Historical Inaccuracies in Air
Outrage! I just watched the movie Air, and and enjoyed it quite a bit except for a glaring historical accuracy. No, I’m not talking about combining real-life people into one character for the sake of the plot, nor imagined dialog. Instead, I’m talking about the real important stuff, the skateboarding! The scene happens early (about 14 mins) in the movie, and 40 year old sneaker designer Peter Moore is seen skateboarding in the parking lot of Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. He’s on a somewhat era appropriate skateboard doing kickflips in 1984!
There are better pics to be taken of this scene in the movie, but my family was already irritated at me for stopping the stream and trying to capture a still on my camera.
I’m not discounting the possibility that In 1984, real person Peter Moore was skateboarding in the parking lot, even though at 40 years of age that would have been unusual for the era. I imagine most of the few 40 year olds who were skateboarding in 1984 would have had late 70’s or early 80’s skateboards, so this style of board would have certainly been possible, but it would have already been a couple years old and/or certainly not brand spanking new.
What about the ollie kick flip in 1984? Rodney Mullen was probably doing those in his freestyle routine, on a freestyle board. Natas Kaupas was certainly ollieing pretty high in 1984, as evidenced in the September 1984 issue of Thrasher. What about a 40 year old man in suburban Oregon? If anything, he would have been doing the pre-ollie kick flip, the kind where you hook your front foot under the rail and jump up. That’s just another reminder that what everyone calls a kickflip these days used to be called an “ollie kickflip” to distinguish between the two. Gradually, people just stopped doing the original. and newer generations never saw the the original.
In all seriousness, it’s a good movie if you’re at all interested in 80’s culture, Basketball, sneaker culture, business… light entertainment.
P.S. Jordan (GOAT) > LeBron.
