Zeerust Discussion - Television Tropes & Idioms

Sukeban: For some steampunkish Zeerust, see this awesome collection

of French postcards from 1900 trying to imagine what life would be like in 2000 :3

Gus: Just had to move this to the main entry

Iritscen: Wow, those postcards accurately predicted road rage ("Automobiles de Guerre"), video-conferencing — using a wall projector, no less ("Correspondence Cinema"), voicemail ("Missive phonographique"), the brainwashing of our youth by State propaganda ("A l'Ecole"), Heelys shoes ("Auto Patin a Roues") (although the picture only suggests these would cause *some* adults to break their necks, when it's a known fact that only children can survive wearing them), and the Japanese bullet train ("Le train électrique Paris Pékin") — well, okay, I guess they thought the Chinese would have them (snicker). Still, a small error, geographically speaking. They also predicted every Looney Tune where someone is groomed by a complex machine (that eventually gets out of control and nearly kills them), in "Le Barbier nouveau Jeu" and "Madame à sa Toilette". The French never cease to amaze me.

Harpie Siren: Yay! The first two Meet the Robinsons entires!!! (looks around) What?

arromdee: I took out the reference to the Doctor upgrading K9. The upgraded K9 looked just like the original (without the dents and damage) and didn't remove any of the Zeerust.

((johndmes)): Just to add a note to this: Much science fiction from the 1950s on had to be Bowdlerized from the author's original intention to fit the editor's sensibilities and/or the publishing house's rules for the type of book they were buying. In one of the listed examples, that of Robert A. Heinlein's "Have Space Suit Will Travel", the town drunk was set in a drug store drinking a chocolate malt due to Scribner's restrictions on children's book content at the time, a issue he goes on in great length about in the posthumous book "Grumbles From The Grave". The characters HAD to be a cliche child of the 1950's, or the book would never have been published. It's the same with most of his "juveniles", which were a uphill fight with the publisher to get published in the first place. See the aforementioned book for examples. It's also worthy to note what caused Heinlein to break his relationship with Scribner's - the editor (with whom Heinlein had a hate-hate relationship) bounced the final juvenile as unpublishable - therefore Heinlein sold it to another market and won some Hugo Awards with it.

Natalie: I'm probably doing this wrong, but I took out the reference to Art Deco architecture, since Art Deco was popular in the late 1920s and isn't especially futuristic. The most well known example in the US is probably the Chrysler building.

Etherjammer: It's hard to decide about Art Deco. On the one hand, it is one of the many bastard children of Futurist design, and could easily be said to have been futuristic; it was indisputably modern at the time. However, we also tend to associate Art Deco with a very specific time and place these days, or at least a very specific - and non-futuristic - setting (Batman The Animated Series, for example, isn't 1920s, as far as I know, but it's heavily Art Deco), which doesn't seem in keeping with Zeerust. Either way, you're absolutely right in removing the reference in the retro-futurism statement; I think the original poster's getting Art Deco confused with another style (maybe Streamline or Modernist?).

Fast Eddie: Pulling out some natter

Ghost In The Shell, all versions, while they involve lots of transhuman characters and technologies, have one particularly zeerusty part. Those ports on the back of the neck. While this might make sense for people who are older and got earlier versions of the technology, it mostly doesn't make sense. Has no one heard of Wi Fi? 22 years of Moore's Law ought to make wired interfaces pointless, aside from high-security data transfer.
- It makes sense for many reasons. One, the characters we see most do a lot of high-security data transfer. They do use a lot of WiFi too, as that's the entire point of the "you hacked my eyes" and "Laughing Man" scenes. This is also the way the real world treats technology, since even a laptop with built-in wireless will almost always still have not only a network plug, but a modem plug (for when you go into an area that, y'know, doesn't have wireless connectivity). So, yeah, not so much Zeerust as just common sense.

Eric DVH: Pulled, since Fallout's Universe Bible strongly implies that Genetic Engineering Is The New Nuke, and being hosed down with plasma in Real Life probably would immolate you:
Also, scientific laws in the Fallout universe act like people THOUGHT they'd act back in the 50s, according to science fiction and movies of the time. For example, massive radiation can cause mutations and gigantic growth, and laser or plasma guns disintegrate you into a pile of ash (kinda like those Warner Brothers cartoons...).

Aquillion: I have started a discussion on renaming this trope here

I don't think the mention of "I, Robot" is appropriate. The movie was made in 2004, and it's only 2009. When it's 2035 or so, then we'll be able to tell how well it's managed to avoid Zee Rust. Sure, some modern movies intentionally mimic the Zee Rust of movies from earlier eras, but that's not primarily what Zee Rust is; it's when the I, Robot Chicago looks oddly retro in 2035. I Krieg

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