The X-Files: for want of a modern cellphone...
- Thread starter Warped9
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The reason I thought about the cellphone issue is because The X-Files came along only a few years before phones with cameras became available.
I use a Nokia 6750 flip phone that's five years old. I'll probably keep it till it falls apart.
The first consumer-level "camera phone" came out in 2000 in Japan (2002 in the US) and it took a few more years before cameras became a standard feature.
I got my first camera phone sometime around 2000 or 2001. The camera was a separate attachment that snapped onto the bottom of the phone.
It took really grainy photos at a 400x300 resolution... so about the same quality as a lot of photos Mulder took as hard evidence.
It took really grainy photos at a 400x300 resolution... so about the same quality as a lot of photos Mulder took as hard evidence.
But this isn't really a problem when the show is actually set in that period. In the X-Files, the characters are actually in the nineties and Scully makes assumptions based on the knowledge she has.
Where this becomes a problem is when a show set in the future becomes anachronistic because of new technology/science developments or even things like the discovery of the Titanic or a lack of WWIII in the late nineties.
I love watching 60s shows like Hawaii 5-0, Mannix, Mod Squad, etc. Shows I loved in my yoot.
There was always a point where there's an emergency and someone says "I've got to get to a phone!!" Used to be perfectly normal, now I do a double-take.
Then of course, once they get to the phone, they dial 0 and say "Hello Operator? Get me the police!"
There was always a point where there's an emergency and someone says "I've got to get to a phone!!" Used to be perfectly normal, now I do a double-take.
Then of course, once they get to the phone, they dial 0 and say "Hello Operator? Get me the police!"
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMLH_QyPTYM[/yt]
Modern tech would not preclude a show like The X-Files or Kolchak: The Night Stalker if well written, particularly given the films and shows that have been produced over the past few years featuring vampires and zombies and all sort of paranormal stuff.
If done badly then one could find all sorts of reasons why it sucks. If done well people would tune in.
Speaking for myself I see something of an evolution over the years. Way back we had Kolchak: The Night Stalker and then some years later we got the film Silence Of The Lambs. Next we get Chris Carter's The X-Files inspired by Kolchak but he makes the investigators FBI agents rather than a reporter and one of the investigators could have been inspired (consciously or not) by FBI agent Patrice Starling (Jodie Foster) in Silence Of The Lambs. From The X-Files we next get the Men In Black movies which spoof the subject matter. Now we've got all sorts of films and shows featuring vampires, zombies and other weird shit. Mind you this monster materiel has always been around in film but they seem to be everywhere presently.
So the trick now would be where to take it from here. They tried to reboot Kolchak, but from what I understand (I never got to see it) it wasn't very good.
If done badly then one could find all sorts of reasons why it sucks. If done well people would tune in.
Speaking for myself I see something of an evolution over the years. Way back we had Kolchak: The Night Stalker and then some years later we got the film Silence Of The Lambs. Next we get Chris Carter's The X-Files inspired by Kolchak but he makes the investigators FBI agents rather than a reporter and one of the investigators could have been inspired (consciously or not) by FBI agent Patrice Starling (Jodie Foster) in Silence Of The Lambs. From The X-Files we next get the Men In Black movies which spoof the subject matter. Now we've got all sorts of films and shows featuring vampires, zombies and other weird shit. Mind you this monster materiel has always been around in film but they seem to be everywhere presently.
So the trick now would be where to take it from here. They tried to reboot Kolchak, but from what I understand (I never got to see it) it wasn't very good.
I'm one of the few that think that modern technology ruined storytelling for a lot of formats, especially crime & cop shows.
I have lost count of all the crime shows I switched through that have that geeky know it all computer hacker character that just reads all the clues from his monitors while the "investigators" around him debate their soap opera problems.
I have lost count of all the crime shows I switched through that have that geeky know it all computer hacker character that just reads all the clues from his monitors while the "investigators" around him debate their soap opera problems.
I see that as poor writing. Yeah, you can find a lot of stuff online, but you have to be able to sift through it to learn whether what you've found is legit and worthwhile or whether it's just b.s. Real investigations are time consuming and plodding (something long glossed over in film and television since practically the beginning).
If real crimes could be solved so easily by surfing the net the cops would have a much better success rate.
I don't think it was very good at all. The original version had a Kolchak who was a loner on a search for the truth. He followed a story no matter where it went. There were times he knew it would never be published, but that didn't matter. Only the story mattered.
The remake has a Kolchak dealing with a personal loss, trying to find what killed his wife. He also had two sidekicks, one a doubter, who assisted him. It contained unnecessary changes, made to make the character more relatable.
The unkempt middle aged man was a better hero than the young grieving male model ever was.
It's funny how when you watch shows now how you think "If they had a smart phone..." I think half of the episodes of "Seinfeld" could have solved or averted by someone having a present-day smart phone. Pretty much meaning the show couldn't work today since so many plots depend on the characters being out of contact or in need of information that is not readably available.
A modern-day smart phone and the vastness of the Internet as it is today certainly would have made Mulder's job/life/work a lot easier if not slightly more credible.
A modern-day smart phone and the vastness of the Internet as it is today certainly would have made Mulder's job/life/work a lot easier if not slightly more credible.
I watched the half dozen episodes. The show had potential but it wasn't Kolchak. It was one of these remakes where it differed so much in style and character from the original that it should have just been a separate entity.
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