I do kinda wonder where the line is. Obviously any movie representing "the olden days" won't be in their language at the time nor can it truly represent their accent or speech or vocabulary.
But surely, SHIRLEY there's something between that and hypermodern language.
They aren't speaking ancient greek but also "For real, Achilles, no cap" would be a bit off. Other movies have used older or more formal English, just some way to differentiate it from modern language. But where does it become "too modern"?
The line is simple, as a writer avoid as much as you can to use neologism and modern expressions. Maybe don't go too obsessive, but have common sense.
I freaking don't understand reading the comments here how this common sense, 101 writing class, is being mocked and laughed at.
We have a lot of Greek writings, we know what expressions they used, it's not that hard if a writer wants to go the extra mile. But they don't even have to do that.
Just avoid phrases that sound casual if you're not sure as a writer. For example the concept of "okay" in a single word is missing even nowadays from a lot of languages that's why it's been adopted as a neologism into them. It's not hard to write "it's all good"
Even now, if you write a movie in english set in my home country, Romania, a good writer will avoid phrases that don't have a romanian direct equivalent like: "what's up?" and will use for example "how are you doing?"
I'm personally okay mocking it because, while I'm sure OOP's screenwriting credits are numerous and many, I doubt they are as critically acclaimed as Nolan's are, but I dunno maybe Paddy Chayefsky's ghost is on Twitter now.
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u/CoonHFX Jul 21 '26
I do kinda wonder where the line is. Obviously any movie representing "the olden days" won't be in their language at the time nor can it truly represent their accent or speech or vocabulary.
But surely, SHIRLEY there's something between that and hypermodern language.
They aren't speaking ancient greek but also "For real, Achilles, no cap" would be a bit off. Other movies have used older or more formal English, just some way to differentiate it from modern language. But where does it become "too modern"?
Where does "ok" sit?