Science fiction writers have often tried to imagine what the future will look like. Take, for example, Jules Verne, who predicted the moon landing in his 1865 novel, ‘From the Earth to the Moon.’ Or how about Aldous Huxley, who came up with the notion of genetic engineering, in his 1931 novel, ‘Brave New World.’
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The same is true in the movies. While we don’t yet have the luxury of a time-traveling DeLorean, as seen in ‘Back to the Future,’ there are still some technologies that were eerily predicted by Hollywood’s greatest screenwriters. Here are just a few of them.
2001: a Space Odyssey (1968)
The late, great Stanley Kubrick made many groundbreaking films, not least this mind-bending sci-fi tale, adapted from a story by Arthur C. Clarke. Not all the gadgetry depicted in the film has yet come to fruition, and we are hopefully a long way from the rogue A.I. that is central to the film’s story. However, Kubrick did come up with a tablet computer that looks suspiciously like an iPad. Furthermore, the iPad was released in 2010, only nine years after the film’s setting. Apple came under fire from Samsung, who accused the company of copying the film prop’s design. You can find out more about the case at Openculture. Of course, it’s unlikely Steve Jobs stole the idea, and Samsung already had a grudge against Apple after the latter tried to sue them for copyright.
Blade Runner (1982)
“I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe” bemoaned Rutger Hauer’s replicant in this Ridley Scott classic. Well, we have seen things too, and we can believe them, as many of Scott’s ideas for 2019 are now present and correct in the present. While we don’t yet have flying hovercars (the shame), we do have skylines littered with neon advertising. We also have Skype and FaceTime which can be accessed through our mobile phones. In the movie, we see Harrison Ford’s character use a pay phone, and he gets to see the person he is talking to on a screen. Of course, pay phones are now a thing of the past (sorry Ridley), but video chat is now commonplace. Blade Runner 2049 is now showing in cinemas. See it now for a vision of our future technology.
The Terminator (1984)
Cybernetics fuses man and machine, and James Cameron gave us a terrifying insight into this technology with the release of this classic 80’s movie. Thankfully, we are a long way from Cameron’s vision of a gun-packing cyborg being sent through time after the fall of humanity. However, cybernetics is something that is already making an impact in our society, and it will have an important role as we progress into the 21st century. Essentially, a cyborg is a human whose physical limitations are supplemented by bionic technology, such as those people who have lost a limb. The field of cybernetics is an interesting one, and we recommend you read the article on Human Paragon as to how new developments will affect humankind for the better.
The future is now
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That’s not all, of course. We also have flying hoverboards, as seen in ‘Back to the Future,’ and driverless cars, as seen in ‘Total Recall.’ So, you want to know what our world is going to look like in the future? Book your cinema tickets and get a sneak preview today.