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Comment by varjag | Hacker News Reader

There was also oral tradition of reciting the films. Typically one lucky kid who've seen the movie would be the playground hero reciting it to others over and over again: often with some added cool detail that wasn't there.

I got familiar with The Fly and Terminator that way years before watching them firsthand.

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My experience is less extreme than that, but I became familiar with the Star Wars saga by reading the story in a weekly magazine which ran a few pages every week; it had still photos from the movies.

This was West of the Iron Curtain (Finland) but we had no movie theatres nearby.

It's odd, I suppose, but as a kid who grew up in America immersed in Hollywood movies ... we also recited movies to each other.

I'm in my 50s and have a friend who has uncles and cousins in the Colombo family of the Mafia. We would crack each other up at work by saying lines from The Godfather during boring meetings.

Citing lines from movies is perhaps a bit different. Well-known movies have for decades been a part of building culture (national and international).

For instance, I notice I regularly reference a pacifist war movie (from 1955, with two re-makes) that everyone here has seen (and most have read the novel the movies are based on), and at least most men know the dialogue well enough to understand the reference. Perhaps it's part of building cohesion: a reference to history that is shared by all.

You made me remember this kid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLix4QPL3tY

Seems like exactly what you describe. Must have been fun.

It was exactly like that! Down to calling protagonists with their actors' real names.

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