Nostalgia Filter/Quotes

"Nostalgia is like putting cocaine infused marbles into your mouth in that it makes you say stupid things."

—Yahtzee, Zero Punctuation

"Deus Ex is one of those games where everyone who liked it is now incredibly familiar with the first hour of it; because occasionally they get a urge to give it a replay, and it won't be long before they think to themself: "Blimey, I don't remember it looking quite this much like ass."

—Yahtzee, Zero Punctuation

As your body floats down Third Street
With the burn smell factory closing up
Yes it's say to say, you will romanticize

All the things you've known before

—They Might Be Giants, "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head"

We recognize the present
Is half as pleasant
As our nostalgia for
The past'll be presented
Recast and reinvented

Until it's how we meant it

—Barenaked Ladies, Testing 1-2-3

Andy: Four weeks of "Captain Goofball" comic strips and not a funny one in the batch. I think I've proven my point. I'm going to vote to cancel it.
Roger: Andy, you can't judge "Captain Goofball" on a day-to-day basis, or even a month-to-month one! You have to look at the broader body of work!
Andy: How broad?>

Roger: When I was 13, the strip was a riot.

—FoxTrot

"Yeah, I know, people are really attached to this movie, but that is that whole purpose of lifting nostalgia goggles, is it not? I mean, the show is usually watchable at times and sometimes even enjoyable in its campiness. This movie? Less so."

—The Nostalgia Chick on the 1986 Transformers movie

"The Memory Cheats."

—John Nathan-Turner (Doctor Who producer 1980-1989), Points of View

"BACK IN MY DAY, YOU HAD TO BREAK A BONE, KILL THREE COWS WITH YOUR BARE HANDS AND FIGHT A BOA CONSTRICTOR TO MAKE A GOOD COMPLAINT!"

—Chaotic-AlterEgo is sick of people getting nostalgic over "bad" things

"You know, in retrospect, I may have over-romanticised those memories."

—Phineas Flynn, Phineas and Ferb

"Everything is bad except Retro games."

—Description of the gaming forum from the "Youchewpoop forums" from early 2010.

"Now that there's a NEW Generation of Pokémon, I immediately abandon ALL the hatred I had of Gen III and IV in favour of saying how much the Gen V sucks. I hated Gen III? when?"

—Quote from VGF.

'The Golden Age of Science Fiction is 'twelve'."

—Peter Graham, science fiction fan.

"Say not, 'Why were the former days better than these?' For it is not from wisdom that you ask this."

—Ecclesiastes 7:10

If This was the first generation and Kanto was generation V, would you say these pokemon were 'ugly'?

Of course they would..

—A couple YouTube Comments.

When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express'd
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And for they looked but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
For we, which now behold these present days,

Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

—William Shakespeare, "Sonnet 106"

"It's OLD rock. That doesn't make it classic. What sucked back then still sucks today."

—Matt Farrell, Live Free or Die Hard

"Why didn't it fit in? Because it wasn't received very well. A lot of people were apparently surprised by how childish and pun-based the writing was. To them I say, again... all the Rankin-Bass specials they love are the same way!"

—Peter Paltridge, Platypus Comix review of A Miser Brothers Christmas

"So, next time you’re feeling nostalgic about how great Quakeworld or the original Donkey Kong Country was, I recommend going with it. It’ll make you feel better even if you overlook the problems at the time or the improvements that have been made since. Just don’t over commit yourself to any opinions born of memory’s fickle biases. Because graph paper, himem.sys, and two buttons on a controller were worse than you really remember."

—"Why We Get Nostalgic About Good Old Games" by Jamie Madigan

"Farewell, Romance!" the Cave-men said;
"With bone well carved He went away,
Flint arms the ignoble arrowhead,
And jasper tips the spear to-day.
Changed are the Gods of Hunt and Dance,

And He with these. Farewell, Romance!"

—The King by Rudyard Kipling

Vince Hawkins: He's one of the old-fashioned sorts, see. Never been really happy since they took out the oil. Hates electricity.

The Doctor: I know the type. In the early days of oil, he'd have said there's nothing like a really large candle, eh?

—Doctor Who, Horror Of Fang Rock

"If you can remember The Sixties, you weren't really there."

—Unknown / Disputed, frequently attributed to Grace Slick, Paul Kantner, Dennis Hopper, George Harrison, Robin Williams and Judy Collins, among others.

"The UFO Club, and much of the action around its League-verse counterpart, is part of a very particular narrative of the time – one promulgated mostly by Barry Miles, which says that Miles and his millionaire friends like John Dunbar and Peter Asher, who all hung around in the Indica Gallery and bookshop and the UFO Club and were vaguely friendly with a few pop stars, were what was really important in the 60s.
"Of course these people, much like their LA equivalent Kim Fowley, never really did anything of note themselves, but were just acquaintances of those who did.
"And while they might think that the important things about the time were the underground papers and the UFO Club and the be-ins and happenings, these events were attended by at most a few thousand people in a country of sixty million, most of whom had no clue they were even happening. For most people, the big event of 1967 wasn’t the 14-Hour Technicolor Dream, with its Pink Floyd performance and Yoko Ono art happening, but Steve and Elsie Tanner marrying in Coronation Street. The big hit singles of 1967 weren’t psychedelic freak-outs but Petula Clark and Englebert Humperdinck.

"And at first glance, if you just look at the plot of this story, [Alan] Moore appears to have bought into the Miles version of the 60s. But throughout the story, in the background figures (many, but not all, added by [Kevin] O’Neill), we see the 1960s that is remembered by most of the people who were there (and if you can remember the 1960s, you were there but had to work in a factory or as a postman or something because your daddy didn’t own Kent) – On the Buses, the Carry On films, Andy Capp, Steptoe and Son, holiday camps…"

—Andrew of "The Mindless Ones", reviewing League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1969 and disputing the above.

"...[S]tart listening to the “Hits” and “Now” compilation LPs from end to end. Of course, your conditioned brain will tell you it’s all a pile of shite and pale into insignificance compared to the Golden Era in Pop, when you were on the cusp of your adolescent years. Dig deeper into your heart and you will know that you are just lying to yourself. All eras in pop music are golden ages, or will be looked upon as such by the only generation that matters at any given time. Not only are all ages in chart pop equal, chart pop never changes, it only appears to change on its surface level."

—"Lord Rock" and "Time Boy", The Manual

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.