▲This Meg Ryan rom-com, centered around anonymous emailing, would be impossible today. You don't meet strangers in chat-rooms, and you certainly wouldn't meet anyone without Google-searching them or seeing photos. Plus, with online dating Kathleen wouldn't have given Joe a chance.

▲Caller ID is really screwing with modern murder plots.

▲Ross sleeps with another woman after he calls Rachel on a payphone and hears Mark in her apartment. With a cell phone, she would've been able to call him back or send him a text to explain what happened, but instead the toxic relationship worsened.

▲With a quick Trip Advisor search on her iPhone, Janet Leigh could see that the Bates Motel had terrible ratings and many complaints about a creepy owner, and she would book her stay elsewhere.

▲Deciding not to exchange numbers but vowing to meet at the exact spot in six months time, it's revealed in the next film that the two characters don't actually reconnect until nine years later. One platform to foil it all: Facebook.

▲Alarms on their cell phones, cheap international calling plans, and home surveillance systems accessed through the internet make this classic story ridiculous today.

▲In a modern setting, after people noticed Franco's character had gone missing, someone could contact his cell phone provider, and they would track his phone and dispatch a search party to rescue him. All he would need to do is ration water and not cut off his arm.

▲When Edward gets lost, he looks up directions on his phone. He never pulls over to ask Vivian for directions, and this classic plot is never realized.

▲The murder weapon itself (a landline phone cord) is obsolete.

▲Both the film and the con-man's story it's based on would never have happened with modern technology, as all checks would be verified with high-tech machines, and airports would have much higher security monitoring.

▲The whole plot revolves around a misunderstanding of Cary Grant's identity, which in today's age could be immediately verified online, and the men would leave him alone.

▲The iconic scene where John Cusack holds his boombox outside the girl's window just wouldn't have the same impact with an iPod speaker.

▲Firstly, VHS tapes are hardly in use. It could be adapted for people who illegally downloaded the death-inducing film, but for the people who watch movies on their laptops and phones, that's a tiny screen for Samara to climb out of.

▲Allie could just have emailed or texted Noah when she hadn't heard from him. He could also have skipped the snail mail, and password-protected devices mean her meddling mother would never know.

▲The prevalence of GPS has officially ruined every story based upon characters getting lost.

▲With Google alerts and Facebook notifications, the chance that everyone would forget Samantha's birthday is near impossible.

▲Facebook, YouTube, Google, and the myriad of other online databases would completely obliterate Matt Damon's masquerade.

▲Detective McClane would have called 911 on his cell phone long before he had the chance to kill Tony and take his radio. Many more lives would have been saved with law enforcement arriving sooner, but there would be no 'Die Hard'...

▲The sad reality is that this independently owned music shop would have likely been closed thanks to MP3s and streaming. Plus, Cusack's mixtapes would not have seemed so impressive as a Spotify playlist.

▲Daily life at a 1990s software company turns into a computer virus crime scene, but the criminals are saved by a massive fire incinerating all the evidence. Destroying evidence is harder now than it was before, and the cloud would put them in jail.

▲If Annie used Google instead of that antiquated database to search for "Sam," "architect," and "Chicago," she would have found a ton more results. Plus, Jonah would have likely made his dad an online dating profile instead of calling into a talk show, and they'd never need to meet at the Empire State Building.

▲"Swell" would have never gotten that impressive fashion job by fudging her resumé, certainly not with Facebook and LinkedIn. A quick internet dive into her high school prom photos would reveal her true age.

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Annie and Hallie would have likely found their missing parent on Facebook and discovered they were twins without the whole camp fiasco.

▲Just one text to from Juliet letting Romeo know she was going to fake her death could have completely changed this story from a great tragedy to just an alright happily ever after.

▲Forrest could have looked up directions to Jenny's house on his phone, meaning he would never have sat on that bench and started telling his story.

▲They would have exchanged numbers at the ball and arranged a time for him to drop off her shoe, saving him from smelling a kingdom's worth of feet.

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A Hollywood megastar would likely get her books shipped to her through Amazon or downloaded onto her e-reader—both of which might also mean the independent bookshop might not even exist.

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If GPS were as common in 1993 as it is now, those kids would've never gotten lost on that island. It honestly feels like the revived dinosaurs are actually more believable than someone not checking Google maps...

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Another epic meetup that would have been foiled by the internet. Nickie would have been able to check up on Terry online, and she could have just sent him a text saying that she was running late instead of getting hit by a car in her rush.

▲Think about how many movies you’ve watched that depended entirely on characters being able to fake identities, get lost in a new place, or not being able to reach the person they need. We’re living in a time where technology is so intrinsically tied to us that it is becoming difficult to craft stories with believable suspense, comedy, fear, and danger that audiences can relate to. Whole movies could have been made irrelevant with the advent of Facebook!

Click through to see instances where modern technology, websites, or apps would have destroyed the plots of classic films.

Iconic plots made impossible by today’s technology

Blunders and excitement that modern marvels have made irrelevant

12/02/25 por StarsInsider

MOVIES Curiosity

Think about how many movies you’ve watched that depended entirely on characters being able to fake identities, get lost in a new place, or not being able to reach the person they need. We’re living in a time where technology is so intrinsically tied to us that it is becoming difficult to craft stories with believable suspense, comedy, fear, and danger that audiences can relate to. Whole movies could have been made irrelevant with the advent of Facebook!

Click through to see instances where modern technology, websites, or apps would have destroyed the plots of classic films.