Is there something about the wristwatch?
In the Electric Dreams episode entitled The Father Thing a particular thing didn't process for me.
Towards the end Greg Kinnear's father-thing character and the boy's mother are worried because their son hasn't come home yet. He says
"It's not the first time he's forgotten about the time, is it? Let's give it an hour.
If he doesn't show up, We'll drive around the neighborhood."
While doing so, he looks at his wristwatch and the view cuts to the detail of the watch face.
It really seemed to me that the action was more than incidental or accidental. Upon closer inspection, half of the watch face used Arabic numerals and half used Roman numerals. It also appears to be cracked or damaged, perhaps.
At first I thought it was supposed to convey that the watch was an indication that it was made artificially by beings that didn't understand humans, but then I found out what a California dial is and further convinced myself that any damage was probably caused when it was taken from the real father.
But that still leaves me wondering what the function of this odd cut was. We all know what you see when you look at a wristwatch, and the actual time does not seem to be important.
Perhaps it is linked to something earlier that I didn't notice? Or maybe the person who directed it (Michael Dinner) is known for using such images as flavor?
Pictures about "Is there something about the wristwatch?"
What was the purpose of the wristwatch?
Wristwatches were first used in the 19th century by the military to synchronize maneuvers during the war. Since then, specialized watches have been used in the depths of the ocean by divers and high up in the sky by aviators.What was the wristwatch originally called?
In 1505, a German locksmith by the name of Peter Henlein invented the world's first portable pocket-sized clock. It acquired the name watch from sailors who used it to replace the hourglasses they used to time their 4-hour shifts of duty, or watches. And the name has stuck ever since.Why is it called wristwatch?
A: When the noun \u201cwatch\u201d showed up in Anglo-Saxon times (spelled w\xe6cce or w\xe6ccan in Old English), it referred to wakefulness, especially keeping awake for guarding or observing. That sense of wakefulness probably led to the use of \u201cwatch\u201d for a timepiece.How old is the wrist watch?
The concept of the wristwatch goes back to the production of the very earliest watches in the 16th century. Some people say the world's first wristwatch was created by Abraham-Louis Breguet for Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples, in 1810.Duran Duran - Is There Something I Should Know? (Official Music Video)
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: MART PRODUCTION, MART PRODUCTION, Miguel Á. Padriñán, Ron Lach