Looks more 70s than 80s

That's what I was gonna say. From what I know, the whole skating craze started in the mid-70s around the time that Nixon was about to leave office. In the late 70s, there was a different crowd that formed, Punk. You had your choice of the Bee Gees or the Sex Pistols.... or you could be the annoying friend playing your 8-track copy of "Grease" Soundtrack over and over until the tape began to bleed and you suddenly started hearing "Grease lightning" mixed with "Hopelessy devoted."
The roller skating popularity peaked in 78' and, - because the late 70s was also when the whole disco fever started getting hotter, naturally someone conjured up the idea for 'roller disco' movies. In 1979 filming for these roller disco movies began with "Roller Boogie," "Skatetown U.S.A," and "Xanadu" which came out in 1980. These films acheived a wide popularity with a young naive crowd, but it finally skidded and tripped onto the floor in 1982. So the movie "Skateland" really should be about the end of the 70s era, which can clearly be found from the four years 1979-1982. With too many roller disco flicks coming-out all at once, and the introduction of the AIDS pandemic to the world in 1981, those fours years really helped to close the book on an era/culture/mindset. This is the logical perspective, unless you are one of those that believe it ended symbolically with the closing of Studio 54 in 1986.

The real 80s culture started slowly underground in 1979 with post-punk groups like Joy Division and The Knack who were changing the music and the scenes with the development of New Wave (Joy Division turned into New Order after the death of Ian Curtis 1980). At the same time, there was the brewing of Hip Hop and rap. 1980 culture started with the whole 'cowboy' trend, which was short lived, but nonetheless present after the movie "Urban Cowboy" came out. Suddenly everyone was dressing in polyester flannel with tight blue jeans and going to rodeo bars with mechanical bull riding on your birthday. Then there was the whole "Flashdance" craze, of course brought on from the movie. Everyone was trying to go to the gym...or at least dress like they had been at the gym. Girls started to take aerobics and dance classes hoping they would turn out like Jennifer Beals. A European trend started to spread over to America with the electronica house clubbin' scene. It turned into techno here in the US and spawned techno night life. If you were to ask me what sport or activity was to the 80s as skating was to the 70s, I'd say video games. Atari was more popular in the late 70s, but Nintendo got big in the 80s. There was also a spike in the sport of bowling. There were skating rinks, and there still are, but the trend of it, from 82' onward, declined in popularity that was found in the late 70s. The most important thing that happened in the 80s, as far as skating is concerned, was the dawn of the "rollerblade" aka inline skating. Designed back in the 60s, trademarked in 1983, the rollerblading trend came to fruit in the late 80s and continued in popularity into the 1990s. This revolutionized the skating rink and somehow it didn't really agree with a lot of 70s styled skating rinks, mostly because the wheels tended to really mark up those wood floors. Still, they rented them and they still rent them out today. This explains why today's generation can't skate on quad-skates if their life depended on it and it also explains what helped start the trend of lining all the walls in a roller rink with gym mats!

Just based on the trailer, doesn't it involve sort of the end of skating fad as the 80s continue? To me, it definitely has that early 80s feel: still elements of the late 70s and not quite into the high 80s.

yeh the makers inteded it to be early 80s before the iconic trends and fashions of the 80s set in...so it would look more like the 70s than the 80s.
if i remember that was the time when skating was still popular but on the down side.

You have to remember this is a small town in Texas, long before the Internet age. Consequently new fads took a while longer to affect rural areas--especially in the southwest. Also, this is about the end of an era. The skate rink was treading water for some time before the owner decided to sell. He was already there 20 years.

Yeah, too much conspicuous facial hair.






Born when she kissed me, died when she left me, lived whilst she loved me

Thanks.I said the same thing myself.Ashley Greene's character looked 80's but that was about it.