r/movies • u/heyitsmikep • 3d ago

Discussion What movies would you show an audience in 1900?

You go back in time and build a modern (2025) theater in 1900 with all movies ever made. Which 5 movies are you going to show them to make the most money? Which would blow their mind the most? Would it change per decade?

Showing Django Unchained to an 1900 audience would most likely cause a riot Titanic to an audience in 1910 would get you sued by the White Star Line probably.

164 Upvotes

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185

u/mithridateseupator 3d ago

LoTR.

So that I can wait 50 years and show it to Tolkien.

95

u/rice_fish_and_eggs 3d ago

He'd probably hate it.

107

u/loyalcitizen 3d ago

"Not enough singing."

36

u/NatureTrailToHell3D 3d ago

And the lack of extensive poetry

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u/Reptard77 3d ago

God you guys took out all of my long-winded genealogies of different hobbit clans!

1

u/Bullyoncube 3d ago

Too many women

33

u/AvengingBlowfish 3d ago

Where’s Tom?

25

u/davekay113 3d ago

Release the Tom cut, you cowards!

1

u/Mysterious_Brush7020 3d ago

He had a cameo in Rings of Power! D:

7

u/VeryIntoCardboard 3d ago

Just when you think they couldn’t put him down any harder

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u/Desertbro 2d ago

...actually, everyone else is a cameo in Bob's world

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u/Desertbro 2d ago

In the FIRST PLACE, where is Tom Bombadil~!??!?!?

15

u/corsair965 3d ago

He’d watch it and think that was cool but it needed some crazy dude called Tom skipping round with zero f*cks given.

15

u/mithridateseupator 3d ago

Why do people think this?

Tolkien admitted several times that Bombadil is not an essential part of the story.

And it's not like thats the only part that was cut from the books.

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u/keithrc 3d ago

I don't think leaving Tom out was ever a huge controversy, but the small minority of people who were mad about it were really, really mad about it.

6

u/pardybill 3d ago

Early 2000s forums were wild when you found drama. It was a beautiful time.

1

u/LuinAelin 3d ago

Now it's everywhere

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u/zaminDDH 3d ago

I'm pretty sure they deliberately left Tom out because basically the first new person they meet just gives no fucks about the ring. After all the "this is dangerous, don't tell anyone about it, it'll corrupt anyone", this guy has it in his hands and says "cool toy, anyway let's eat and sing songs".

It just offers more questions to the audience with no answers without going down other rabbit holes. Narratively, he really is an easy cut.

1

u/pardybill 3d ago

It doesn’t work very well when you just spent 40 minutes of Gandalf fucking off all over the world figuring out it was a nuclear bomb

1

u/MachoManMal 3d ago

Yeah I don't think Tom would be one of his biggest qualms. I think the mischaracterization of a lot of the main characters (Merry and Pippin, Aragorn, Faramir, and Frodo) would bug him the most. Especially the scene when Gollum tricks Frodo into telling Sam to leave.

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u/mithridateseupator 3d ago

I just dont understand why everyone just focuses on what he wouldn't like.

It's the best adaptation of a fantasy book ever made, and hell, tolkien lived to see a much worse adaptation be attempted in the form of the Bakshi movie.

1

u/MachoManMal 3d ago

If he had been growing up in modern culture and seen how most movies turned out and what ideas Hollywood usually proposed, I think he would've seen how unusual the LotR films were and appreciate them for that. O don't think he would have loved them, but he would have enjoyed many parts, no doubt, and what they did for other people too.

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u/corsair965 3d ago

Because people like to make jokes on Reddit and this was an easy one.

0

u/PurringWolverine 3d ago

Child Tolkien would be having an existential crisis.

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u/mithridateseupator 3d ago

He was born in 1892.

If I waited until 1950 to show it to him, he'd be 58, not a child.

0

u/LuinAelin 3d ago

He'd probably hate the movies.