Past Right Now



This is where something is much like the past, either preserved through isolation or deliberately re-created, but definitely existing in the present day. No time machines here! Many real-life and fictional theme parks will play on this trope. Some take it to greater extents than others. In fiction, you can expect an Adventurer Archaeologist to discover a Lost World with supposedly extinct species still living. See also Retro Universe, where the whole world is like this, although somewhat more likely to incorporate history-flavored versions of present-day technology or sensibilities.

Comic Books

 * Transmetropolitan has this with its reserves, which are huge expanses of land where people go to live a different lifestyle (Viking, Middle Ages, Aztec...). They regularly take amnesiacs to forget they were part of the modern world in the first place. Visitors to the reserves require special injections that neutralize the various diseases they pick up in the City, and others to protect them from the diseases to which those in the reserves have built up resistance.

Film

 * Austin Powers is a 1960s spy, frozen and then thawed, bringing his "mod" lifestyle and fashion sense with him.
 * Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: Indy crash-lands into a remote village in India, whose people are suffering because they lost their sacred stones.
 * Ong Bak: A small traditional village has its statue stolen, and sends its resident warrior into the city to get it back.
 * Stargate: A different planet happens to be remarkably similar to ancient Egypt.
 *  was founded by people who wanted to "get away" from modern evils, by reverting to a simpler life with accents.
 * In Up, Carl dreamed of adventuring to Paradise Falls as a child. About 60 years later, he manages to get there... and it looks exactly the same as when he was a kid.

Literature

 * Jurassic Park, the ill-fated theme park where dinosaurs are actually alive ... and NOT-the-sequel-to-Jurassic Park, The Lost World.
 * Older Than Feudalism: The Peach Blossom Spring, a short story written by famed Chinese poet Táo​ Yuān​míng, a.k.a. Táo Qián (365–427), in which a fisherman gets lost and finds an idyllic Mary Suetopia founded before the Warring States Period.

Live-Action TV

 * Star Trek: The Original Series had several of these, where the Enterprise visited worlds that had either deliberate recreations of earlier eras on Earth: the gangs of Chicago, or NAZI Germany; or where parallel development had recreated Earth cultures: the Roman Empire, a 1960s Earth where an attempt to stop aging wiped out all the adults, or a world where the cold war had turned hot, and the surviving "Yangs" (Yanks) and "Comms" (Communists) have been thrown back to near stone-age technologies but are still trying to kill each other.
 * The X-Files episode "Gender Bender" had a group called the "Kindred" that were Amish-type throwbacks. Except they had super powers of seduction, and changed genders after sex, and might have been aliens. But not like the other aliens on the show. At all.

Western Animation

 * The Simpsons has an episode where they visit "Colonial Springfield," based on Colonial Williamsburg.
 * On Futurama, Past-O-Rama is a historical theme park that gets everything wrong.
 * In Tom Goes to the Mayor, Tom and the Mayor stage a forced 19th-century re-enactment, including compulsory trade-ins of car keys for horses and a complete power-down of Jefferton's electrical grid. Chaos ensues.
 * South Park parodied the theme park version, with the performers refusing to break character even in the midst of a hostage crisis.
 * The Kim Possible episode "Cap'n Drakken" started with a class trip to a historical-recreation village, and concluded with a sail-and-cutlass battle against a Ghost Pirate crew (led by Drakken, who was possessed by the ghost captain).

Real Life

 * The Amish deliberately choose to lead a simple life that avoids most modern technologies.
 * Colonial Williamsburg is the historic district of the independent city of Williamsburg, Virginia. It consists of many of the buildings that, from 1699 to 1780, formed colonial Virginia's capital. Staffed by tour guides in period garb. Similar historic villages include Historic Richmond Town in Staten Island, New York and Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, Massachusetts.
 * Greenfield Village in Michigan, created by Henry Ford, consists of historical buildings from around the United States disassembled, shipped and then reassembled in the village. It is a functioning town representing life somewhere between 1776 and 1910.
 * "Living Fossils" are organisms that, genetically, have changed very little for eons. Occasionally scientists may find a species that they thought was extinct for millions of years...
 * Actually, their genetics could and would be different due to genetic drift. What hasn't changed is their morphology and behavior.
 * Renaissance Faires: Well, they sort of try...
 * The Russian city of Suzdal has been under a preservation edict for the last 90 or so years. The most modern building is the town hall; otherwise, the architecture is no more modern than that of the 19th century. Horse-drawn carriages and cars share the road. The nearest railway station is an hour away, and most of the workers live in the nearby city of Vladimir. Suzdal is so well preserved that it's the standard filming location for films about old Russia.
 * Bolton, Greater Manchester in the United Kingdom - well, in some parts anyway, like Gilnow and the border with Blackburn the housing and streetlighting (mainly GEC lanterns, although newer WRTL MRL6 and Holophane QSS replaced them. The area is very much still in The Eighties (apart from the satellite dishes and cars, although many 1980s cars are common there - like the Vauxhall Cavalier, Opel Ascona, Ford Sierra,Mazda 626, Ford Escort, as well as newer cars too, so it's partially balanced out. It looks sort of like a mix between 1980 and 2011.
 * Same goes for nearby Bury, although in road signing terms you get a mixture of modern designs and older 1970s-1980s TSRGD(Traffic Signs and General Regulations) diagrams, such as "Lorries prohibited" etc. as well as older 1960s-1980s streetlighting (although modern replacements survive next to the old). Plus the old cars mentioned above too.
 * Possible Present Day Past on a geographical scale, not social?