Sometimes a film or television programme depicts the future or makes a joke about it, and those watching at the time of broadcast just laugh off the joke. However, there are occasions when the movie makes a future prediction in some fashion, whether it’s just a subtle nod in the plot or a background Easter egg. Which films can we look back on and identify as prophets of our day, given how our world is changing every day as a result of technology and nature?
Back to the Future: Part 2
The follow-up forewarned us of the unavoidable follow-ups to come. Given that Jaws 19 came out just two years after Jaws: The Revenge, the scene in which Marty first sees the enormous 3D board seemed absurd at the time it was filmed.
Thankfully, Nike made the self-lacing shoes a reality a few years ago and gave the first pair to Michael J. Fox himself, so that wasn’t the only thing it foresaw.
Contagion
Everyone who is reading this lived to see 2020 (and if you didn’t, I have a lot of issues about how you read), so we are all aware of the complete shitshow that the years since have produced.
Even though Contagion’s depiction of the end-of-the-world event was considerably grimmer than what actually happened, with even more catastrophic numbers than were witnessed in reality, all the same events happened disturbingly similarly.
After visiting Hong Kong on business, Gwyneth Paltrow’s character became patient zero. Jude Law’s conspiracy blogger promoted homoeopathic treatments (at least it wasn’t horse dewormer?). The breakdown as people isolated and things deteriorated as a result of the theories about how the virus was created and spread. Since then, the world hasn’t been particularly pleasant, and Contagion had it right almost ten years earlier.
Demolition Man
Hear me out: The Franchise Wars were a forerunner, but no one anticipated it to be a cold war centred on corporate espionage and sabotage.
The real-life equivalent hasn’t done nearly as well, as McDonald’s still lords over everything with an iron hand. In Demolition Man’s future, Taco Bell may have triumphed in a glorious battle over McDonald’s in the Franchise Wars.
But does it really matter if the same people hold the majority of franchised brands? Because there are only two or three firms in the world that currently possess practically every franchise.
Her
With new chatbots being released every day and consumers being duped by AI-generated art and movies virtually every day now, AI has recently experienced a boom that has caused many creatives and even more industries to scramble. We might have gotten a little too close to the sun now, though.
Nowadays, AI girlfriends and even AI-generated chat partners are advertised everywhere online and in applications. Many people have started long-term relationships with artificial entities, much as how Joaquim Phoenix fell in love with the voice assistant in Her. But is this surprising? No, it seems to be more like the next step in the evolution of the anime body pillow—just something to give lonely individuals a sense of purpose and belonging.
But they can still be fairly strange.
I Am Legend
I Am Legend caused a small gasp and finger-pointing from everyone in the theatre when Will Smith passed by a big poster promoting a Batman v. Superman movie in Times Square on the day of its release.
Although the movie fell short of the book it was based on, this easter egg did provide Will Smith with a little respite from the vampire horde.
Idiocracy
This one is the saddest of all because, although the movie is set 500 years in the future, we have already experienced half of what was promised after only twenty years.
Everything from corporate endorsements of public figures (“Brought to you by Carls’ Jr.”) to the absurd levels of waste and ignorance among people.
Then there’s the automation of everything, except in the cheapest and worst methods imaginable, and the eventual abolition of humans in favour of machines.
This is even before the recent abolition of any environmental regulations, which only makes me fear the day when some moron decides to use Gatorade as a fertiliser for crops.
We could write an entire article about how America has become more uneducated since idiocracy and we wouldn’t even begin to touch the surface, especially with anti-intellectualism on the increase.
Minority Report
The world is listening. When you believe you’re alone, someone is listening and watching to hear every word you say. The USA, not Minority Report, where the Precogs had the power to listen in on everything and determine who might be a criminal!
George W. Bush signed the Patriot Act into law during his administration, and once Edward Snowden exposed the NSA, the rest of the American public became aware of it.
In plainer terms, the government has been “preventing terrorism” by listening in on everything, everywhere, at once, using a machine to scan everything for words or phrases. What fun is dystopia?
Robocop
Oh wow, there’s a lot to say about projecting the future of American law enforcement between Robocop and Judge Dredd.
On the one side, Robocop depicts an extremely binary system of justice where nearly everything might result in the death penalty, which is carried out by drones or programmed robot officers.
In Judge Dredd, we see the cop being given the authority to be the city’s judge, jury, and executioner, allowed to decide for themselves when a crime is being committed, and frequently choosing to kill individuals outright for the smallest infraction of the law.
Then we arrive in contemporary America, when law enforcement is frequently given a simple warning while using drones anywhere it pleases. It’s almost humorous how dystopian it is.
The Truman Show
The sheer number of people who have started live streaming their daily lives is giving off a more self-aware Truman Show vibe, albeit perhaps not in the way we pictured The Truman Show playing out in real life.
Even worse, some children today are starting to act like Trumans, with their parents sharing every moment of their lives online in exchange for likes and retweets from people they want to follow them on social media.
With any luck (and probably a lot of treatment), the majority of these youngsters won’t experience what so many others did before them, including former Disney stars and child performers from the 1980s and 1990s who were abused and had their mental health destroyed.
Titanic
Titanic Rose used subpar materials, lived in extravagant luxury, and eventually dumped everything to the bottom of the sea with the ghosts of the Titanic’s wreck.
Does it quite fit up, and it might be offensive, that the OceanGate submarine diverted millions of cash to the debris in a same manner? Remember: Think twice before messing with the water unless your name is James Cameron.
