Context in 1979 - Media [slideshow]

Context in 1979 - Media

The Culture of 1979

Music

As the 1970’s came to a close we saw the punk movement coming to something of a close signalled by the suicide of Sid Vicious, troubled bassist for the Sex Pistols, as well as the more poppy side of music, predominantly disco, dying down in favour of more synthesiser based music such as New Wave, and bands such as the Specials and Madness becoming more popular. With this change in tide Joy Division chose to move away from their punk influences and became pioneers of the post-punk movement, laying the groundwork for alternative rock with their more experimental style, along with bands such as Siouxsie and The Banshees (pronounced Sue-zee) and Public Image Ltd, a band run by John Lydon, former frontman for the Sex Pistols.

Games

 In the year 1979 many pioneering computer games were released or created, such as Flight Simulator for the Apple II, paving the way for the series of flight simulation games. Other games that came out at this time to set the stage for the future of gaming include Galaxian, the first true colour arcade game, and classic arcade games such as Atari’s Asteroids, Lunar Lander and Adventure, the first action-adventure game on a video console. Along with this Richard Bartle and Rob Trubshaw created what is commonly recognised as the first playable MUD (text based games such as Zork), simply referred to as Multi-User Dungeon. At this time Activision was also formed.

At this time Matell’s intellivision games console, the first 16-bit console, was released, with it being the only console by the company until 2006 with the HyperScan. The Intellevision was also actually the first console to feature the ability to download games, but came with the obvious problem of storage and the need for a cable line. The first handheld console, the Microvision from the Milton Bradley Company, and Texas Instruments T1-99/4 home computer also came out this year, with the latter coming out for the low price of $1,150.

Not all releases were milestones in the games market, however, with Konami released Space King/ Space King 2, a Space Invaders clone that featured the exact same graphics and characters. Nintendo releases its own, Space Fever, in the same year.

It wasn’t all video games to come out in this year, either, with the popular board games Trivial Pursuit and Guess Who? being released at this time too.

Films

Some hugely influential films came out at this time too, with Ridley Scott’s Alien kicking off the franchise, and not only becoming one of the most popular and influential films in the sci-fi genre, but also being credited as one of the best blends of horror and science fiction in cinema history.

Mad Max also came out and propelled Mel Gibson’s career to become one of the biggest action stars in history, with him going on to the hugely popular Lethal Weapon franchise, which itself influenced National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon.

Apocalypse Now was released in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, characterised in Roger Ebert’s review as “It is not about war so much as about how war reveals truths we would be happy never to discover”. The film received critical acclaim and to this day has a Rotten Tomatoes rank of 99% “certified fresh”.

In British cinema Scum, directed by Alan Clarke and starring Ray Winstone was released, portraying the brutality of life inside a British Borstal, and while the film has become one of the most controversial British films at this time, the borstal system was reformed in 1982 and the film was allowed to be shown on British television by 1983.