What are examples of anachronisms you've seen from movies depicting historical settings?

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨NightOps@nord.pub⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

I remember watching The Hurt Locker (starring Jeremy Renner), the movie is meant to depict the Iraq War in 2003 but for some reason there’s a scene where an iPod Touch (releases in 2007), XBOX 360 (releases in 2005) and Gears of War (releases in 2006) were present in the barracks despite these things not existing yet during the initial stages of the war.

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terryellis65@diggita.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
The clothing stuff at this page is recalling me about merinoprotect.com. Rest I have a little knowledge about other things.

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Eq0@literature.cafe ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Something that constantly grinds my gears is (main) characters being anti-slavery while the slave trade is up and running in the historical context. I assure you: most people were pro-slave or didn’t care. Being anti-slavery was an extreme political opinion and wouldn’t be considered small talk.

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- NightOps@nord.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  That reminds me of a war movie I’ve watched, when Josh Hartnett’s character said “I think WWII has just started” during the attack on Pearl Harbor. In reality, people would just call consider it a “war” (referring to the European theater) or “Jap invasion of America” marking the US entry into the conflict (the term WWII was not coined yet until after).
  
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  - betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Reminds me of Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s dying words: “I’ve been shot! Time for the First World War.”
    
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  - schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    My kid’s second grade class did a short version of All Quiet on the Western Front that bizarrely included the line
    
    World War One has begun!
    
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  - Eq0@literature.cafe ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Hilarious talking about WWII before the end of the conflict! At the time, WWI was called “the Great War”, surely not “part I” of anything
    
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- TheTechnician27@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The way I analogize to 1800s abolitionism in the US is to ask people how society feels about veganism today. Not as a strict moral equivalence but for the level of ambivalence, mockery, and outright disdain toward freeing a group society broadly considers chattel.
  
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  - Eq0@literature.cafe ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That’s my rough equivalence as well!
    
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- schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Highly context dependent, I guess, but the South seceded just because Lincoln was elected, even though he explicitly said he wasn’t going to end slavery, so enough people must have been talking about it to spook the slavers.
  
  ?
  
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  - Eq0@literature.cafe ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yeah, in that context it would make sense, I’m mostly talking about media where it’s just dropped in to show the good morals of the character, while having no consequences of meaning outside of that
    
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- Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This is one of the things that makes me fucking adore the Temeraire series: the protagonist has a father who is staunchly abolitionist and yet the protagonist himself doesn’t really think about it at all, until quite a bit later in the series when he starts realizing that slavery isn’t just some theoretical thing in “the colonies”.
  
  Meanwhile the dragon protagonist goes “um, isn’t that absolutely horrifying? am i missing something here??” when he learns about the existence of slavery
  
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betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Mel Gibson in The Patriot. Guy wasn’t even born until almost 200 years later.

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- Sylence@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  And in Australia no less!
  
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  - wjrii@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Fun fact, ol’ Mel was born just outside New York City. His grandparents were born in the the US, Australia, and Ireland (2).
    
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Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Nothing is ever colourful in movies set pre-renaissance, everyone looks like a pauper and kings dress in fucking black leather armor…

In reality most people these days would probably be slightly upset by how garish things were back then, everyone LOVED colour! Even the poorest people would probably have access to some shittily dyed red clothing at least, and from there up the social ladder it would just get more riotously colourful until you get to the nobility who dressed like absolute dickheads.
Here’s some at least reasonably representative images in order of increasing social status, not necessarily from the same places but all from roughly “medieval” times:

Image Image Image Image Image

Bonus:
Image

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- sunrisepirate@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Now that is macaroni
  
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- Feathercrown@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I would wear the hell out of outfits 2 and 3
  
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  - Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    not #1? wow you classist smh…
    
    But yeah non-nobility premodern european clothing was fucking sweet, they knew how to dress.
    I’m personally a massive fan of viking-style commoner clothing, something about all the wool and usage of single-colour layers really appeals to me, and i think it doesn’t look out of place at all nowadays (at least in the colder months).
    
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- Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I love that historians and archeologists basically just decided to retcon ancient statuary to just bare marble because the alternative was so shit.
  
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Apepollo11@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Teeth.

American period films almost always have the main characters with super-white gnashers.

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- ThomasWilliams@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  But that’s correct.
  
  Tooth decay was fairly rare until sugar became widely available in the 19th century with the invention of the steam powered sugar mill.
  
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- dkppunk@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  lol you said teeth and I immediately thought of the movie Teeth
  
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usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
One I’m starting to notice become more popular due to the current culture in Hollywood; actors with obvious plastic surgery in historical settings. It’s like a continuous anachronism throughout the movie constantly breaking the fourth wall.

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- dustyData@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Actors being outrageously attractive via artificial means is, meh, I suppose. What I can’t stand is when they load up with so much botox and had so many surgeries that they lose all capacity for acting.
  
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  - ProfThadBach@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Vanessa Kirby in Fantastic Four was driving me crazy to the point that I could not enjoy the movie. Why the fuck did she do that to her face? And they kept zeroing in on her none moving face. It was like an uncanny valley.
    
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GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
A Knight’s Tale has a lot of very deliberate and very obvious anachronisms in it. But I don’t feel like they detract from the story. It felt a little out of place, but at the same time, it felt more immersive.

That, and Heath Ledger was brilliant and Alan Tudyk was hilarious.

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- Berttheduck@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I’m pretty sure the anachronisms in a knights tale are deliberate to give modern audiences more appreciation for the feel of things for the locals of that time period. Great movie. Always forget it’s really long though.
  
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- phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  You mean the “we will rock you” part in mideval times while the song hadn’t been written for another thousand years?
  
  Yeah, but then again, they kinda made a point to just be funny and go with it :)
  
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  - clanker_victim_555@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Compare that to most medieval movies with an orchestral soundtrack. Orchestras are full of instruments that only achieved their current form in the last couple hundred years.
    
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- dethedrus@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Alan Tudyk is a hilarity MACHINE!
  
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schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Dropping my favorite history/movie youtuber, History Buffs.

Here he is sad (Braveheart):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojBwASARAzo

and here he is happy (Master and Commander):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Iwea41ua0Y

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- Anchorxiety@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Braveheart is offensively bad.
  
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  - schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Apocalypto is worse.
    
    www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5pBZKj1VnA
    
    Mel Gibson has a peculiar talent.
    
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sheridan@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
There was a little movie about the 18th century baroque composer Vivaldi. From my memory (like 20 years ago) it showed him using a modern violin bow. And the music played was from recordings using modern instruments. My area of expertise is early music so it pissed me off.

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VinegarChunks@lemmus.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I saw a play by an up and coming British playwright about ancient Rome that had a clock in it.

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ThomasWilliams@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Most westerns use that same patch of ground in Hollywood that has a vehicular track used by the film truck.

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dustyData@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I could barely withstand the latest Wuthering Heights with Margot Robbie. Usually anachronistic music, sets or wardrobe doesn’t bother me. Most of the times it is tastefully done or are details that are immaterial to the experience. But lord, this version was so over the top that I sometimes felt like I was watching a fashion show and not a movie. I’m still somewhat warm towards Emerald Fennel, but this movie was a let down for me mainly for that one reason. She is also pretty gross and can’t help but to always include disturbing imagery, even if the script is supposed to be a romantic tragedy. Some of the scenes didn’t subtract anything, but definitely added nothing as well. I think this film failed at what Marie Antoinette (2006) succeeded.

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MarieMarion@literature.cafe ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I know this is not an anachronism, but I’m still angry about Nolan’s Odyssey and how Greek soldiers DROWNED inside the horse during the first two TIDES.
TIDES. In the Mediterranean sea.

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RBWells@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I notice wardrobe and the underwear in Dirty Dancing always bothered me, it looked too modern.

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