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Comment by throw0101a | Hacker News Reader

Meta: for those unfamiliar, 1.21 GW is a reference to the 1985 movie Back to the Future. Clip of the scene in question:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDuZqYeNiOA

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_Future

If you haven't seen it, the entire trilogy is worth checking out: very fun and quite family friendly.

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If you are a regular HN reader who is (or was until this post) unfamiliar with Back to the Future, I'd love to know three more random facts about your life. In my world view, you are part of a fascinatingly small group of people.

Part 3 came out in 1990. So, anyone born after (less than 34 years old) who didn't bother to go back and watch it, would be sufficient? I'm familiar with the series' existence, but had no idea what 1.21 reference was. AMA, hah.

I have kids that are in their late 20s. They never watch older movies unless someone forces them to. There is so much new media coming out that they don’t feel the need to watch older movies, even if everyone is telling them it is very good.

Couldn't you put that media on when they were kids?

I know movie nights are not a thing every family does but I'd imagine having one day modern movie, one day oldish from 80-90a, another day a classic from the 40s, etc.

Wouldn't that have worked if you started from when they were young?

I'm just thinking as that is my plan for when/it I have kids: mix older media with new one and just enjoy it with them. If it is truly good and not just nostalgia, they should be enjoyable even as a rewatch.

I could have, but honestly I watch very little media and the few times I sit down to watch a movie, it has been something new that catches my eye.

I’ve been on the BTTF ride at… wherever in Florida it is, and I loved that as a teenager. The films just never really appealed though for some reason. I guess one related fact would be I have a lot of gaps like that in the movies I have seen. For instance, people are often shocked that I’ve never see any of the Indiana Jones movies (also loved the rides!); but Star Wars I could probably recite the scripts of.

I don’t think I have any other facts that are very interesting, but then again I didn’t think not having seen BTTF was all that interesting either. For the record I was familiar with 1.21GW and what it related to… I don’t live under a rock!

Since the franchise hasn't been rebooted like so many others, it hasn't seem the $$$ marketing that would introduce it to new generations.

Like The Princess Bride or Labyrinth, BTTF currently remains a phenomenom of the 80's and 90's -- familiar to most from that time and deeply treasured by some, but not refreshed and sustained the way the Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel/DC, etc brands have been.

And if you're an HN reader and already know and love Back to the Future, then the Captain Disillusion's 2 part YouTube video about how the visual effects used ground breaking computer control of cameras to advance the state of the art is a good recommendation:

https://youtu.be/AtPA6nIBs5g?si=QidOC7VEn6mxXjBK

I’d love to normalise pronouncing gigabyte as jigabyte

I thought they mean "jiggawatts" in the movie, i.e. more than bazzillion watts. Where do people pronounce gigawatts like that?

On movie sets back when no one used "giga-" in daily conversation.

The French dub is famous (in France of course) for saying gigowatts.

Giga just wasn't as commonly used an SI prefix as it is now I guess.

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