196
votes
Of all the movies and TV shows ever made, which of them is set furthest in the future?
In Futurama episode "The Late Philip J Fry", some of the crew travel to the very end of time itself (and back around again... TWICE).
They most likely go through the heat death of the universe which ...
- 1,239
123
votes
Accepted
Of all the movies and TV shows ever made, which of them is set furthest in the future?
More of an adjunct to the existing answers - if you're looking for an example where the "usual" setting of the movie or show is far in the future (as opposed to a specific episode or segment) then I'd ...
- 2,855
86
votes
Accepted
Why were movies shot on film shot at 24 frames per second?
According to this site:
In the early days of film cameras were hand cranked, which caused inconsistencies from movie to movie. Even further still, projection houses would speed up frame rates of ...
- 49.6k
79
votes
Of all the movies and TV shows ever made, which of them is set furthest in the future?
The Doctor Who Episode Utopia is set in the Year 100 Trillion, at literally the very end of time and space itself (according to the show)
- 2,049
78
votes
Accepted
Why do old gun fight scenes sound so weird and cartoonish?
To answer this, let's take a quick look at Merriam-Webster's definition of "art", specifically the section on synonyms:
ART, SKILL, CUNNING, ARTIFICE, CRAFT mean the faculty of executing well what ...
- 2,508
68
votes
Accepted
Where and when does the "idea" light bulb appear for the first time?
Where does this metaphor come from?
The term "bright" to mean "clever" seems to have originated/evolved in the 18th century..
By the mid 1700s, the term was being said to ...
- 141k
62
votes
Why are there so few movies about the Vietnam war itself?
Short Answer
Public sentiment against the Vietnam War meant that it was difficult to show the war in a satisfactory light, especially given that it ended in a costly American defeat. Hollywood had ...
- 15.9k
62
votes
Early credit roll before the end of the film
Monty Python's Flying Circus did this. According to TV Tropes:
Credits Gag: In addition to many Creative Closing Credits, the placement of the credits in the show's sequence was a gag in itself.
...
- 5,019
59
votes
Accepted
How did Hitchcock enforce the "no late admission" policy for Psycho?
Enforcement is perhaps not the word.
Although the movie studios had considerable sway and influence over theatre owners at the time they could not insist that the owners maintain the policy of "...
- 141k
40
votes
Accepted
How did the word "Bollywood" originate?
Bollywood is a portmanteau (a blend of linguistic words), which is derived from Bombay (currently known as Mumbai) and Hollywood, California.
The name "Bollywood" is a portmanteau derived ...
A J♦
- 58k
39
votes
What's the first movie with a plot twist?
I don't know if it was the earliest, but certainly one of the earliest plot twists (and the earliest notable one that I know of) was the ending of The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (1920). The film uses ...
- 23.3k
39
votes
Of all the movies and TV shows ever made, which of them is set furthest in the future?
Adaptations of "The Time Machine" (H. G. Wells). At least two of them (1960 and 2002) depict quite detailed the year 802,701.
And in the 2002 adaptation, there are also landscapes of the year 635 ...
- 3,566
36
votes
Early credit roll before the end of the film
I believe the notorious film Irréversible does this as part of its "reverse chronology" gimmick. The credits roll right at the very beginning, reversed so they scroll from top-to-bottom instead of ...
- 23.3k
32
votes
If Sweden didn't have commercial TV channels until the late 1980s, how can these TV commercials from the 1960s and 1970s exist?
A "Husmors Filmer" (see Youtube video title) is a "Housewife Film" (and trademarked at the time) and "yes," apparently women attended matinees where such films were ...
- 2,784
30
votes
When were digital effects first used in film or TV?
From Wikipedia:
First digital animation in a feature film
The first feature film to use digital image processing was the 1973 movie Westworld, a science-fiction film written and directed by novelist ...
26
votes
Was Looney Tunes considered a cartoon for adults?
In the heyday of Looney Tunes, in the 1940s and 1950s, was it considered an adult cartoon or a kids cartoon?
Both
Cartoons were shown to all audiences as "filler" between movies, much as ...
- 141k
25
votes
What was the first film to depict the American military as villains?
In Gone With The Wind (1939) the Union army is hated and feared by the main characters. The Union army besieges and burns Atlanta. They pillage the plantation Tara. In the context of the movie, from ...
- 611
24
votes
Why do old gun fight scenes sound so weird and cartoonish?
As far as the high-pitched noise goes, you might want to think about what's being shown. The sound you're hearing is (supposed to be) not the sound of the gun itself, but the sound of the bullet ...
- 2,886
24
votes
Why are there no programmes / playbills for movies?
They did catch on for big budget "important" movies during the last millennium, but for some reason fell out of fashion decades ago. In fact I might own one or two old movie programs or programmes.
...
- 5,393
24
votes
What is the first animated cartoon?
Pauvre Pierrot were painted images displayed through Praxinoscope.
While Fantasmagorie, uses the modern techniques known today, that later were used by Disney.
23
votes
Accepted
Why the aspect ratio change from 4:3 to 16:9 to even wider formats?
The initial motivation was to compete with television, after that it was more like an arms race
The original aspect ratio for film was based on an arbitrary choice in the very early days of cinema ...
- 23.7k
23
votes
Accepted
Is The Ethel Waters Show lost media?
I approached this from the opposite direction.
Rather than trying to find if one specific broadcast survived, I instead looked for the earliest method of recording a live broadcast.
Other than some ...
- 53.5k
21
votes
What was the first film to depict the American military as villains?
The trouble with this is it's a matter of perspective.
Watch any sci-fi movie from the 50s & see the US Army behaving like it's a skeet shoot every time an alien turns up, no matter how friendly ...
- 53.5k
20
votes
What was the first film to depict the American military as villains?
Little Big Man (1970) follows a native American (Dustin Hoffman) who keeps getting tangled up with (from Wikipedia) "the villainous practices of the United States Cavalry", such as killing ...
- 680
17
votes
Where and when does the "idea" light bulb appear for the first time?
Felix the Cat was the first to use the light bulb as a metaphor for a bright idea.
In the early twentieth century, Felix the Cat was the world’s favorite animated animal. (...) The anthropomorphic ...
- 5,798
15
votes
Of all the movies and TV shows ever made, which of them is set furthest in the future?
And the winner is...
A many-way tie!
The time for this tie is "the end of time," also sometimes portrayed as "outside of time."
There are multiple movies and TV shows, as well as literature and ...
- 323
15
votes
Accepted
Why is the last scene (right before and including the end credits) often worse quality in transfers of older films?
I will admit that this is a guess, but I have to wonder whether it's an issue with the type of film restoration they do when making the disc. With older prints, there can be a lot of dust, scratches, ...
- 5,242
15
votes
What was the first film to depict the American military as villains?
The Birth of a Nation (1915)
During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army,...
- 13.2k
14
votes
Of all the movies and TV shows ever made, which of them is set furthest in the future?
The Babylon 5 Season 4 finale, The Deconstruction of Falling Stars, is broken into a number of segments showing events affecting the Interstellar Alliance at different stages in its future. The final ...
- 3,366
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible