[foldr]

Airplane is mostly physical humor and dumb wordplay. 90% of the jokes would be fine as-is. There are a few you'd have to update, but that's hardly surprising for a movie released 35 years ago. You could have said the same in 1980 about most comedies made in 1945.

[gosub100]

the scene of the arabs walking into the airport with RPGs and machine guns wouldn't make the cut.

[foldr]

Are you talking about this scene from Airplane 2? I don't remember a scene with 'Arabs' going through security in the first one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meFJCeUWDyY

[gosub100]

we're both right|wrong

- no, I was wrong that the person passing thru security was in any possible way "arab"

- yes it's from Airplane 2

- No it's not from the metal detector scene

- Yes it's from Iranians

- No Iranians are not "arabs"

- Yes They are engaged in a stereotypical crime

- No it doesn't involve an RPG

- yes it involves a battle rifle / something that doesn't belong at an airport

https://postimg.cc/0rTzkhyR

[foldr]

I mean the movie came out shortly after this event:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis

I don’t think you are correct that a movie that was made today couldn’t make comedic references to recent world events.