Retro Tech is Cool

So I'm watching Monsters, Inc. last night (I'm becoming a Pixar Junkie) and I noticed that while the movie portrays an alternative world that is at least as sophisticated, if not more so (I mean, they can harness energy from screams!), all the machines had a retro, analog look. Check it out - the machines that fetch the doors have simple, analog light displays, the meters recording each scream-canister's volume is a simple thermometer/pressure gauge, and most of the interfaces are dominated by dials, levers, and other analog controls. The most sophisticated technology, it seems, is the Monsters' Training Room, dominated by closed-circuit television and puppetry. And while the television ad for the power plant alludes to Virtual Reality training, you never see it in action.

Okay, so I'm being a bit obsessive by tearing apart the technology of a fictional world, but look at other recent or popular movies. The Matrix series, the Aliens series, The Terminator series: all of these visions of the future feature grungy, messy, greasy machines and technologies that look as much like the 19th century as the 21st and beyond. And I'm not talking about the machine portrayed themselves (I mean, I haven't seen flow-metal humanoid robots lately, have you?), but rather the overall style the technology portrays.

So why is this? Is grungy cooler than clean? Or is it that the more tactile, analog, dystopian look gives a more "real" feeling? I mean, look back to the classic 2001. Even though the technology doesn't necessarily work well (HAL being one big opps), it looks clean, shiny, and new. And while I love watching that movie, the "clean" look seems both idealistic and dated - like drawings of rocket cars and Jetson-style furniture. Perhaps today's grittier sci-fi look will be a style that seems dated in another 30 years or so?

Of course, it could also be a reaction, a visual symbol of our collective loss of faith in technology. In the 1960's people actually believed the technology was the answer: feed the world, eliminate both monetary and social classes, and engender a new Eden. Now we've lived with decades of technology's results: tons of pollution, spam, corporate predidation, and an overly-sped-up pace of life (to name a few results). Perhaps we believe in the dystopic future because we've lost faith in the ideal?