The Future is Now! 10 Years of Movie Predictions
Replicants! Hoverboards! Vampires! Apocalypse! We're in for a turbulent decade, according to the movies...
If, like us, you began the New Year with the thought that it's only five years 'til we get to ride hoverboards, the decade ahead would seem to be full of amazing technology and stuff. But if movies are to be believed, there'll be a lot more to worry about in the next 10 years than the matter of "Where the hell are our flying cars, anyway?" It starts with alien contact and a viral outbreak. Then there are nuclear wars, economic collapses, killer tsuanmis, fascist takeovers, unhinged replicants and giant lizards to look forward to. If the movies are right, the future's so bright you'd better wear those 3-D glasses as protective shades.
2010 --- Alien Contact!
According to 2010: The Year We Make Contact, this is the year we travel to the moons of Jupiter, reboot HAL-9000 and get flashed by alien lightning. This 1984 film did correctly predict that Beijing would host the 2008 Olympics so we should assume the rest of the vision will play out in the next 11 months! But much more tangible aliens are already on Earth, living in South Africa and due to be evicted from their District 9 slum on the specific date of August 9. Another bad decision made in 2010? Putting Jason Vorhees into cryogenic suspension until it can be decided what should be done with him. WTF? He's a demented serial killer, people! Thus, the hideous events of Jason X in 2455.
2011--- We're Fluxed!
Future-feature Aeon Flux brings the cheery news that next year 99% of the world's population dies in a viral outbreak. As you'll soon see, though, considering what's coming after that it seems like something of a merciful outcome. But the 1% who do survive get to hang with mysterious assassin Charlize Theron, decked out in figure-hugging black leather -- reason to live right there.
2012 --- Apocalypse Now!
Roland Emmerich's spectacular disaster mega-mix 2012 declares that space-neutrino-hoodoo-voodoo will cause the Earth to be first rocked by massive earthquakes, then subsumed by massive tsunamis and finally swallowed by gaping plot holes. But according to I Am Legend, by 2012 Will Smith will be the only human left alive in New York City, with most of humanity killed or mutated by bad CGI. Either way, the outlook's grim. And sometime in this tumultuous year, the US economy will also collapse, leading to so many criminals that private prisons will have to stick inmates into the remade Death Race to secure funds.
2013 --- Escape LA -- and Substance D!
In The Postman, we've been all but wiped out by one of those pesky Road-style non-specific apocalypses. Happily, though, Kevin Costner provides hope in 2013 by donning a dead mailman's outfit and delivering letters. Couldn't he just have hooked us back up to Twitter? This is also the year the US president's daughter turns traitor, giving America's super-weapon to a Peruvian freedom fighter holed up in what's left of Los Angeles. Thankfully, Snake Plissken's ready to enter this hellhole so he can Escape From LA. But, if A Scanner Darkly is to be believed, Snake's probably so totally high on Substance D he thinks he's signing up for a trip to Disneyland. Hopefully, across the pond, the Brits have a good supply of the drug, too, because this is the year the Norsefire fascists purge the United Kingdom of undesirables -- a crackdown that'll lead to V's vendetta some 14 years later. Whew!
2014 --- Nikkei Bye-Bye!
Japan's economy suffers such a blow in Moon Child that citizens have to move to mainland China to survive. There, a gang of kids turn to crime. And hang with a vampire teen. So it's City Of Let The Right One I Ching! Oddly, mainstream western feature filmmakers have avoided 2014 like the (vampire-mutant-creating) plague, which left it to Robin Sloane to make this awesomely believable "future fiction" about 2014 for the Museum Of Media History.
2015 --- Hoverboards!
A relative benign 12 months, this one. Obviously, we humans recover quite quickly from previous apocalypses because, according to Back To The Future Part II, the cool thing to do is ride your hoverboard to the movies and see the awesome new Max Spielberg flick Jaws 19 at the Holomax. So far Max's biggest credit is as an assistant on The Rage: Carrie 2. Get cracking, young Spielberg! Also this year, according to The Sixth Day, you'll be able to get your sick pet cloned -- or get an animatronic version at Re-Pet. Downside: when you get home, you might find you've been cloned and that the company wants the original you dead!
Superzone on 01-25-2010 09:10 PM
Hoverboards ftw.