39,327
edits
Can You Hear Me Now?: Difference between revisions
m
Mass update links
m (Mass update links) |
m (Mass update links) |
||
Line 2:
{{quote|''"The widespread adoption of mobile phones must be one of the worst things to ever happen to horror movies, since now ''every'' movie now has to include a bullshit explanation for why they can't use their phone, like losing their battery or their signal. It's become a laughable cliche."''|'''Mathew''', ''[[Bad Movie Beatdown (Web Video)|Bad Movie Beatdown]]'' on [http://blip.tv/film-brain/bad-movie-beatdown-christmas-special-while-she-was-out-4489242 "While She was Out"]}}
With the advent of the computer age, writers still don't quite know how to work [[Cell Phone|Cell Phones]] into a story. It used to be all you had to do for a survival adventure story was plop a bunch of people away from electricity to completely strand them at the mercy of wild animals''/''[[Ax Crazy|serial killers]]''/''zombies -- but cell phones are making that [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH2B9F-GPm0 harder and harder for writers to do believably]. Even in comedy situations, there are some plotlines (such as [[Locked in A Room]]) that only work if the characters don't have cellphones. This means that cellphones are [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIZVcRccCx0 lost, broken, stolen, and run out of power far more than they should ]. The range of cellphones are also ridiculously reduced from what they are in real life -- maybe writers are confusing them with two-way radios, or don't realise that most modern phones allow long-distance and international calls. Or, you know, maybe they're deliberately using [[Artistic License]] to artificially [[Drama
Note that, during widespread disasters such as the London bombings or 9/11, cell networks often fail, for several reasons: Overload due to everyone trying to reach each other, cell towers being damaged, and civilian phones being locked out to let emergency personnel have all the capacity. However, in many situations where this trope takes place, the problem is far more localized; being lost in the werewolf-infested woods isn't a national emergency.
Line 12:
Often watching older sitcoms, from the early days of cellphone use (80s-90s), the time of the cellphone's primitive ancestor, the car phone (60s-70s) and the days when mobile phones were not available (50s and before - early mobile phones existed as far back as the 40s, but were not available for civilian use) you may suffer many a facepalm as you count how many situations could have been prevented with just having a cellphone ([[Larry David]] and others have commented on how prevalent this is in [[Seinfeld]] - the plots of almost half of the episodes in the series simply wouldn't work if the characters had cell phones). You can even make a [[Drinking Game]] out of it. Note that sometimes it was justified, as in the early days, cell phones were hideously expensive to own and to use, had next to no battery life (and those batteries were nickel-cadmium, a type of rechargeable that gets screwed up if it isn't charged and discharged all the way), very little coverage, and were very bulky (if they existed at all).
A sub-trope of [[Plot
{{examples}}
Line 95:
** The people currently off the island seem unwilling to call each other, preferring instead to show up in person, usually with a dramatic reveal. However, they ''do'' call each other when it's urgent, like when someone's life is in danger.
** Also, the Island '' {{spoiler|travels through time}}'', which can't be good for reception.
* An episode of ''[[The Dead Zone]]'' had the main character lost in the woods somewhere; he tried calling for help on his cell phone, but its [[Viewer
* [[Get Smart (TV)|Maxwell Smart]] and the wireless rotary-dial telephone concealed in the sole of a shoe is often cast as an unreliable weakest link; for instance, it would work quite well until Max steps into a puddle.
* LexCorp tracks down the Justice League by using their cell phones as GPS locators in ''[[Smallville]]''. Apparently they all carry their phones around all the time, which in Aquaman's case, doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Line 168:
** Badly designed antennas that weaken the signal when you hold your iPhone 4 wrong.
** Phone batteries that are so sensitive to moisture that walking through a rainstorm with a phone in your pocket can fry them, let alone if they actually get immersed in water.
* Since cell phones rely on radio, some pieces of the trope are [[Older Than They Think]]. One of the first bits of information that amateur (and many professional) radio operators exchange is a signal report, or [
* Also, since cell phones rely on radio, ''they can be jammed and blocked,'' by both natural (see above about thunderstorms) and artificial means. In fact, in many countries (though not the USA), [http://www.phonejammer.com/home.php cell phone jammers] can be legally purchased and used; some churches and movie theaters use them to prevent interruptions. A villain who doesn't want his victims to be able to call for help could arrange to jam his victims' phones.
*** Jamming is often set up by bomb-squads (though it's illegal in some countries), since bombs may be radio-triggered (no word on whether anyone's ever set off a bomb ''by the jamming interrupting a signal'', but it'd be a hell of a nasty [[Xanatos Gambit]]).
** A later form of jamming can still allow emergency calls through (operating at the level of the call-out call-in signals, rather than just jamming the frequencies), so allowing this sort of jamming would not have some of the disadvantages that jamming all signals brings, hence calls to allow it.
** A lot of schools put up cell phone jammers in an attempt to stop kids texting during class.
** A [
*** A tinfoil hat actually ''can'' form a Faraday cage, which means crazy conspiracy theorists are slightly less delusional than they seem. About the tinfoil. The transmitters in their heads still aren't real. [[Or Was It a Dream?|Or are they?]]
** [
* In the UK, there are still rural areas that have patchy coverage at best. The construction of new masts tends to be [[Not in My Back Yard|opposed in anyone's back yard]], especially when near a site of natural beauty, or a school. Even in more populated areas, it's possible to have to walk to the other side of a building in order to get a reception.
** The Meteor network was notorious for this when they first started providing their service. If you lived outside of Dublin, you could generally expect to get only one bar of signal if you were lucky and this tended to go if you happened to move four inches to the left. Thankfully, this has been remedied.
Line 258:
* In the first [[Story Arc]] of the second season of ''[[Read All About It]]'', the characters have a portable communicator created by an eccentric inventor that's bulky and transmits only text, but has an astounding range that can transmit not only over vast distances, but also into different time periods. It's a handy function to have when you've been whisked to 1812 and you are desperate to contact the coach house in 1983.
* The students, crew, and passengers about the ''S.S. Tipton'' in ''[[The Suite Life of Zack and Cody|The Suite Life on Deck]]'' all seem to have phones that get reception anywhere in the world (including remote locations in developing countries and at sea), are standard models that aren't at all bulky or complex (as one would expect from a satellite phone with such capabilities), and never incur any sort of roaming charges.
* ''[[
* Any cell phone can be used to summon [[The Devil]] in [[Reaper (TV)|Reaper]], provided that you know his personal cell number. [[Justified]] though, as a magic ritual is involved in this procedure. The phone is merely the conduit.
Line 333:
[[Category:Phone Tropes]]
[[Category:Can You Hear Me Now]]
| |||