BuffyTech

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goldenboy

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One thing I wasn't sure about with Buffy was cellphones. Where were they? Late 90's. I suppose they weren't as ubiquitous among American teens as they are today. Mulder and Scully wouldn't be caught dead without their's. They would have been tremendously useful in terms of coordinating missions between Giles, Buffy and the Scoobies. Willow eventually experimented with a kind of psychic cell when they were without Buffy for awhile, directing the Scoobies to a vamp while up high on a crypt.

I suppose maybe Joss thought it was a useful plot complication. Creates more jeopardy and potential confusion for the characters. Maybe he thought it would be too much of a real-world crutch for the writers to rely on. Or Giles was philosophically opposed to it because he's such a traditionalist Watcher. Or Buffy and the kids couldn't afford it and Joyce wasn't going to help out there. You'd think she'd want to know were Buffy was at all times.

They made constant use of computers of course. Why no cell? I'm voting for the plot complication, jeopardy idea. Was it too soon in American culture for the cell/teen phenomenon? What do you think? Anyone got the skinny direct from the horse's mouth?
 
Well they actually did use cellphones, but not that much. In Lessons Buffy gives Dawn a cellphone as a back-to-school-gift, and they both call eachother a few times during the episode. And also later in season 7 when Buffy is on the date with principal Wood they try calling her but then she left her phone at home so they can't reach her.

But I think the reason they don't use cellphones so much is that it would be too easy, and it's also more dramatic when you have to run after someone rather then pic up your cellphone and call them.

About the cellphone in lesson I think I heard somewhere that Joss and co. got that from fan discussions on the internet. Dawn kept getting into trouble and fans where discussing why they didn't just get her a cellphone. According to what I've heard Joss and co. often took inspiration from fan boards and forums..
 
Yeah. Remember Once More With Feeling -

So. Dawn's in trouble. Must be Tuesday.
Click to expand...

I don't know about the later seasons, but the way I remember the history of the cellphone at the time of the Buffy early seasons, they weren't as ubiquitous as they are today.

For one thing they were much bigger. I don't remember cellphones turning up all over the schoolyards until they got small and compact.

Also remember Angel and his pager, and all the trouble he had getting it to work properly? He wasn't a techy.
 
Yeah, this all seems to make sense. Wasn't up on cell-history. I've managed to survive all these years without one. I'm a bit of a Luddite like that Angel guy.
 
nerd4hire said:
For one thing they were much bigger. I don't remember cellphones turning up all over the schoolyards until they got small and compact.
Click to expand...

Unlike in Saved By The Bell, where Zack had only what I would describe as a 'brick'.
 
Old style mobiles, how fun were they?

Anyway the commentary for Lessons (first instance of a cellphone) highlights this. Joss said it would be too easy to simply have the characters have mobiles, so they say they didn't have any more because they couldn't afford them, or there was no ariels in Sunnydale. Can't remember which excuse he used.
 
Come to think of it, I just remembered something.

The movie Clueless came out in 1995. Isn't there a scene in that movie where Cher is talking to her friend on a cell in the school hallway, then all of a sudden her friend turns up with a cell to her ear, and the 2 of them are walking down the hallway side by side talking to each other on their cells? They were rich though, and maybe I mixed the movie up in my head with Legally Blond.

But yeah, maybe there was a Mutant Enemy non-cell policy as a writing trick in the first 6 seasons.
 
Yup, Xander is right.. And I'm glad they didn't have cell-phones earlier.. would have made it less interesting, probably..

And yeah N4H, that was Clueless, heh..
 
Well imagine it, "Becoming Part 2"- Willow rings up Buffy, thus not having the whole "Kick his ass" thing, and no big fight, killing and emotionathons!
 
Can you imagine Buffy hands the phone to The First and says, "It's for you". 😀
 
Ido remember them using walkie-talkies a few times.

I don't think they used cellphones because they usually where in close proximity to each other, that they didn't need them and Sunnydale should be on the small side to it probably only took 30 minutes or less to get from one side of town to the other.

That and the older version of cell phones were big and they didn't work as well as todays cell phones.
 
"....consumers are now more willing to live without television than without mobile phones or home computers....

....The survey found that mobile phones users like to stay connected even while they are asleep. More than 60 per cent said they kept their phones on and within reach 21 to 24 hours a day, and 15 per cent said that figure was 16 to 20 hours a day."

http://financialtimes.printthis.cli...0000e2511c8,ft_acl=,s01=1.html&partnerID=1744



"CHILDREN under the age of eight should not use mobile phones, parents were advised last night after an authoritative report linked heavy use to ear and brain tumours and concluded that the risks had been underestimated by most scientists.

Professor Sir William Stewart, chairman of the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB), said that evidence of potentially harmful effects had become more persuasive over the past five years"

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1436543,00.html



"”I feel like an anthropologist (and a bit of a caveman) just watching the cell phenomenon from the sidelines. Kinda scary stuff, really. Technology is really messing with the culture, in good and bad ways.

I'm glad Buffy had minimal cell use. I'm glad "Lost" has very little technology"”very refreshing. Basic, human, physical...I guess Trek was the first to incorporate the "cellphone" into the dynamics of a show.

Hey, does Fray have some kind of communicator? She's in that post-apocalyptic Blade Runner world. Seems like she had to run around everywhere, confused, like all Slayers.

Maybe this is just a guy thing, but i think it could also be interesting to see all the Potentials totally geared up, like a paramilitary unit. Cells, nightvision, kevlar, everything. Like the Initiative. Like Black Hawk Down with Slayers. Hopefully a happier ending. Or 24 with Slayers. Course, the vamps would have to come in massive hoards for the fights to last long.

That also brings to mind "Global Frequency", another something great the WB screwed up.
 
I would say I keep my phone on and in reach all the time, just cause its convenient. In fact the only time I dont is on my driving lessons. I was thinking about this and yeah I could probably live without my phone but it just makes life much easier. Say you have a free lesson. Either I can wonder round college trying to find my friends or phone them.
 
That reminds me, I was among of the last of the students at my college that had to register the old fashioned way"”literally running, around the entire campus, like crazed headless chickens or something. A wacky 20th century rite-of-passage. Then sophomore year we went to phone registration, now it's all via the Internet I suppose...
 
If there is one thing i cannot stand about technological advancement in the late 20th century, it would have to be cellphones. I really , really hate the things!

For one thing they have played a large part in the general lack of ability to spell in the current school generation. I mean, i'm not above making the odd typo but i am able to type all three letters in the word "you" rather than the all too common "u". I get that when texting you have a limited amount of letters per text, so shortening words becomes useful, but that shouldn't extend to doing it in every day life as well.

Then you have ringtones!!! Grrr Arghh!!! hate the damn things!!! How many times have i been out in the street and had to suffer the latest crappy number one dance track being forced down my ear. I don't like that kind of music at the best of times but when it is coming out of a cellphone it is about one hundred times worse. Please, if you really have to have a ringtone at least use a decent rock track and not whatever rubbish you heard in a nightclub last weekend. Anything by Audioslave, Pearl Jam, Nirvana or Velvet Revolver would be acceptable! 😉

Finally, those people that actually think you want to hear their conversations whilst you are sat in front of them on the bus and so choose to speak as loudly as possible whilst talking to whoever just rang them. Newsflash, if you sit near me on the bus i don't care about what you did with your mates at school today or what you are having for tea tonight, so keep it down!

Okay, anti-cellphone rant over! 🙂

You might guess from reading the above that i had no problem with the lack of cellphones on Buffy over the years. I actually applauded the fact that Joss and the other Mutant Enemy writers didn't give in to such an obvious plot device every episode.
 
Hey, good point about the spelling, grammar issue. What we're doing here is a weird, morphed version of letter writing and oral conversation. Used to pride myself on organizing my thoughts carefully on the page...that goes away with the technology to a degree.
 
Well in the mid-nineties, they were clumsy and unaffordable. We did see Buffy using a pager in the first few eppys of Season 1..but that seemed to disappear.

I totally agree about the grammar issue and also they are a disruptance..not sure how I feel about my children having one!
 
Actually, writing has been deteriorating among the general public for ages. I can remember Ken Burns' "Civil War" documentary. The letters of the troops, just poor, common men, were some of the most beautiful, eloquent things you'd ever heard...
 
William the Bloody, he understood the power of the written word, a well-turned phrase. Tried to approximate eloquence, profundity as best he could.

Who were the most traditionally eloquent characters in the 'verse? I think the Brit characters had the edge overall. The Watchers. And they were kinda tech-phobic, perhaps not coincidentally.

I think the Buffy, post mod teenspeak is colorful. And highly creative, innovative. And demonstrative of the times in which we're living. It can be vague and cryptic, open to interpretations. I think losing the English language's traditional grammar, eloquence for the deconstructive post mod style is a trade off. Instant messaging, all that stuff amps it up to a new level...
 
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