Anachronism Stew: Difference between revisions

 

 

 

== Anime & Manga ==

* Much like ''[[A Knights Tale]]'', ''[[Moulin Rouge]]'' also invokes this frequently, deliberately, and effectively, with characters in fin-de-siècle France singing everything from "The Sound of Music" to Nirvana.

* Like ''[[A Knights Tale]]'', ''[[Marie Antoinette]]'' features a scene with modern rock music. The music is played during a ball scene.

** The sudden presence of a floor buffer was particularly confusing. But then, it was so very [[Disney]].

** In the category of "particularly confusing," the people in the diner singing "Happy happy birthday" to Yzma. And the existence of the diner itself...

* [[Monty Python]] admitted that the armour (and clothing in general) in ''[[Monty Python and The Holy Grail]]'' was anachronistic; it was more 13th century than Dark Ages. Also, a French garrison in the middle of England, the fact that England supposedly had one singular king at all at that point (although considering none of the peasants know about having a king, it's possible Arthur is simply making a claim to kingship), the construction of a giant wooden rabbit, and the historian and the police cars makes for a pretty anachronistic ([[Rule of Funny|and hilarious]]) movie.

* John Madden's ''[[Shakespeare in Love]]'', which sports 16th century theatre production riddled with movie-producing Hollywood stereotypes.

* ''[[Kung Pow]]: Enter the Fist'' does this intentionally and constantly, such as Betty using a cigarette lighter, or a medieval Chinese town having a Hooters, a Taco Bell, a Radio Shack, and a place that sells <s> [[No Indoor Voice|A LOTTA]] </s> nuts, and also apparently french fries. It is one of the saner things in a film that delights in taking [[Refuge in Audacity]] though, so they are often barely noticeable.

* At the end of ''[[A Christmas Carol|Scrooge]]'', during the reprise of "Thank You Very Much", Scrooge dons a red Santa Claus suit. This version of Father Christmas/Santa is American and didn't appear in Britain until much later (this version of the story is set in 1860, according to the Ghost of Christmas Present)

** Similarly, the song "A Guy Like You" from the earlier animated Disney film ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney)|The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]'' also featured a piano in the Middle Ages.

*** Also, ''poledancing'' during the "Topsy-Turvy" number.

* ''[[Mulan (Disney)|Mulan]]'', despite taking place in Imperial China, portrayed ''all'' of the male soldiers fighting for the Imperial Army as wearing boxer shorts under their armor! (one of which has [[Goofy Print Underwear|the iconic red heart pattern]], which is then flung at Mushu's face during the scene where Mulan and her friends Yao, Ling, and Chien-Po go skinny dipping in the lake) However, for some reason, they never show what Mulan's own underwear actually looks like (she may either be wearing traditional Chinese undergarments that are completely relevant to the film's setting and time period, or she may be wearing a bra and panties under all of her outfits to complement the aforementioned boxers).

** Actually, they do show Mulan in her underwear at one point: About halfway through the song "Honor To Us All", Mulan can be seen wearing a white dress underneath her iconic pink one, which can be seen completely (although she was sitting) when she is having her hair done. What appears to be her pajamas at the very beginning of the film may also serve as her undergarments as well.

* [[I Can Do Bad All By Myself]]: When Madea is trying to explain the account of Peter walking on the water, somehow Moses, Eve, Sigmund and Freud, and even Jonah end up in the mix. Yeah they all were in the New Testament apparently.

* Becomes extremely evident in [[Pixar]]'s ''[[Cars|Cars 2]]'' where all of the famous world landmarks are given car motifs to fit the fact that everyone in the ''Cars'' universe is a talking vehicle. The problem is, however, that most of these landmarks are actually more than a century old, long before ''any'' cars were even invented!

* ''[[Kellys Heroes]]'': Donald Sutherland and his crew of hippies are anachronistically fighting in the middle of [[World War II]].

** It should be noted that the kind of people that are commonly described as "hippies" (meaning, young people who reject contemporary values and lifestyles) [[Older Than They Think|have existed in practically every era]], going back at least to the first few centuries before Christ. The fact that it was not "cool" to be a hippie until about 1967 should not rule out the existence of hippies before then. That said, a particular ''[[New Age Retro Hippie|kind]]'' of hippie can be anachronistic.

* ''[[Braveheart]]'' depicts the medieval Scots as wearing both blue woad face paint (which was characteristic of the ancient Picts and is seen in general use no later than the Roman occupation) and kilts (which [[Newer Than They Think|didn't come into fashion in Scotland until the 1500's]]).

* ''[[Batman (Film)|Batman]]'' (1989) and ''[[Batman Returns (Film)|Batman Returns]]'' are practically crammed with anachronisms -- although it's understandable, since both films were directed by [[Tim Burton]], who is fond of this trope. The original movie is clearly meant to be set either in 1989 or [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]], but the organized-crime characters and some of the reporters at the Gotham Globe dress as if it's some point between the 1920s and the 1940s. ''Batman Returns'' is a ''little'' more justified, since it's set at Christmastime and so gets to employ various elements of Norman Rockwell/Frank Capra imagery - though that still doesn't explain why a newspaper being hawked in the early 1990s (and by an [[Extra Extra Read All About It]] paperboy, no less!) would cost less than half a dollar.

* It's a slight case, but in the ''[[Halloween (Film)|Halloween]]'' remakes it's utterly baffling to try and figure out just when they take place. The openings with Michael Myers as a child are definitely somewhere in the early 1980s judging from the clothing and hair styles, but after the [[Time Skip]] to "Seventeen Years Later" (which should put the events with Laurie somewhere in the mid to late-nineties), people talk on post-2004 cellphones, make references to [[Austin Powers]], and watch flatscreen televisions like they're in 2007 (when the film was made). To confuse things even more, no one references music beyond 1990, all the cars are pre-2000, and nearly all the things seen on TV are pre-1970. No one at all seems to know when the movie actually takes place.

* The ''[[Clash of the Titans]]'' remake from 2010 features the Greek gods wearing medieval European suits of armor. Curiously, the goddesses are wearing classic Grecian attire. Also, Zeus' totem is a bald eagle- which lives in North America and thus was unknown in Ancient Greece. Wonder how many subjects were failed.

** Justified both in the movie's own logic (the man owning the coelacanths is a millionaire with access to technology far superior to anything seen in the 1910's and in some ways even superior to modern technology and a team of treasure hunters/explorers who are hired for the purpose of finding artifacts not thought to still exist) and thematically (at the time the continued existence of coelacanths was thought as fictional as Atlantis itself).

* The ''[[Indiana Jones (Franchise)|Indiana Jones]]'' films have many anachronisms to them. Too many to list, in fact. Being that these took place in very specific years, there is no wonder there are so many anachronisms. In short:

* ''[[One for The Morning Glory]]'' Where it is [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] as well; when Sir John drinks tea, he wonders whether it is really suitable to be drinking tea, and the Duke dismisses that as a consideration only for those lands that are merely actual.

* Gene Wolfe's ''New Sun'' series of novels take place a ''looong'' way in the future (the techno-fantasy "post-historical" era where Stone-Age Man, the Modern Era, and the Galaxy-Spanning Imperial Era are all lumped together as the "Age of Myth"). The basic technology and society is late medieval. But at some point time travel had been commonplace, so remnants of all eras of history are common - military energy weapons right along with swords, antigravity craft and ox-drawn wagons, sabretooth tigers and starships, electricians organized like a medieval craft guild, medical men just as likely to use genetic engineering as an herbal infusion, etc. One of the appendices even points out that there are three separate levels of technology: the "smith" level (basically medieval), the "Urth" level (roughly 20th century plus some genetic engineering) and the "stellar" level (highly powerful artifacts that can only be obtained from extraterrestrials.) It's all justified by the fact that [[Scavenger World|the planet has been exhausted of most resources]] and can no longer sustain a technological society or educate most of its inhabitants, but the old knowledge remains in a few places.

* ''[[The Aeneid (Literature)|The Aeneid]]'' features Aeneas, fleeing the destruction of Troy, landing at Carthage...which wasn't founded until hundreds of years later.

** Understandable as the whole thing was pretty much literate propaganda. Also, the Cyclops and things did better in Hellenic Greece when a lot of the Mediterranean was still only vaguely known, as compared to the 'salty lake' of Roman times.

** The Doctor likes to [[Enforced Trope]] this trope himself sometimes, in order to impress people. Why would you have Roman Centurions and Victorian Reptile Women battling [[In Space|space-monks]] armed with lightning swords? Because its [[Rule of Cool|cool.]]

** Happens again in "The Wedding Of River Song". This taking place in a 'modern day' London where [[Charles Dickens (Creator)|Charles Dickens]] shows up on morning talk shows, pterodactyls are the equivalent of pigeons, Roman soldiers ride the tube, and everyone takes balloon cars to work. In this case, all of time collapsed into a specific fixed point; all of history was now occurring at once but all the clocks stood still.

* [[Xena: Warrior Princess]] and [[Hercules: The Legendary Journeys]], in their Universal TV series, live in a world where not only are [[All Myths Are True|all myths and legends true]], but are also all happening within a few seasons of each other. The Argonauts sailed just a few years before Julius Caesar ruled, and Hercules was old friends with [[Dracula|Vlad Tepes]].

** The producers explained early on that they were perfectly aware of this and did it simply to add to the [[Camp]] value, further explaining the one rule they had was that anything BC was fair game, and AD was off limits. They missed the boat on that rule a lot: Boudica's rebellion in England (60AD), and Vlad Tepes/Dracula, who was a ''medieval'' ruler, Genghis Khan and his three sons, and the episodes in the modern world. [[King Arthur]] manages to get around the rule thanks to [[Merlin]] using magical [[Time Travel]].

** A black Marine corporal is seen in Washington DC before there were any black Marine corporals.

** Steve Trevor wears military ribbons on his uniform before they've been issued and before he would have had a chance to earn them. Later in the first season, after he would have had time to earn them, he stops wearing them.

** A pinball machine in the officer's club that wasn't produced until the 1970s.

** Pictures of the UH-1 Huey in the officer's club. The Huey began devlopment in 1952, and did not see active service until after the Korean War.

* In ''[[Honey I Shrunk the Kids (TV)|Honey I Shrunk the Kids]]'' (the TV Series): Amy travels back in time to 1976 to date her history teacher. One scene shows an arcade, the Pong machine is not an anachronism, but in the background you can clearly hear people playing ''[[Asteroids]]'', ''[[Donkey Kong]]'', and ''[[Pac-Man]]''; also they want to play ''[[Space Invaders]]''. ''Space Invaders'' did not come out until 1978, ''Asteroids'' in 1980, and ''Donkey Kong'' and ''Pac-Man'' in 1981.

* ''[[Young Blades (TV)|Young Blades]]'' is set in 17th century Paris with anachronisms based on [[Rule of Funny]]. Based on an [http://web.archive.org/web/20070708012039/http://www.tv-now.com/intervus/brucebox/index.html interview with Bruce Boxleitner], they were intentionally going for a tone and effect similar to ''[[Hercules: The Legendary Journeys|Hercules]]'' and ''[[Xena]]''.

* ''[[Happy Days]]'' ended up like this. The first two seasons tried fairly hard to stay true to the '50s setting, but as the show became more popular, the producers started putting in references to trends of the '70s and '80s, and the actors started letting their hair and clothes look more contemporary.

* ''[[Community (TV)|Community]]'' - played for laughs in the Season 3 Christmas episode as Troy and Abed get Pierce to join the glee club with their song "Baby Boomer Santa" that reconstituted the last sixty years with lyrics like "And when the Commies gave the polio to Doris Day - Santa helped the Beatles chase [[Mc Carthy]] away!"

* ''[[The Legend of Zelda (Franchise)|The Legend of Zelda]]'' is ostensibly set in a world in [[Medieval Stasis]]. It also happens to have boomerangs, telephones, photographs, electric switches, crane games, complex mechanical mechanisms in a simple clock tower, [[Grappling Hook Pistol|grappling hook pistols]], pipelines, 17th-18th Century pirates, modern-looking mines (for mining), combination operated safes, sumo, steam-ships and motorboats. [[The Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks (Video Game)|One of the newer titles]] added trains, steam-powered tanks, turrets, and throwaway jokes about films and electric bills.

** And [[The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time (Video Game)|a neon sign and jukebox]].

* The normal gameplay in the ''[[Age of Empires (Video Game)|Age of Empires]]'' series is fairly accurate. However, one anachronism has been introduced for combined [[Rule of Funny]] and [[Rule of Cool]]: you can get a car in [[Age of Empires II (Video Game)|the second game]] by entering the cheat code "how do you turn this on." Try it.

** A car that ''[[Rule of Cool|shoots bullets]]'' and can level entire cities. That and tricycle-riding babies with bazookas in the first game.

** And then there's ''[[King Arthur And The Square Knights Of The Round Table]]'', a British animated series that takes this trope and wry it dry. Seriously, Merlin invented the movie camera and film projector?

* ''[[Dino Riders]]'' also had wildly anachronistic dinosaurs living next to one another (''T. rex'' is closer to us in time than to ''Apatosaurus''), and threw in a ''Dimetrodon'' for good measure.

{{quote| '''Bart:''' It's like a history lesson come to life!<br />

'''Lisa:''' No it's not, it's entirely inacc-<br />

** The ending credits which has gag movie posters of the main cast in various famous movies of the 20th century. Them starring in ''[[Beetlejuice (Film)|Beetlejuice]]'' is an eye-raiser considering the film's timeline is the 1930s.

*** The turtle probably would still be around for ''[[Beetlejuice (Film)|Beetlejuice]]'' if it had a real turtle's lifespan, but most of the others' careers shouldn't even have lasted out the 1940s.

** VCR's and video games are also common, yet all TV is broadcast in black and white.

** Justified, since the series seems to make nods to the time period in which Batman was invented (the 30s)..

[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]

[[Category:Anachronism Stew]]