Note: This OP was made using portions of the OP of the TRS thread, which was written by The Mayor of Simpleton.
Unintentional Period Piece is a ridiculously misused trope. The trope is supposed to be for when a work is full of things that make the work firmly dated to its era, such as fashion, technology, societal attitudes, etc.
Instead, it is used for anything even remotely dated in a work, along with merely dated settings and, in some cases, intentionally dated things. It is ridiculously misused. The trope is supposed to be for when a work is so ridiculously dated and full of culture at the time it was written, that it becomes a Period Piece despite not intending to be one. However, it instead gets used for anything that is dated in a work, as well as sometimes intentional Period Pieces. It was also moved to YMMV by TRS because of its subjective nature.
Cleanup work for the TRS thread
was deferred here, with the following work to do:
- Examples are only valid if a work is full of things that make the work firmly dated to its era, such as fashion, topical references, societal attitudes, etc. Example need to be moved thusly:
- Valid examples on Trivia/ subpages need to be moved to the corresponding YMMV/ subpages due to Unintentional Period Piece being reclassified as an Audience Reaction instead of Trivia.
- Examples that take place in Present Day without being particularly dated should be moved to the work's main page under Present Day.
- Examples that revolve entirely about the technology present in the work being dated should be moved within Trivia as an example of Technology Marches On.
- Works that take place in either an Alternate History or a completely fictional world do not count for either Unintentional Period Piece or Present Day and should be removed.
- Since this is YMMV, examples are only allowed on YMMV pages, per What Goes Where on the Wiki.
- Progress is being tracked using the Intentional Wick Cleaning Piece sandbox.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 27th 2023 at 8:17:45 AM
The hate against Thundercats Roar didn't just go away. People still hated it when that episode came out, it's just the hate wasn't as intense as it was when the trailers were first released. So I wouldn't say the episode was dated.
Edited by SharkToast on May 6th 2024 at 12:24:48 PM
Everybody, Everybody!
It might be more of an example of Production Lead Time since it was released well after the worst of the hate for Thundercats Roar had died down.
Everybody loves the me! I’m a great athlete!
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
It's possible for UPP and Production Lead Time to intersect (as mentioned in the latter's page,) but this is not one of those cases.
Regardless, it hasn't yet been 10 years. The removal was correct.
Edited by RallyBot2 on May 6th 2024 at 4:14:28 AM
ThunderCats Roar actually released on February 2020 (for whatever reason it took 2 years from the trailer for the show to actually come out) so that TTG episode only came out a few months after its premiere.
I'm not sure what's dated about it though, the episode came out while TCR was still on so there's no Production Lead Time problems, and TCR was cancelled some months later but that shouldn't make the episode an Unintentional Period Piece as (most) shows end some day.
If the episode was specifically about TCR being "new" it may be a (weak) example of Production Lead Time.
Regardless, it's already been cut correctly for UPP.
On the topic of ten years, the description features this section: “unless the situation is especially unusual. (Being completely overtaken by events by time of airing, and being called "instantly dated" by the press, have both qualified in the past.)” How would that affect this example from YMMV.Star Trek Discovery S 1 E 04 The Butchers Knife Cares Not For The Lambs Cry?
- Unintentional Period Piece: Lorca's line about Stamets being remembered alongside Elon Musk aged rather poorly. At the time he was mostly known for running SpaceX and Tesla, but only a few years later he largely destroyed his public reputation after buying Twitter for $44 billion and spending the next year mismanaging it into losing well over half its valuation. This led to jokes that this was an early clue that Lorca was from the Mirror Universe.
"A few years later" means not immediately overtaken. Cut.
(Additionally, random celebrity/pop culture references aren't what UPP is for anyway.)
Yeah, something like that is way too minor.
The thing about a period piece is that it's about the work as a whole. It's tone, it's visual design, it's dialogue, throughout.
Not an individual line here or outdated bit of phone technolgy here or there.
Biggest ZeroLenny Stan
That's Hilarious in Hindsight masked as the wrong thing. Change it to that and it should be fine.
Edited by ReginaldOgron5 on May 8th 2024 at 6:34:06 AM
It's not about the gold; it's about the glory.
Found this on Recap.Duck Tales S 2 E 1 Time Is Money:
- Unintentional Period Piece: Bubba and Tootsie's behavior leads to Mrs. Beakley getting banned from the Duckburg Rose Society until May of 1999.
Pure "a date is mentioned which is now in the past". Anyone mind if I cut?
EDIT: ![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
Have done now.
Edited by DoktorvonEurotrash on May 9th 2024 at 11:52:44 AM
Go ahead.
I went ahead and cut listed a whole bunch of episode recap YMMV pages where the only tropes were misused examples of this.
It was mentioned that UnintentionalPeriodPiece.Special Cases is on Administrivia.Overly Long Pages. Are there any other examples on that page that need cleanup?
Girl Gang Disaster
I brought it up here and it was stated that examples that don't fit should be cut. I haven't had a chance to start in on it yet but if you see examples that don't fit, cut with no mercy.
Another form of common misuse is “work refers to a person as still being alive, when that person has since died”.
Nintendo Fanatic Extraordinaire
Once again, an Unintentional Period Piece has to be unintentional, not retroactively seen as such.
Unfortunately, most examples are seen as retroactive period pieces (and thus intentional). Those can be easily cut.
Kirby is awesome.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
...I'm not sure I get your logic. How is a "retroactive" example intentional? Most of the time it's just fans overanalyzing.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Nintendo Fanatic Extraordinaire
See the OP of the thread.
That's how I interpret the OP as the misuse is mostly things retroactively seen as dated. It could be that I interpret it differently.
Edited by Nen_desharu on May 14th 2024 at 2:07:46 PM
Kirby is awesome.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
My point is that it wouldn't render those things intentional. It's just not relevant enough to be more than a nitpick.
Edited by WarJay77 on May 14th 2024 at 2:09:39 PM
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
From YMMV.Oliver And Company:
- Unintentional Period Piece: Far more than most of Disney's animated films (which are either timeless or set in the far past). This film is undeniably set in The '80s—a calendar in the background sets the date of April 20th, 1988 on the day Oliver meets Dodger and the others, and obviously made in the '80s. The clothing, hairstyles, and general environment drive home the era the film is from. Also, since municipal animal control cracked down on them in the '90s, street dogs are much rarer in New York now than they were when this film was released in 1988 (cats, however, are still everywhere). As mentioned on the main page, this could be a reason why Disney didn't release the film on home video until 1996.
Is this just "80s movie takes place in the 80s"?
Everybody, Everybody!
If there’s an intentional date of it being set in The '80s, it is not an Unintentional Period Piece. It just feels like a shoehorn, when probably the 80s style was the point. By this same logic, is Wreck-It Ralph gonna be dated in another decade because it was obviously set in The New '10s?
Edited by CanuckMcDuck1 on May 14th 2024 at 4:24:07 AM
Everybody loves the me! I’m a great athlete!
Girl Gang Disaster
That's more Present Day.
From The Simpsons S 5 E 11 Homer The Vigilante
- Unintentional Period Piece:
- The scene where the kids mistake Homer for MC Hammer firmly dates the the episode to the early 90s, when Hammer was still considered a household name prior to his notorious fall from grace into the Butt-Monkey of the hip-hop world.
- The gag about the saxophonist being chased by the vigilantes because he purchased the saxophone at Sears (and they began the encounter thinking that the saxophone is Lisa's stolen instrument) shows the episode was done during the time that Sears was still a sales giant instead of a dying brand (with only 13 stores left overall - 12 in the U.S. and one in Puerto Rico - as of January 2024).
The first seems valid, but the second seems like misuse as it's just someone buying something at Sears, which was a retail giant until a few years ago and doesn't narrow the time frame much, if at all.
Girl Gang Disaster
Cut it. It's just "store once existed and now does not."
But it's very clearly not unintentional. They were referencing a real-life controversy of the time, deliberately, 100% on purpose.
A reference to historical events that were ongoing at the time the work was created is different than an outdated reference.