Films that have aged well and aged horribly

[Foggy]

Aged Well

Network (Jesus, that film is almost prophetic in what it's about)
Clerks
Schindler's List
Sex, Lies and Videotape
Total Recall
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Predator
The original Indiana Jones trilogy
Gremlins
The Thing
Blade Runner
E.T.
The Evil Dead
The Shining
Alien
Apocalypse Now
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Chinatown
Badlands
The Godfather (Part 1 and 2)
The Graduate
2001: A Space Odyssey

Aged Poorly

Avatar
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Buffalo Soldiers
Robocop
Highlander
The Terminator
Labyrinth
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 9th Dimension
Escape from New York
The Exorcist
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by Jasonic

I know for most it's pretty much sacrilegious to say anything bad about the film, but come on, that's a joke. This movie has aged more than most.

Strongly disagree with you here, there's still moments in that film where I'm baffled by the stuff they do in it, watching it in high def is nothing short of mind blowing.

[chris_sc77]

Movies that have aged very well:
Do The RIght Thing
Aliens
Casino
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Rosemary's Baby
A Life Less Ordinary
Once Upon A Time In The West
The Good The Bad ANd the Ugly
Once Upon A Time IN America
Jackie Brown

[GreenGaijin]

From the posts I've been reading, it seems that everybody has a different take on what has held up or not in their minds. Not sure if there's really any right or wrong answers.

In saying that, I'll say that Blade Runner, The Bourne Trilogy, and Iron Man I feel are a lot better now then the first time I watched them.

[Jasonic]

I think you are all just biased I watched it for the first time this past year. For less than a decade before Star Wars, it's nothing special. Incredibly boring too.
The first part alone hasn't aged well. Such obvious normal human movement under the primate suits. Gotta love how the whole movie is completely void of any human emotion either.

[Rich65]

I agree I love the original Superman but it has not aged terribly well. However, Christopher Reeve's performance as The Man Of Steel is timeless.

[beadelf]

off the top of my head the Superman films (apart from MOS) have all aged very badly, especially the first film (I dont aknowledge 3/4/5 existing they are that bad)

[leey]

Originally Posted by Foggy

Aged Well

Network (Jesus, that film is almost prophetic in what it's about)
Clerks
Schindler's List
Sex, Lies and Videotape
Total Recall
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Predator
The original Indiana Jones trilogy
Gremlins
The Thing
Blade Runner
E.T.
The Evil Dead
The Shining
Alien
Apocalypse Now
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Chinatown
Badlands
The Godfather (Part 1 and 2)
The Graduate
2001: A Space Odyssey

Aged Poorly

Avatar
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Buffalo Soldiers
Robocop
Highlander
The Terminator
Labyrinth
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 9th Dimension
Escape from New York
The Exorcist
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

As in ... James Cameron's Avatar?

Aged well:
Star Wars OT
T2

NOT age well:
all James Bonds prior to Daniel Craig.
The early Die Hard movies

[Blu-21]

Originally Posted by leey

As in ... James Cameron's Avatar?

Aged well:
Star Wars OT
T2

NOT age well:
all James Bonds prior to Daniel Craig.
The early Die Hard movies

So the first 3 Die Hard movies are dated yet the last 2 are edgy, hip and modern?

[Blu-21]

Originally Posted by UnknownBesideArch

I hate to say it, but Star Wars IV has aged rather badly, unlike V and VI... whereas Episode I is now really dated, just like all movies that used too much CGI before the technology hit its stride properly.

And yet Jurassic Park and T2 have barely aged at all!

Agreed about Star Wars: Episode I but disagree about JP and T2. They are great films and yes Episode I is in far worse shape, but JP and T2 both have quite a handful of dated elements due to early CGI as well.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by leey

As in ... James Cameron's Avatar?

Yeah I find it a tough sit despite how great the effects are, in my mind it's dated badly.

[Ben_UK]

I think any film which mentions technology will date poorly. An above poster mentioned Mission Impossible. I can almost agree to a certain extent. Especially when they mention things like the "experimental x686 CPU's" and 56K modems...! Of course, you need to be tech aware to even get that, however if you are not, then the viewer just assumes it to be "high tech" and pays it no mind.

Also, I have started to spot now those big ass CRT monitors all over the place in films. The Bourne Identity has quite a few of them, I think they become less as they go through the trilogy though. The Game has quite a few CRT's in it as well.

[legendarymatt92]

Originally Posted by Foggy

Yeah I find it a tough sit despite how great the effects are, in my mind it's dated badly.

I think you might be confusing the dated badly aspect with just a boring experience

I watched it a couple of weeks ago and it looks as mind-blowing as it did when it came out in cinemas...and the story is just as bland, too, unfortunately.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by legendarymatt92

I think you might be confusing the dated badly aspect with just a boring experience

I watched it a couple of weeks ago and it looks as mind-blowing as it did when it came out in cinemas...and the story is just as bland, too, unfortunately.

Well the thing is I liked Avatar back in the day, now not so much, hence me thinking it's beginning to become dated.

[s2mikey]

Whats exactly the crteria here though? Just special effects? The movies context? The themes of the times the film was made? It seems this thread is just another take on "unpopular opinions" or whatever. And thats fine...but how do we get this more detailed as far as how we choose?

Personally, I find that effects, hair/clothing styles, music, and themes have more bearing on something beind dated. For example:

- Any film with a Cold War theme or subplot like Hunt for Red October or even 2010, The Year we make Contact. Those dont resonate any longer.

- Vietnam war movies - sorry but that era is over and doesnt work anymore for me.

Here are some specific films:

1) Legend - it was cheesey when it came out but is borderline ghey now. The devil guy is cool but the movie is so small scale, and so low-rent that its laughable now. Plus, its got that irritating 80's synthesizer soundtrack which is the defitintion of dated IMO.

2) ScarFace - Yeah, sorry but this film is so 80's bloated and over the top.... its NOT a good film and watching it now makes you laugh at times when Im sure you arent supposed to be laughing. Its just too excessive and overdone.

3) Rocky 1 - I like it but its my least favorite Rocky film. Just feels like its been around the block and back again. Hard to sit through. Rocky 3 and Rocky 4 are the ones to watch.

4) The Thing - I still like the film a lot but the effects are becoming a stumbling block for me. There are scenes which are just bad. Bad, bad, bad.

5) Rosemarys baby - Might have been shocking back then but its just cheesey garbage now. I didnt care for it and find it even sillier now.

6) The Fog - Another Carpenter film that might have worked for me when I was 14 years old but now it just seems b-grade. Should have been so much better.

7) Poltergeist - Not a bad first 30 minutes but oh my GAWD does it get stoopid and dorky after a while. Not scary, not good, not worth watching ever again.

There are more.... Ill get them here eventually.

[X12Celtics3]

Originally Posted by s2mikey

5) Rosemarys baby - Might have been shocking back then but its just cheesey garbage now. I didnt care for it and find it even sillier now.

I saw Rosemary's Baby for the first time earlier this year and I loved it... I didn't like it quite as much as Chinatown or Repulsion, the only other Polanski films that I've seen, but I thought all three were great. Considering that it came out nearly 25 years before I was born, I'd say I'd have to strongly disagree with it being dated. For comparison, I watched The Exorcist a couple of months before Rosemary's Baby, and THAT is a movie that doesn't seem to have aged very well. I enjoyed watching it, and I'll probably go back and watch the director's cut at some point, but I don't think that it would be considered the classic that it is without taking into account its historical context (how shocking it was at the time compared to other films, how many people it terrified, etc).

Speaking of Chinatown, that movie aged incredibly well.

[s2mikey]

Originally Posted by X12Celtics3

I saw Rosemary's Baby for the first time earlier this year and I loved it... I didn't like it quite as much as Chinatown or Repulsion, the only other Polanski films that I've seen, but I thought all three were great. Considering that it came out nearly 25 years before I was born, I'd say I'd have to strongly disagree with it being dated. For comparison, I watched The Exorcist a couple of months before Rosemary's Baby, and THAT is a movie that doesn't seem to have aged very well. I enjoyed watching it, and I'll probably go back and watch the director's cut at some point, but I don't think that it would be considered the classic that it is without taking into account its historical context (how shocking it was at the time compared to other films, how many people it terrified, etc).

Speaking of Chinatown, that movie aged incredibly well.

Agreed on Chinatown - but in fairness, films that dont have to reply on effects or technology have a much better chance of avoiding datedness than sci-fi or graphics-intense films do.

I just couldnt get on with Rosemarys baby. I expected much more than I got. The Exorcist only shows some datedness with a few of the effects shots and maybe some hairstyles or whatever. Nothing else there is too bad. IMO. The theme and context arent dated concepts at all.

[Monterey Jack]

Good movies don't date...they just eventually turn into period pieces.

[arcadeforest]

Originally Posted by cinemaphile

Shakespeare in Love and Gladiator haven't aged a day. Still as great as ever.

Could not agree more

[JavaJulien]

Spider-Man has aged horribly. In the wake of more "serious" movies like Iron-Man, Sin City, and the Christopher Nolan coming out, it's become painfully bad the direction of the movie was. I don't blame the actors, since they were doing the most with what they're given (and Spider-Man 2 proved that Sam Raimi could direct a good Spider-Man film), but it's just way too hammy.