No Mobile Phones - Go (1999) Discussion

[–] putter_b 16 years ago

Sadly mobile phones were not really big back in 1999, also they were very expensive, considering that Ronny, Manny, and Claire all work at some craptastic job making min wage its not a shocker that no one was using them.

reply

[–] bigbud_120 16 years ago

Mobile phones had definitely caught on by the time this movie was made. I live in Australia and plenty of my friends in high school and all my friends who had left school and had full time jobs had mobile phones back in 1999.

Simon (and his friends), Todd, the Vegas mobsters and Adam & Zack all had the means for a mobile phone and had opportunities in the movie to use mobile phones but none of them did.

Come to think of it, the strip club guy who got shot might have used a mobile phone to call up the Rivierra where Simon was staying to find out which room he was in. I don't really recall though.

It still doesn't explain why Simon didn't call his friends in the Rivierra to tell them to get ready to leave, why Adam needed to check his messages on a landline or why he would even need to check his messages if he had a mobile or why the stripclub owners dad needed to use a landline to call his friend to run Todd's credit card check.

reply

[–] dknj727 16 years ago

Maybe the Aussies are ahead of us in this sense then, because in 1999 in the US cell phones/mobile phones were not common among teenagers. . .now I see eight year olds with cell phones. . .I guess a lot has changed in nine years. In '99 it probably would have been more common for kids like this to have pagers. Just a thought. . .

reply

[–] putter_b 16 years ago

In 99 I worked in the cellular industry and very few people I knew carried phones. This was in teh days of 500 minutes a month for fifty bucks a month plans. No free weekends/off-peak minutes, no voicemail, no 3-way calling.

Most of us back in 96-99 carried pagers.

reply

[–] minnadoon 16 years ago

my daughters graduated in 97 and 99. they both had cell phones when they started driving, as did alot of their peers. (i'm in california). i got my first cell phone in 94, and expanded my family 2 years later.

I know ALOT of teenagers in the mid to late 90's who had cell phones, specifically when they started driving. most were put on family plans with their parents because it WAS expensive not to. I constantly reminded my kids the phone was for emergencies and contact only, because it was TOO expensive just to chat!! So, they were out there, and alot of teens DID have them, but most were regulated (at least the ones i knew) in their usage.

they weren't as much fun either!

"Will there be cake?"

reply

[–] bwells7-1 16 years ago

minnadoon...Sorry if I misspelled it at this point but I just have to say you're rich. You are. At the very least, you're quite well off. Just because you had children who had phones in California in '99 doesn't mean anyone else did. They were very few and very far between. I live in Cleveland so it's not like I reside in BFE and no one I know had a phone and I was in touch with some well off people. The reason there were no cell phones in the film was because they weren't prominent in society at the time and I'm sure the script was at least a year or two old which would have made cell phones even more obsolete. People these days just assume anything because of their own situation...and it's rather sad.

reply

[–] theunopeneddoor-697-442391 11 years ago

Obsolete means dated technology, not new technology that hasn't been popular yet.

imdb.com/name/nm2056893/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1me
notwithoutreason.commy movie

reply

[–] bsg_tns 16 years ago

I don't care about your personal anecdotal evidence. There were no mobile phones in GO because they weren't that common in 99. Period. At least not in the U.S. Especially not among teenagers who can't even pay the rent.

Free speech

reply

[–] tragickingdom-1 16 years ago

how old are you 15? Moble phones have been around since the early 90s, the technology came about in the 80s.

Nokia was one the biggest phone brands to have in the late 90s.

Who could forget the old candy bar phone style that was a hit back then.
http://web.archive.org/web/20000302090609/www.nokiausa.com/shopnokia/? body=/phones/0,1003,,FF.html%235100

Obama/Biden '08 acewar.com Check it out!Where does our time go.Brand new house to escrow

reply

[–] bsg_tns 15 years ago

I don't care how long they've "been around." The fact is they weren't in common usage in the late 90's. I was there. That's why you see none in GO nor in movies of that period. End of story.

Free speech

reply

[–] MeanerWithTheScenery 15 years ago

I don't care how long they've "been around." The fact is they weren't in common usage in the late 90's. I was there. That's why you see none in GO nor in movies of that period. End of story.

Like the scream franchise for example?

"what are you doing with a cellular phone son?"

"everybody's got one sheriff"

That was in '96.

By the time Scream 3 was released three years later everybody really did have them. At least here in the UK. I remember massive factory closures around the world starting as early as 2003 due to cell phone saturation in certain parts of the world. I also quite clearly remember everyone going nuts over the nokia phone used in the matrix and upgrading to that model. If memory serves that movie came out the same year as Go.

.

reply

[–] legnadibrom 15 years ago

you know how far behind the UK the USA has been with its cell phone industry?
this movie takes place in california,
with minimum wage-earning youngters, 20 something goofballs, and a jurassic-era strip joint gangster(whose son apparently had one),
the only person in this movie who might've had a mobile phone would be todd gaines, the drug dealer, and judging by his pad he wasn't too hip on new gadgets

http://www.last.fm/music/Disuse

reply

[–] MrBook_ 12 years ago

I think the age of the characters in this movie, vs. something like Scream, is crucial. A lot of teenagers had cell phones in 1999 because their parents got them one for "emergencies." Somebody in their early 20s who works in a store would have been much less likely to have one. Even if they had gotten one as a teenager, they likely wouldn't still be paying for the service.

I don't have a license, but I drive very well, officer!

reply

[–] baconbit 9 years ago

Scream was about RICH kids. Still living with their parents so either getting their cell phones paid for by their rich parents, or able to spend their own minimum wage paychecks on luxuries. Go was about poor 20-somethings who couldn't afford their rent

reply

[–] TC-27 15 years ago

Friends of mine started buying cell phones back in the late '80s and early '90s. I thought most of them were nuts because of how expensive they were and the air time was very costly at the time as well.

I bought my first cell phone in 1998 from L.A. Cellular (which was bought out by AT&T, then Cingular, and then AT&T again) and it cost me $49.99 (after a rebate) and I got 250 anytime minutes and 1000 evening and weekend minutes with my $29.99 per month plan. By this time more than half of my friends had cell phones so they were already becoming somewhat common. Sure they weren't as common in 1999 as they are in 2009 but they weren't exactly novelty items at the time either.

reply

[–] baconbit 9 years ago

Plain and simple, IF your timeline is right, then your group of friends is NOT typical. Again...it is not hard to look it up. Less than 1 cell phone for every 4 Americans in 1998 when this movie was made. Factoring in business users which made up the bulk of subscribers, and we are talking maybe 1 out of every 8 or fewer Americans had a cell phone.

reply

[–] davebpa 14 years ago

Cell phones were just becoming commonplace in the US in 99. Sure people had them 95-99, but it was mostly just girls for safety or businessmen to look important (prior to 99 that is). 99-02 they become nearly 100% into the publics culture (ie everyone had one by then).

However, consider that the movie was released in 99, filmed in 98, and probably written in 97 about experiences from the writers life in 96. He probably didn't have a cell phone back then & didn't find the need to tweak the movie.

It'd be interesting to research the first cell phone movie. The kids in American Pie didn't (I don't think), Van Wilder didn't.

reply

[–] mike841313 12 years ago

I was a freshman in high school back in 98-99. I got my very first cell phone that year. By the year 2000, everyone in high school had a cell phone. I remember being in class around 2001 and seeing my friends start to use Text message tech...which was a novelty then.

~"No Man is a Failure who has Friends"~

reply

[–] TheGutte 8 years ago

I graduated in 2000 and I cant remember one person in my graduating class that had a cell phone

reply

[–] Humberto Amador 12 years ago

From what I remember, cell phones were a luxury back in 1999, and the kids that had them tended to be from upper middle class homes and above. It wasn't until around 2004 that everyone began to get them(partially because costs went down and partially the pay as you go began to flood the market) and it was actually expected of you at that point to have one when going on a job interview, being stopped by the police, and or trying to get a date.

reply

[–] legnadibrom 15 years ago

compact discs were around since at least the early 80s,
were they a common household item in 1985? 1988? 1992? or 1995?
it takes awhile for new technology to "catch on" with consumers, and certainly for it to become commonplace,
mobile phones WERE NOT commonplace in 1999

http://www.last.fm/music/Disuse

reply

[–] baconbit 9 years ago

Just because they existed doesn't mean that they were common. They were NOT common for the average person in 1998-1999. Plain and simple. I don't know why there is even this discussion when you can check the stats and see how few people had them in 1998. Less than 70 million in 1998. So less than 1 in 4 Americans. And a significant portion of that 70 million was business users. And the few non-business users definitely did NOT just randomly chat on their phones.

And supermarket cashiers definitely did NOT have them.

reply

[–] iasimkhovich 8 years ago

i'm 39 and i still thought cell phones were stupid until at least 2004 when i got my first one. i worked in silicon valley in 2000 and um, i like never saw anyone with a cell phone and we all made pretty decent salaries.

reply

[–] andyd-1 9 years ago

err, well you had very expensive phones in the US, since in the UK most reasonably affluent people had a mobile phone, I bet the film was written in 1989

reply

[–] joestl 9 years ago

Back in 1999 when you had a cell phone you were literally just having a cell phone. Texting wasn't even popular until around 2003 or 2004, Iphones weren't even a thought back then. They weren't quite Zack Morris big in 1999, but they definitely weren't small yet. Back then there was still plenty of public pay phones left so owning a cell phone wasn't absolutely necessary at that point in time.

Just for example less and less people have landlines anymore but they're still fairly common. If you flash forward 10 years to the year 2025, I bet literally no one at all will have landlines not even middle aged people.

reply

[–] bigbud_120 16 years ago

I'm not just talking about the teenagers. I mentioned in my other post Simon (and his friends), Todd, the Vegas mobsters and Adam & Zack. They weren't teenagers. and you have to assume that at least Todd and Adam & Zack were fairly well off.

I also wrote in my other post that I seem to recall the stripclub bouncer who was shot, using a mobile to get Simon's room number.

It's still weird that none of the other characters ever showed or used a mobile phone.

reply

[–] lukertron 16 years ago

yea exactly every film should have at least 30 mobile phones in them, and every script story should center around mobile phones. in scenes where theres not much happening, someone in the background should be texting on their mobile phone, and it would be even better if there is a scene in every film where a mobile phone is used to save someone, like calling the cops or throwing the phone in the face of the killer. we all know the films without mobile phones in them are crap - just look at lord of the rings! aragorn could have just texted frodo and asked where the hell he is and if the ring had been destroyed yet. id like to see nokia adverts in the backgrounds of scenes too.

reply

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] bigbud_120 16 years ago

yea exactly every film should have at least 30 mobile phones in them, and every script story should center around mobile phones. in scenes where theres not much happening, someone in the background should be texting on their mobile phone, and it would be even better if there is a scene in every film where a mobile phone is used to save someone, like calling the cops or throwing the phone in the face of the killer. we all know the films without mobile phones in them are crap - just look at lord of the rings! aragorn could have just texted frodo and asked where the hell he is and if the ring had been destroyed yet. id like to see nokia adverts in the backgrounds of scenes too.

I wrote in the very first post that I liked the choice not to show mobile phones. I'd rather see less of the latest gadgets in movies.

They're usually a crutch or used as a marketing tool to appeal to the movie's demographic.

reply

[–] lovelyhead 16 years ago

haha ! v. funny.

reply

[–] doaj 13 years ago

More than three years later, I'd like to remind you that you are hilarious. Grade A sarcasm. +1.

reply

[–] brightmidnight71 15 years ago

*****I guess a lot has changed in nine years. In '99 it probably would have been more common for kids like this to have pagers. Just a thought. . .****

In 1999, cell phones were just starting to become commonplace, but they weren't an essential item for a lot of people yet. Basic phones were still pretty expensive, and so were the services and texting was REALLY expensive if your network even supported it.
Kids in college had them, but they were always still on their parents' plan.

"When you're pushed, killing's as easy as breathing."

reply

[–] Viltrumite 15 years ago

This movie came out when I was 16 and then a mobile phone was still something of a novelty. Granted, I didn't live in the US, but still.

reply

[–] leosgr8 9 years ago

Ronna had a pager, she complained cuz Claire was paging her while waiting at Todd's.

reply

[–] rmoriarty97 8 years ago

I'm from Australia and mobile phones definitely were NOT profilic back then - we only had Nokia bricks and the Nokia 5110s were just out, with the 3310s to follow soon after. Not many of my friends had them (early 20's) and I would imagine, even less teens. There were no good deals or plans, they were very expensive to use.

reply

[–] baconbit 9 years ago

Cell phones were definitely NOT ubiquitous in the 90s yet. And also keep in mind...this movie came OUT in 1999. Likely shot in 1998. So even less likely that many people would have cell phones. In 1998, less than 1 in 4 Americans had cell phones. And even many that did used them sparingly since most plans were pay by the minute. And also the fact that this was centered around young people struggling just to pay the rent makes it even more accurate.

reply

[–] horndogntx650 9 years ago

cell phones existed. doesn't mean they were popular. i didn't get my first one until after the millenium and very few people i knew actually had them.

reply

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] BourbonKing (5612) 2 years ago

Austtralia and many commonwealth nations subsidized phone services for the general public. In America in the 90s and 2000s you had to get a private account with a carrier. You didn't even have the very common "bundling" where parents could add extra lines and phones for family members, but that did explode as an offer in the early/mid 2000s onward.

I had a mobile phone by 1998 (Nokia flip) and it was a ghastly piece of equipment always heating up if I was on a call. It did have a good LED system and I bought a new skin for it that resembled a GoBot

reply

[–] Shan2133 16 years ago

Point blank, Ronna couldn't even pay her rent...obviously her friends didn't have it sooo who's affording a cell phone??? Of all of Ronna's not so smart moves in this movie, not owning a cell phone when you can't pay for is one of her smarter moves....

reply

[–] Replicant-88 12 years ago

The wind will carry us

My TOP 200 Movies -http://www.imdb.com/list/iFa7p7uwsr8/

reply

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

Yeah. I don't remember it being common for kids to have mobiles back then.

reply

[–] MIchiganJFrogg (-35) 6 years ago

[deleted]

[–] gnv9212 16 years ago

Didnt Zack use a mobile phone when talking to his "friend" that was stuck in Chicago in the supermarket scene where they ask Ronna for the drugs?

reply

[–] bigbud_120 16 years ago

I think so. Well that sinks my theory. A minor character used a mobile to get Simon's room number and a major character (Zack) had used a mobile phone (probably falsely) to convey that his "friend" was stuck in Chicago.

I wish I had seen this movie a bit more recently or had it on hand to make sure I was right in the first place

reply

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] bigbud_120 16 years ago

That makes sense. Things changed a lot over those few years.

reply

[–] ytfashions 16 years ago

I was a senior in high school in '97, and have not seen a single soul with a cell phone. You're so right. In '99 they were out there, but not that popular. I got my first cell phone in 2000.

reply

[–] cbeags 15 years ago

only losers had them in high school in 99
i graduated in '00 and only one kid had one and he only ever got calls from his mummy

reply

[–] thjuric 15 years ago

Re: No Mobile Phones
by - neil_vetrano on Thu Mar 6 2008 19:50:54 Didnt Zack use a mobile phone when talking to his "friend" that was stuck in Chicago in the supermarket scene where they ask Ronna for the drugs?

your 100% right...just watched the scene

reply

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] markkr64 16 years ago

america was late to the cell phone thing. europe was at almost 100% saturation rate before america had even taken off. so people from other countries might not understand that in 1999, most didn't have one.

reply

[–] MattTrakker 16 years ago

Yep, I graduated from HS in '99, and I can say with absolute certainty that almost nobody in my class had a cell phone at all. Few people even had pagers and not many people went online...it was back when most people might use AOL chat rooms and thats about it. Can't believe it's been 10 years already...damn...

reply

[–] davebpa 16 years ago

Jay Mohr used one in the cash register line. As did the Strip Club guy/Dad.

That's about right. Ronna was too broke to have one for back then. Also, the script was probably written in 97 or earlier. Plus, none of the kids in American Pie had cell phones. It took a while for writers to begin writing them into scripts. It'd be interesting to research the first movie/teen movie where they were commonplace.

reply

[–] toht 16 years ago

Yes, we Europeans tend to forget just how far behind the US is with cell phones. I wasn't an early adopter, but I got my first cell phone in 1996, and by 1999, myself, my wife and my then 12 year old son had our own phones. We made our 8 year old wait another couple of years before he got his own.

When Apple released the iPhone, I couldn't believe it didn't have 3G, which had been standard on mid-range European models for a couple of years by then.

reply

[–] flimflamsam 16 years ago

i got my first cell phone in 2000, before then nearly nobody i knew had one

mr.gumble this isa girl scouts meeting.Is it? or is it that you girls cant admit you have a problem

reply

[–] jimojimo 16 years ago

Often the notion or existence of mobile phones can expose huge plot holes or implausibilities. (ie, why didn't so-and-so just text someone or call the cops when the axe-murderer had them cornered in the basement)

Can't remember the exact situations in this movie, it's been a few years.

But I'd agree that in '99 they hadn't caught on in the teenage set to the extent that they would've played a meaningful role. But I do agree that a movie should reflect the current culture so if "Go" were made today, there certainly should be mobile phones--even to the sarcastic extent of isuckeggs' post.
--Jim

reply

[–] xanadu_dan 16 years ago

In 99, in Los Angeles where the film is set, cell phones were very common. Especially since there were characters playing soap stars, who would have definitely had cells by then. I think it had to be either a deliberate choice by the filmmakers, or the script had been floating around since the pre-cell days.

reply

[–] floydsr 16 years ago

Probably an unneccessary post, but just to back up everyone else besides the clearly rich minadoon and maybe one other, cell phones werent common at this time. I too was in school then and vividly remember. I remember feeling like a geek because I didnt have a pager. As someone else said, *those* were the big thing at the time, not cell phones

reply

[–] kardplayer-1 16 years ago

I was under the impression that this movie was set earlier than it was made, say in the early 90s.

reply

[–] Jake3988 16 years ago

Today even 10 year old kids have cell phones (Sad as that is). But they were quite popular in '99 just not as insane as today.

reply

[–] OffRoadnTx 16 years ago

Yeah around that time, pagers were much more popular for teens to have... or as I remember, everybody called them "beepers" lol. This goes at least for middle class teens... From what I can remember, here in Texas, cell phones weren't very common for teens (teens being the keyword) until about 2002-2003... maybe a little bit of 2001.

"You just may start a chain reaction." -- Rachel Joy Scott

reply

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] percehonson 16 years ago

Yes you are right, and also his boyfriend had one taped to his balls.

Live Together, Cry Alone!

reply

[–] hardcoreboxing 16 years ago

Ronna had a pager...Claire kept paging her when she was left at Todd the drug dealers house.

Cell phones were not big in 99...and certainly not in 98 or 97.

reply

[–] snoopmish 16 years ago

Pretty much true...back then most people had pagers....even the dealers. People just take them for granted now and assume that they have been this popular..and cheap.....for longer than they have.

reply

[–] wcpeezy12 16 years ago

http://johnaugust.com/

The writer of Go, John August, answered this question

reply

[–] dangus 16 years ago

Here's a direct link to the blog entry: http://johnaugust.com/archives/2008/cellphones

reply

[–] floerajr 16 years ago

i had cell phone in 1997...30 minute plan with LA wireless for 34.00USD a month!
cell phones were around sooner than 1999, why this movie didn't show them....who cares

reply

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Sodominion 16 years ago

One of the unrealistic things about the movie. I'm from Pakistan, a 3rd world country no less, and cellphones were common here in 99. I was in college, well highschool according to usa standards, at that time and even I had a cellphone back then. It's hard to believe that none of the characters in the movie had cellphones. None the less it's still a pretty good movie.

reply

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] aqrd85 15 years ago

i am from the UK, i remember a few people with mobile phones and i think i got my first around 2000/2001 but yeah, a lot of people had pagers back then and it was only the poeple whose parents could afford to buy them a mobile who had them, or the ones who had stolen theirs off someone else.

in the film they had pagers though so it isn't too much of a goof

reply