Movies are always predicting how life in the future might be but how often do they get it right???
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Movies love predicting the
future and we love watching it. Who
doesn’t love a movie set in the future giving us a glimpse of how things may
be. More often than not it’s a future
where there’s been some kind of nuclear catastrophe leaving the world barren,
regressing civilization and reducing mankind to a primitive primeval
state. Sometimes the future is depicted
as some kind of utopia where crime and sickness is a thing of the past. Sometimes it’s a dystopia where everything is
controlled and freedom is lost or social inequalities have become even more
extreme. Whatever the case, it’s intriguing
and it stimulates our imagination.
It got me wondering, how
often do these movie predictions come true?
Let’s have a look at some classics and see if they got it right.
1. Escape from
New York (1981)
This cult classic set in 1997 predicted that crime in the US
would have risen by 400% leading to the conversion of the entire island of
Manhattan in New York to a maximum security prison. Following on from World War 3, Air Force One
is hijacked and crashed into Manhattan leaving an eye patch-toting ex-soldier
by the name of Snake Plissken to go in where no one else dares in order to save
the president.
Well, although I’m sure crime
is bad it’s nowhere near as bad as this film made out. Manhattan, arguably, is not a prison.
Great film.
Predictive accuracy – FAIL
2. The
Terminator (1984)
The seminal time travel
action flick where Arnie as the evil Terminator is sent back in time to kill
Sarah Connor, the woman who would give birth to John Connor who would
eventually lead the future resistance against the evil machines. Never made that much sense due to the paradox
that if Sarah Connor was killed and there was no John Connor in the future then
the Terminator wouldn’t have been sent back in the first place. But arguably it could be a different time
line.
The franchise predicted that
between 1997-2011 a computer called
Skynet became so smart it became self aware and triggered judgment day, a
nuclear attack on mankind with the loss of 3 billion human lives.
A classic movie but real life
artificial intelligence is nowhere near there yet. Just look at how lousy predictive text
messaging is on our phones and okay, Siri was kind of cool when it was first
released but I can’t even get my phone to synch with my laptop properly
sometimes.
Recently there were headlines
about a breakthrough in artificial intelligence research where a computer had
learned what cats were from watching YouTube vidoes. I think it’s pretty safe to say, thankfully,
that we don’t have to worry about self-aware killer machines yet.
Predictive accuracy – FAIL
3. Robocop
(1987)
Predicted that in 1990 we would have cyborg super-cops
patrolling our streets. Always an
interesting satirical franchise with its views regarding the media, corruption,
dystopia and capitalism.
Predictive accuracy – FAIL
4. The Running
Man (1987)
Set in the economically
crushed world of 2019 where the US has become a totalitarian police state.
Well the global economy has definitely taken a hit so that’s one vaguely
positive prediction.
The story involved people taking
part in deadly televised games for the amusement of the masses. This was the first Arnie movie I saw and I
remember when the UK version of The Gladiators started to air in 1992, I
thought that the movies predictions were coming true. Thankfully things never reached the macabre
level depicted in the movie.
Gladiators, what a classic
show. Brings back some real rose-tinted
memories of my childhood. It was like a
family event as we all huddled around the TV on Saturday nights. It’s the reason I still feel like running up
escalators sometimes and the amazing theme tune still gets me:
Predictive accuracy – FAIR
5. Back To The
Future 2 (1989)
Probably the most loved
franchises out of all the movies here.
Marty travels to 2015 to stop
his future son getting into trouble but of course we know that things were not
that straight forward.
A great movie with loads of
crazy ideas about things to come. Flying
cars, hoverboards, super pizza machines, videophones and Jaws 19 the movie in
3D. Well of course we don’t have flying
cars and functioning hoverboards but some of the other ideas may not be as
far-fetched as they seem. The iPhone is
definitely something that would have blown my mind had I seen it as a kid. Movies and games on such a device is firmly
in the realm of the future. I never
thought, growing up, that I would one day be able to play Street Fighter 2 on
my mobile phone – crazy!!
Thankfully there's no Jaws 19 but 3D movies, as everyone knows,
are huge right now. What’s more is that
there are already TVs that feature 3D and do not require glasses. Although not mainstream it already exists so
that’s another successful prediction.
This week NASA just announced
that they are funding the research and development of 3D food printing for
their astronauts with the first item on the menu being pizza. How amazing is that, this is firmly within
the realm of sci-fi.
Despite how funny and silly some
of the scenes looked, predictive accuracy – GOOD
6. Demolition
Man (1993)
An excellent action movie
that tried to scare people into thinking that LA was going to be in chaos in 1996 with a flaming Hollywood sign
featured at the beginning. Wesley Snipes
(Simon Phoenix) is imprisoned, which kinda happened in real life when he was
arrested for tax evasion. The movie then
jumps forward to 2032 when the evil Phoenix
is released from cryo-prison only to go on a killing spree. An apparent utopia with no crime or murder, the police can no longer handle a criminal as dangerous as Phoenix. This leaves no choice but to thaw out 90s
former super-cop John Spartan (Stallone) to track and take down Phoenix. The movie mentions that Schwarzenegger had been president, predicting his foray into politics before he
became governor of California in real life.
Shockingly, up for parole the
same day as Phoenix in the movie is a man called Scott Peterson who, a decade
later in real life, would kill his wife and unborn child.
Eerie stuff!
Eerie stuff!
A great movie that everyone
should watch.
Predictive accuracy – GOOD
7. Timecop
(1994)
Van Damme’s wife died 10
years ago, there’s still time to save her.
One of the best movie tag lines and Van Damme’s highest grossing movie
to date. A decent action film with some
time travelling shenanigans that allowed Van Damme to do what he does best, be
on the screen as multiple personas at the same time. He’s done it in Double Impact, Maximum Risk,
Replicant, briefly in The Order and of course in Timecop as well.
The movie suggested that in 2004 we would have the crappest looking
cars ever and still be listening to minidiscs.
Predictive accuracy – FAIL
8. 2012 (2009)
The date I’m writing this
post is Friday 24th May 2013.
Predictive accuracy – FAIL
So there you have it. Movies on the whole are pretty terrible at
predicting the future but that won’t stop them from trying and it sure won’t
stop us from watching.
Take it easy until next time,
Bobby
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