In the casual definition of the term, I suppose so. But I think the more appropriate use of "retro" lies in the Captain America example noted above--tech that does not even exist today and is certainly anachronistic in the period of the film, but which appears to have been designed in the 40s.
Retro, as I tend to view it, is the evocation of an earlier period with things that are not of that period. That does happen in films, but not as often as the casual use of the term "retro" would suggest.
Are these films "retro"? In the casual definition of the term, I suppose so. But I think the more appropriate use of "retro" lies in the Captain America example noted above--tech that does not even exist today and is certainly anachronistic in the period of the film, but which appears to have been designed in the 40s.
Retro, as I tend to view it, is the evocation of an earlier period with things that are not of that period. That does happen in films, but not as often as the casual use of the term "retro" would suggest.
I would also say that Zodiac feels retro in that case.
Quentin Tarantino has also gone retro, although not strictly so, in several of his films-- notably those two "Grindhouse" films. Also, the film Amazon Women On The Moon was partly retro.
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