MovieChat Forums > Arthur et les Minimoys (2007) Discussion > Why the heck is this movie set in 1960?

Why the heck is this movie set in 1960?

posted 17 years ago by kedem524
23 replies | jump to latest

Why did they have to make this movie set in a certain period other than the present? Period pieces make sense if it is a movie based on a true story or book that is related with a certain time, or if setting it at a certain time makes it relevant to the plot. However, in this film the 1960 setting has absolutely no relevance. The only advantage for that time setting is that it creates a bit of a more classy feel for the film. And when they set it in 1960 they get a lot of things wrong. "Bendy" plastic straws of the type Arthur used did not exist at that time, no middle aged professional would have listened to rock and roll back then (they were the ones who rebelled against it), and the Minimoys look like the troll dolls, which came out in the 90s! This film would have worked just as well if it were set in 2006. If they wanted to set it in 1960, they should have at least gotten a few things right, and if that would have made for a boring film (which it would) they should have just set it in the present.

[–] nanahuatzin 17 years ago

this is just my opinion... so:

Somehow the story of a tribe of massai like people ( the bogomatasalai), who give an old enginer a bunch of rubies does not fit our today world... where we speak of blood diamonds..

Another is that Arthur would not be building irrigation systems with straws or dreaming to steal a kiss to a fairy princess. Instead he would be playing with and xbox and the internet.

But shurely the reason, is that Besson comented that He sees his childhood reflected in Arthur.

His parents rarely saw him, he had no on to play , there were not computers, videogames, or TV (where he lived) so he had to go outside, where everything could be a toy and subject to fantasy. A rock could be a ship, and a stick a sword.

What probably Besson should have done, is to hire a few americans to help his french crew to recreate an american town of the late fifties... When i saw the movie I really thought it was filmed in the US, but shurely americans should find a little strange this french recreation of a US town made in Normandy

[–] kedem524 17 years ago

You make some valid points, especially with regards to video games and the Internet, but let me dispute some of the things you were saying.

1) The problem of blood diamonds was present in the 60s also. Maybe it wasn't as serious as it is today and people didn't talk much about it, but it still happened.

2) Setting it in the US in 1960 so that Arthur would have no TV doesn't make much sense. Maybe in France where Luc Besson grew up there were a lot of people in the 60s who still didn't have a TV (Europeans were much slower in getting TVs than Americans), but in the U.S. by 1960 almost everyone had a TV and the only ones who did not have one were largely poor or eccentric people. Arthur's family had problems paying the bills for their land, but they were not what you would consider "poor". Also, even if they lived on a farm, almost all rural areas in the eastern United States (this film is set in Connecticut) are close enough to sizeable cities with TV stations to obtain their broadcast signals.

3) Speaking of your comments about kids being too absorbed these days to dream of irrigation canals, let me debunk this by saying that I myself constructed canals in my backyard when I was a kid. I grew up in the early 90s when I had TVs, a personal computer, and video games, but still had the time and interest to dig an elaborate system of canals in my backyard. Maybe I was an anomaly and the percentage of kids who like playing in the outdoors has declined since the 60s but there are still plenty of kids out there who like doing those things.

I agree with you that the 60s American small town in the movie looked a bit awkward. I think they should have filmed this movie in an actual American town rather than somewhere in France. Maybe if they couldn't get an American town quite right, they could have had it set in England. Setting it in England in the 50s would have actually worked well for a fantasy film. As for the rock and roll in the film, they could have had it playing while Arthur was outside and listening to a transistor radio rather than when a middle aged bank official was driving to the house and listening to his car radio.

[–] nanahuatzin 17 years ago

I think you are right in most of the aspects yet we must remember this is the vision of a french director and one that wants his vision on screen.

The so called "blood diamond" problem started in the 90s´du to the conflicts in Ivory Coast. If i remember well (I am 50..) In the 60,s Africa still was a misterious place, we heard little of its conflicts. Of course, this is my perception. It may not be the same for everyone.

For recreating Coneticut in the late 50,s, Bessons and his team based on Norman Rockwell ilustrations, i do not recall seeing TV sets on his illustration, some people even think the film was set in the late 40,s, so probably they took Rockwells work as a reference to imagine a more "idilic" country life, yet they did not want to go to far.. my guess is that 60,s was middle ground..

I spent my childhood in the 60,s where many home in Mexico city still had no TV (my fathers is an engineer, yet we only had a small TV and there was little programtion for children).

When i speak to my daughters of my childhood (they are 8 and 11) it seemed so strange and remote to them... No TV color, no cable TV, no computers, DVD or even videorecorders, no videogames, radios were still expensive so not everyone could afford them (i did not had ). Not all homes had telephone (even in the city).

So probably most people outside the US asume this is the norm. Probably this is one of the many small reasons why this film works best outside the US market. Ohh I also built an irrigation system in my backyard it was fun... but most of my friends found TV more interesting...

I only can guess that like a lots of hollywood movies that prefered to build sets intead of going locations outside US, Besson prefered to build his own american town, where his is nown filming Arthur two and three. (he started in july.. so probably he had ended by now)...

Curiously i do not imagine Arthur hearing Rock and Roll.. after all he dreamed with adventures in Africa... I identify myself with arthur.. maybe is one of the reasons i like this film so much.

I apreciate that are historical errors in the movie. The plastic straws were still not used. The toy car of Arthur was not to by build until 10 years later. The music in the bar was several decades later... etc. Yet i found the story so fun, that i can forguive this small "sins"...

Personally, I did not noticed nothing wrong with the town.. but i assumed that the French recontructions of an American town, has the potential of been as strange as the are mexican towns portraited in Hollywood movies to a mexican... And it seems i was right about it.

[–] moonlady3000 17 years ago

I think the most obvious reason the movie was set in the 60s is - who faces those sorts of problems anymore?
An old house at the edge of a small town that's being industrialized?
Heck, in this day and age if a household doesn't have internet it's outdated - can you picture ANY place in America in this day and age a tribe like the Minimoys could survive like that? The only place that isn't heavily populated in America are the prairie and desert southwest. Neither of which would have the right kind of climate or setting for the movie.

[–] kedem524 17 years ago

Actually, problems with foreclosures and eminent domain are just as prevalent in this day and age as they were in the 60s. And note that the Minimoys were less than an inch tall, so they didn't neeed a large plot of land to survive on. A fairly large suburban backyard would do. Also, even in the more heavily populated areas of the U.S. there are still large areas of open space. Have you heard of the New Jersay pinelands? As for your comment on the Southwest, the setting of this film did actually look like the Southwest without the mountains. The vegetation is too dry for it to be Connecticut. I think it doesn't really matter if the household had Internet or not. Maybe Arthur was one of those kids who's not very much into the Internet.

[–] nanahuatzin 17 years ago

in the end.. i think the real reason are, one is Besson wanted to recreate his childhood images so he choses the 60,s nad two, but because he expected to have a bigger US audience, he decided to set it in the US, after all that is one of the reasons to chose an english speaking cast from the start.

The 60,s were nostalgic enough.. but i think as a french he may have a diferent image of the US in the 60,s. To be exact, Norman Rockwell image. I bet to the american this should look as a postcard... Which probalby is what Besson wanted. or as the movie tell us.. This story started in Africa.. but this is not africa but Conneticut..."...

I think a creative an imaginative kid as Arthur would enjoy much the internet, except that probalby he would choose slashdot.org, www.sciam.com or www.archaeology.org instead of www.mtv.com

[–] CountVladDracula 16 years ago

Strange how the Bowie song let's dance is briefly heard in the film and yet it wasn't written until 1983.

[–] kedem524 16 years ago

This is exactly why this movie should not have been set in 1960.

[–] imdb4400 16 years ago

and the bee gees was heard in the movie it was released in the 70's

[–] blackasp98 16 years ago

Boy none of you have any type of imaginations, who cares what song was in the movie, i thoroughly enjoyed this film in ever way. Using the bee gees or s'express didn't matter to me what so ever. It set the mood for a bar fight which to me was cleverly done. In the 60's blood diamonds were mined by africans yes. But did you see any type of slave in the tribal men? no, they most likely mined them themselves for traditional reasons or currency for bartering. And they were RUBIES, not diamonds yeesh too many politics ranging in here for no reason. Do you really think this tribe would allow themselves to be slaves?. I mean they stand nearly seven feet tall each carrying spears, so no i don't think they are slaves. They are a strong tribe with very good intentions for all people of the world including arthur who may i remind you people was in london attending school, which of course culture shocked his voice to theirs which gave you a child that spoke with a british accent. So what, it also added to the flavor of the movie. I think luc besson did a great job of this film, people bashing it endlessly makes me very angry, and so what if the country side was filmed in france, and that a cottage or farm house was used for some of the plot. Land is land no matter where you are, city, country, the moon, so having a trip to minimoy land was a test to arthur for the fact he turned a year older, resulting in a sort of initiation to get his grandfather from the evil clutches of maltazard and falling in love which every boy does in his life. And help save a small people who love him dearly after the crusade was done and his grandfather was back home. So this movie to me was a very fun ride to take and made me laugh and wondered if there was such a place. As for you all who critisized it for more political reasons i think you need to look for another childhood memory and see what comes up, because i don't think minimoys care what you think of their music selections, as long as it makes for a good fight dance club.

[–] BennyM 16 years ago

Just like We Will Rock You (released in 1977) was clearly anachronistic for A Knight's Tale (set in the 14th century). How could they miss that?

[–] firstRainbowRose 16 years ago

I think that everyone who freaks out about time errors is thinking about this way too much. It's a kids movie -- meaning that it was made for people who don't care if a song hadn't been written. They just want to laugh at the bad guys getting clothes-lined by the record player.

They also don't care if straws that bend weren't around, all they care about is trying to convince mom and dad into buying them some so they can make their own iragation system.

Think about the audience, and then watch it. (Or even, just let go of your own grasp on the real world.) I mean, I'm 21, and I really enjoyed the film. I didn't get some great message out of it, like I might have out of something else, but I did get a good feeling -- and I didn't even care that one of the great Mathazar's songs was playing way before he had written it. (Although, that might have been because I was being distracted by the idea of splicing audio from the movie and video with Laby together to make something... but I doubt it.)

[–] nicklinn 16 years ago

". And when they set it in 1960 they get a lot of things wrong. "Bendy" plastic straws of the type Arthur used did not exist at that time"

The flexible drinking straw was invented in 1937 and the plastic one of that type had been mainstream since the 50s and quite popular in malt and soda fountains of the 50s.

[–] AnUnnamedGalaxy 16 years ago

and the Minimoys look like the troll dolls, which came out in the 90s!

Okay, so they look like toys that came out after they were born. . not a big deal. . thats like saying its a mistake for people to look like Barbies or babies to look like baby dolls simply because they came out after real humans did. . .

And since when is it bad to have movies set in different time periods?

And yes, it could have worked just fine if it were set in present time, but it didnt take place then, and there wasnt much that screamed 1960, outside of the older car and lack of the chubby kid sitting on the couch with a can of soda playing an Xbox.

And as for some of the other points, they can be easily overlooked, its a fantasy films (not to mention children films), which always takes a few liberties to make things more fun.

Dollhouse - Mondays - Jan 2009
Tomb Raider Underworld - Nov 2008

[–] lisalaurine 16 years ago

I didn't realize it was a period piece I was too busy trying to understand the storyline! But I think, this just what I interpreted, the specific period could be based on colonialism. It seemed to me that the storyline revolved around a metaphor of real revolutions in the colonized world of the 1950s-60s. The minimoys wanting to be free of the imposing rule of Maltazard has Arthur help them not with a revolution per se but to overcome his imposing power on their lands and lives. Maltazard could represent either the colonial countries or an imperialists who refuses to listen to the colonial subjects until they fire back...I could be wrong but that's what I took away from the film. Everyone's interpretation is different.

[–] Lisa-1535 15 years ago

Troll dolls were a HUGE fad starting in 1963 - we all had them and collected them.

Plastic bending straws were also around prior to the 60's.

I also grew up in CT at that time and we couldn't get reception at my house in Canterbury until 1971, even then we had to try and tweak the antenna to make it work.

I personally thought this was well done, it seems to me like the right time period for this movie.

[–] pufnstuff 15 years ago

This is true abt the TV... I grew up mostly in the 70's, and we didn't get a TV until 1981.

Snoogans.