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2019-05-13 23:51:43 UTC
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9 predictions from old sci-fi movies that actually came true
Dave Johnson May 11, 2019, 10:05 AM
The 1990 film "Total Recall" may have predicted the rise of self-driving
cars. TriStar Pictures
We looked at some of the best sci-fi movies in history to see what kinds
of predictions they made about technology and the world.
Many predictions are hilariously inaccurate, but some have proven eerily
correct decades later.
Memorable movies like "Blade Runner," "The Terminator," and "2001: A
Space Odyssey" predicted modern-day tech like military drones and cell
phones.
Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Not all science fiction films age well, and often the predictions they
make are hilariously misguided.
1987's "The Running Man," for example, contended that in the year 2019,
we'd be watching battle royale-style murder on live television.
2019 is also the year that "The Island" predicted human clones would be
farmed like cattle for their organs — and that film hit theaters a mere
14 years ago.
But some classic sci-fi films made rock-solid predictions that proved
eerily accurate decades later. Movies such as "Blade Runner," "The
Terminator," and "2001: A Space Odyssey" are all worth revisiting for
the modern-day technology they predicted.
Despite some great contenders from the last decade or two, we
established the drinking age rule for this list: We looked only at
movies that were 21 years or older (so tough break, 2002's "Minority
Report").
Here are nine predictions from old sci-fi movies that actually came true.
Space travel — 'Le Voyage Dans La Lune,' 1902
Space travel — 'Le Voyage Dans La Lune,' 1902
Wikimedia Commons
It's hard to make the case that any particular work of fiction predicted
the general concept of space travel. Jules Verne may well have been the
first person to write about it in any sort of modern, technological way
with his 1865 novel "From the Earth to the Moon," but since then,
countless films have featured travel to the moon or beyond.
Even so, " Le Voyage Dans La Lune" deserves special mention. With the
movie camera barely 10 years old and the first cinema still three years
away from a grand opening, French filmmaker Georges Méliès made a
13-minute, special effects-laden movie about explorers who travel to the
moon in a cannon-propelled space capsule.
It's remarkable for many reasons. The subject matter is inventive, the
visual effects are charming and downright iconic, and the conceit of
firing a rocket out of a canon is not as far-fetched as it might seem to
viewers accustomed to Space X launches.
In fact, the "space gun" — ballistically firing a satellite into orbit
from the equivalent of a giant canon — has been explored for decades. In
the 1960s, under the auspices of Project HARP, the Navy used a
100-caliber gun to fire 400-pound projectiles into suborbital
trajectories that reached a height of 110 miles. So the idea, though
impractical, is far from crazy.
No, we're unlikely to ever fire people into space from a canon. But "Le
Voyage Dans La Lune" certainly ignited viewers' imaginations and paved
the way for Neil Armstrong and Apollo 11.
Robots — 'Metropolis,' 1927
Robots — 'Metropolis,' 1927
Wikimedia Commons
Though relatively unknown to mainstream movie audiences, sci-fi fans
will have no trouble recognizing the iconic 1927 film "Metropolis."
From the vantage point of 2019, this film isn't easy to watch, since
it's a silent, black-and-white film that runs well over two hours.
(Though if you're so inclined, you certainly can watch Metropolis in its
entirety on YouTube.)
And Metropolis broke a lot of fresh ground, including the first
on-screen depiction of robots. In the film, an inventor with an uncanny
1920's resemblance to Doc Brown crafted a metallic humanoid robot who is
then "reskinned" to resemble Maria, a character in the film.
Today, we take the inevitability of robots — and even human-like
androids in particular — for granted. But as novel as this was at the
time, today we are virtually overrun with increasingly realistic androids.
In 2014, Japan saw the debut of " Kodomoroid," a robot newscaster, and
Osaka University's Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro has unveiled an android
named Erica who is startlingly realistic. At the same time, robots like
Boston Dynamics' Atlas and Honda's Asimo demonstrate that walking,
running, opening doors, and even gymnastics are on the robot menu.
Earbuds — 'Fahrenheit 451,' 1966
Earbuds — 'Fahrenheit 451,' 1966
Universal Pictures
Ray Bradbury's iconic novel "Fahrenheit 451" has long been required
reading for high schoolers everywhere, and François Truffaut tried his
hand at making a film version in 1966.
Firemen never took on the role of starting fires, but that conceit
wasn't intended to be taken as a prediction — it's a satirical parable.
But there is a fascinating piece of technology in this film that sagely
predicts the rise of earbuds and the modern earbud culture.
In "Fahrenheit 451," "seashells" are described as "thimble radios tamped
tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk coming in,
coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind." In 1966, the most
personal audio available was the transistor radio. And though headphones
existed, they were large and bulky affairs. Bradbury and Truffaut
envisioned a world with tiny, thimble-sized earbuds that played private
audio — both music and talk.
It wouldn't be until 2001 and the first Apple iPod that people started
wearing seashells, submersing themselves in music and podcasts just like
the film depicted.
Skype — '2001: A Space Odyssey,' 1968
Skype — '2001: A Space Odyssey,' 1968
MGM
The list of things that "2001: A Space Odyssey" predicted could probably
fill an article all by itself, from tablet computers to space tourism.
But one element in the film stands out: Skype.
To be fair, no one in "2001" actually logs into the Microsoft-operated
video chat service. But video calling is featured prominently in the
movie, such as when Dr. Heywood Floyd calls his family from a space
station orbiting the earth.
There's even more innovation in this scene: Floyd inserts what looks
like a credit card in the videophone to start the call, predicting their
eventual ubiquity — in the 1960s, credit cards weren't nearly as common
as they are today.
And the two-minute call from space cost $1.70, thoguh we can't figure
whether that's a bargain or not.
The tech world has had a 50-year love affair with the concept of
videophones, and numerous efforts were made to make them a reality. The
Picturephone was first demonstrated at the 1964 World's Fair, and it
surfaced at retail again and again over the years — such as AT&T's 1982
Picturephone and the 1992 VideoPhone 2500.
All were failures, but the internet, mobile broadband, and smartphones
all conspired to eventually make video calling via apps like Skype and
FaceTime everyday tools.
Mobile phones — 'Star Trek,' 1966
Mobile phones — 'Star Trek,' 1966
NBC
Purists might consider this one a cheat, but we'd be remiss not to
include "Star Trek" in the list, since it predicted more technology than
Leonardo di Vinci's notebook.
Let's be clear: "Star Trek" started as a TV series in 1966, and its
three-year initial run set the blueprint for the show's many
technological predictions. But all of that eventually made its way to
the big screen, starting with "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" in 1979,
qualifying it for this list.
And when we say that "Star Trek" invented the modern mobile phone, we
mean it. The show's pocket communicator with the flip-up grid antenna
literally inspired Motorola engineer Martin Cooper to design the world's
first mobile phone in 1973.
His prototype, which would eventually become the Motorola DynaTAC was a
veritable beast of a phone that weighed 2.5 pounds and had a 20-minute
battery life. It took a decade to bring it to market, but 1983's DynaTAC
started a revolution that led to ever smaller phones, flip phones, and
eventually, smartphones.
Smart homes — 'Demon Seed,' 1977
Smart homes — 'Demon Seed,' 1977
MGM
Some movie fans point to the goofy 1999 Disney film "Smart House" as the
first major appearance of the Internet of Things and smart-home
technology in a film. And admittedly, when the movie is actually called
"Smart House," that's a little on the nose.
But you can go back further for the first example of a smart home in
cinema: 1977's sci-fi-horror film "Demon Seed."
In "Demon Seed," a scientist develops Proteus IV, an artificially
intelligent computer that starts off on a positive note by curing
leukemia. But it quickly spirals out of control when the computer
develops an unhealthy crush on its creator's wife, installs itself on a
computer in their home, and takes control over all the technology and
devices there.
The premise is terrible and the execution is pure 70's made-for-TV
schlock, but what Proteus IV actually does is prescient — like a modern
smart home, the computer can control lights, door and window locks,
manages the home's alarm system, can show video of the front door like a
smart doorbell, and even control devices like an automated swimming pool
cover.
"Demon Seed" could easily be the blueprint for modern smart home
technology from Philips Hue lights to Ring doorbells to Kevo smart
locks, and dozens of other Internet of Things devices.
Flying cars — 'Blade Runner,' 1982
Flying cars — 'Blade Runner,' 1982
Warner Bros.
Few sci-fi movies are as revered as Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner," a
film that put cyberpunk and sci-fi noir on the big screen for the first
time.
The movie goes big on audacious predictions for the year 2019, including
snakes on the verge of extinction, fully humanlike androids, ceaseless
rain in LA, and space colonies.
But the movie got a few things right, too. The pyramid-shaped LA skyline
implies that the city's skyscrapers are no longer legally required to
have helipads on the roof — something that changed for real in LA in
2014 — and the film also predicted the rise (no pun intended) of flying
cars. An essential part of the "Blade Runner" universe is the Spinner, a
flying car we see darting about the city.
Flying cars have been part of our "promised future" since the 1950s. And
engineers have tried. Oh, how they've tried. Among the many attempts at
flying cars, there has been the 1947 ConvAirCar Model 118, little more
than an auto with wings, and 1990's Sky Commuter from Boeing. And
inventor Paul Moller spent his life developing various versions of his
Sky Car, a reliable fixture in the back pages of pop science magazine
for decades.
And while we don't have flying cars quite yet, they're definitely, at
long last, coming. A number of companies are readying what are
essentially "passenger drones" — electric powered, self-flying, vertical
takeoff and landing vehicles that look like oversized drones.
And they can ferry passengers without the need for a pilot. Boeing,
AirBus, and Chinese company eHang are all developing oversized drone
flying taxi services, and some are just a couple of years (in theory)
from operation, and Uber has already announced the first five cities
that may start flying.
Military drones — 'The Terminator,' 1984
Military drones — 'The Terminator,' 1984
Orion Pictures
James Cameron's sci-fi blockbuster "The Terminator" gave us a lot of
reasons to lie awake at night — a self-aware computer that triggers
nuclear Armageddon, relentless killbots, and Bill Paxton's spikey punk hair.
Mixed in with all that are visions of the future that reveal
Hunter-Killer drones — in essence, military flying drones armed with
weapons.
By the early 1980s, the military already had extensive experience with
"target drones" — radio-controlled unmanned vehicles that could be shot
down for target practice — and reconnaissance drones, launched from
ships and aircraft. But it wouldn't be until the "war on terror" in the
2000s that the US military would fulfill the predictions of "The
Terminator" and deploy UAVs — military drones — with weapons on board.
The MQ-1 Predator, first used in 2001, is the first known military drone
capable of firing weapons that were triggered remotely by ground
operators. And lest you think that the autonomous Hunter-Killers of
Sarah Connor's nightmares are pure fiction, the US military is even now
grappling with the question of fielding artificially intelligent drones
capable of making their own firing decisions.
Self-driving cars 'Total Recall,' 1990
Self-driving cars 'Total Recall,' 1990
TriStar Pictures
"Total Recall" is like a live-action cartoon painted in primary colors.
But amid the memory-control technology, wall-sized TV screens, routine
commercial flights to Mars, and alien superstructures under the Martian
surface are a few interesting predictions. The most prescient:
self-driving cars.
The movie's Johnnycabs are probably what self-driving cars might look
like from a late-'80s point of view. They featured a stylized android
avatar in the driver's seat, and — if you happen to have the strength of
an Arnold Schwarzenegger — ripping out the bot meant you could sit down
and actually drive the car.
That seems a little silly and perhaps naive today, but that's only
because we know exactly what self-driving cars look like — they're in
the news and on the streets. Bristling with sensors, today's fully
self-driving cars can drive themselves without the need for anyone or
anything to sit in the driver's seat. And semi-self-driving cars are not
far behind, though they do require a pilot to keep their hands on the
controls for safety, at least for now.
SEE ALSO: 11 of the coolest Easter eggs you can find in cars today
DON'T MISS: I compared the meatless Beyond Burger with a beef burger
from Shake Shack — and I know which burger I'd rather eat
More: Features Science Fiction BI-freelancer
https://www.businessinsider.com/sci-fi-movie-predictions-2019-5
9 predictions from old sci-fi movies that actually came true
Dave Johnson May 11, 2019, 10:05 AM
The 1990 film "Total Recall" may have predicted the rise of self-driving
cars. TriStar Pictures
We looked at some of the best sci-fi movies in history to see what kinds
of predictions they made about technology and the world.
Many predictions are hilariously inaccurate, but some have proven eerily
correct decades later.
Memorable movies like "Blade Runner," "The Terminator," and "2001: A
Space Odyssey" predicted modern-day tech like military drones and cell
phones.
Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Not all science fiction films age well, and often the predictions they
make are hilariously misguided.
1987's "The Running Man," for example, contended that in the year 2019,
we'd be watching battle royale-style murder on live television.
2019 is also the year that "The Island" predicted human clones would be
farmed like cattle for their organs — and that film hit theaters a mere
14 years ago.
But some classic sci-fi films made rock-solid predictions that proved
eerily accurate decades later. Movies such as "Blade Runner," "The
Terminator," and "2001: A Space Odyssey" are all worth revisiting for
the modern-day technology they predicted.
Despite some great contenders from the last decade or two, we
established the drinking age rule for this list: We looked only at
movies that were 21 years or older (so tough break, 2002's "Minority
Report").
Here are nine predictions from old sci-fi movies that actually came true.
Space travel — 'Le Voyage Dans La Lune,' 1902
Space travel — 'Le Voyage Dans La Lune,' 1902
Wikimedia Commons
It's hard to make the case that any particular work of fiction predicted
the general concept of space travel. Jules Verne may well have been the
first person to write about it in any sort of modern, technological way
with his 1865 novel "From the Earth to the Moon," but since then,
countless films have featured travel to the moon or beyond.
Even so, " Le Voyage Dans La Lune" deserves special mention. With the
movie camera barely 10 years old and the first cinema still three years
away from a grand opening, French filmmaker Georges Méliès made a
13-minute, special effects-laden movie about explorers who travel to the
moon in a cannon-propelled space capsule.
It's remarkable for many reasons. The subject matter is inventive, the
visual effects are charming and downright iconic, and the conceit of
firing a rocket out of a canon is not as far-fetched as it might seem to
viewers accustomed to Space X launches.
In fact, the "space gun" — ballistically firing a satellite into orbit
from the equivalent of a giant canon — has been explored for decades. In
the 1960s, under the auspices of Project HARP, the Navy used a
100-caliber gun to fire 400-pound projectiles into suborbital
trajectories that reached a height of 110 miles. So the idea, though
impractical, is far from crazy.
No, we're unlikely to ever fire people into space from a canon. But "Le
Voyage Dans La Lune" certainly ignited viewers' imaginations and paved
the way for Neil Armstrong and Apollo 11.
Robots — 'Metropolis,' 1927
Robots — 'Metropolis,' 1927
Wikimedia Commons
Though relatively unknown to mainstream movie audiences, sci-fi fans
will have no trouble recognizing the iconic 1927 film "Metropolis."
From the vantage point of 2019, this film isn't easy to watch, since
it's a silent, black-and-white film that runs well over two hours.
(Though if you're so inclined, you certainly can watch Metropolis in its
entirety on YouTube.)
And Metropolis broke a lot of fresh ground, including the first
on-screen depiction of robots. In the film, an inventor with an uncanny
1920's resemblance to Doc Brown crafted a metallic humanoid robot who is
then "reskinned" to resemble Maria, a character in the film.
Today, we take the inevitability of robots — and even human-like
androids in particular — for granted. But as novel as this was at the
time, today we are virtually overrun with increasingly realistic androids.
In 2014, Japan saw the debut of " Kodomoroid," a robot newscaster, and
Osaka University's Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro has unveiled an android
named Erica who is startlingly realistic. At the same time, robots like
Boston Dynamics' Atlas and Honda's Asimo demonstrate that walking,
running, opening doors, and even gymnastics are on the robot menu.
Earbuds — 'Fahrenheit 451,' 1966
Earbuds — 'Fahrenheit 451,' 1966
Universal Pictures
Ray Bradbury's iconic novel "Fahrenheit 451" has long been required
reading for high schoolers everywhere, and François Truffaut tried his
hand at making a film version in 1966.
Firemen never took on the role of starting fires, but that conceit
wasn't intended to be taken as a prediction — it's a satirical parable.
But there is a fascinating piece of technology in this film that sagely
predicts the rise of earbuds and the modern earbud culture.
In "Fahrenheit 451," "seashells" are described as "thimble radios tamped
tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk coming in,
coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind." In 1966, the most
personal audio available was the transistor radio. And though headphones
existed, they were large and bulky affairs. Bradbury and Truffaut
envisioned a world with tiny, thimble-sized earbuds that played private
audio — both music and talk.
It wouldn't be until 2001 and the first Apple iPod that people started
wearing seashells, submersing themselves in music and podcasts just like
the film depicted.
Skype — '2001: A Space Odyssey,' 1968
Skype — '2001: A Space Odyssey,' 1968
MGM
The list of things that "2001: A Space Odyssey" predicted could probably
fill an article all by itself, from tablet computers to space tourism.
But one element in the film stands out: Skype.
To be fair, no one in "2001" actually logs into the Microsoft-operated
video chat service. But video calling is featured prominently in the
movie, such as when Dr. Heywood Floyd calls his family from a space
station orbiting the earth.
There's even more innovation in this scene: Floyd inserts what looks
like a credit card in the videophone to start the call, predicting their
eventual ubiquity — in the 1960s, credit cards weren't nearly as common
as they are today.
And the two-minute call from space cost $1.70, thoguh we can't figure
whether that's a bargain or not.
The tech world has had a 50-year love affair with the concept of
videophones, and numerous efforts were made to make them a reality. The
Picturephone was first demonstrated at the 1964 World's Fair, and it
surfaced at retail again and again over the years — such as AT&T's 1982
Picturephone and the 1992 VideoPhone 2500.
All were failures, but the internet, mobile broadband, and smartphones
all conspired to eventually make video calling via apps like Skype and
FaceTime everyday tools.
Mobile phones — 'Star Trek,' 1966
Mobile phones — 'Star Trek,' 1966
NBC
Purists might consider this one a cheat, but we'd be remiss not to
include "Star Trek" in the list, since it predicted more technology than
Leonardo di Vinci's notebook.
Let's be clear: "Star Trek" started as a TV series in 1966, and its
three-year initial run set the blueprint for the show's many
technological predictions. But all of that eventually made its way to
the big screen, starting with "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" in 1979,
qualifying it for this list.
And when we say that "Star Trek" invented the modern mobile phone, we
mean it. The show's pocket communicator with the flip-up grid antenna
literally inspired Motorola engineer Martin Cooper to design the world's
first mobile phone in 1973.
His prototype, which would eventually become the Motorola DynaTAC was a
veritable beast of a phone that weighed 2.5 pounds and had a 20-minute
battery life. It took a decade to bring it to market, but 1983's DynaTAC
started a revolution that led to ever smaller phones, flip phones, and
eventually, smartphones.
Smart homes — 'Demon Seed,' 1977
Smart homes — 'Demon Seed,' 1977
MGM
Some movie fans point to the goofy 1999 Disney film "Smart House" as the
first major appearance of the Internet of Things and smart-home
technology in a film. And admittedly, when the movie is actually called
"Smart House," that's a little on the nose.
But you can go back further for the first example of a smart home in
cinema: 1977's sci-fi-horror film "Demon Seed."
In "Demon Seed," a scientist develops Proteus IV, an artificially
intelligent computer that starts off on a positive note by curing
leukemia. But it quickly spirals out of control when the computer
develops an unhealthy crush on its creator's wife, installs itself on a
computer in their home, and takes control over all the technology and
devices there.
The premise is terrible and the execution is pure 70's made-for-TV
schlock, but what Proteus IV actually does is prescient — like a modern
smart home, the computer can control lights, door and window locks,
manages the home's alarm system, can show video of the front door like a
smart doorbell, and even control devices like an automated swimming pool
cover.
"Demon Seed" could easily be the blueprint for modern smart home
technology from Philips Hue lights to Ring doorbells to Kevo smart
locks, and dozens of other Internet of Things devices.
Flying cars — 'Blade Runner,' 1982
Flying cars — 'Blade Runner,' 1982
Warner Bros.
Few sci-fi movies are as revered as Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner," a
film that put cyberpunk and sci-fi noir on the big screen for the first
time.
The movie goes big on audacious predictions for the year 2019, including
snakes on the verge of extinction, fully humanlike androids, ceaseless
rain in LA, and space colonies.
But the movie got a few things right, too. The pyramid-shaped LA skyline
implies that the city's skyscrapers are no longer legally required to
have helipads on the roof — something that changed for real in LA in
2014 — and the film also predicted the rise (no pun intended) of flying
cars. An essential part of the "Blade Runner" universe is the Spinner, a
flying car we see darting about the city.
Flying cars have been part of our "promised future" since the 1950s. And
engineers have tried. Oh, how they've tried. Among the many attempts at
flying cars, there has been the 1947 ConvAirCar Model 118, little more
than an auto with wings, and 1990's Sky Commuter from Boeing. And
inventor Paul Moller spent his life developing various versions of his
Sky Car, a reliable fixture in the back pages of pop science magazine
for decades.
And while we don't have flying cars quite yet, they're definitely, at
long last, coming. A number of companies are readying what are
essentially "passenger drones" — electric powered, self-flying, vertical
takeoff and landing vehicles that look like oversized drones.
And they can ferry passengers without the need for a pilot. Boeing,
AirBus, and Chinese company eHang are all developing oversized drone
flying taxi services, and some are just a couple of years (in theory)
from operation, and Uber has already announced the first five cities
that may start flying.
Military drones — 'The Terminator,' 1984
Military drones — 'The Terminator,' 1984
Orion Pictures
James Cameron's sci-fi blockbuster "The Terminator" gave us a lot of
reasons to lie awake at night — a self-aware computer that triggers
nuclear Armageddon, relentless killbots, and Bill Paxton's spikey punk hair.
Mixed in with all that are visions of the future that reveal
Hunter-Killer drones — in essence, military flying drones armed with
weapons.
By the early 1980s, the military already had extensive experience with
"target drones" — radio-controlled unmanned vehicles that could be shot
down for target practice — and reconnaissance drones, launched from
ships and aircraft. But it wouldn't be until the "war on terror" in the
2000s that the US military would fulfill the predictions of "The
Terminator" and deploy UAVs — military drones — with weapons on board.
The MQ-1 Predator, first used in 2001, is the first known military drone
capable of firing weapons that were triggered remotely by ground
operators. And lest you think that the autonomous Hunter-Killers of
Sarah Connor's nightmares are pure fiction, the US military is even now
grappling with the question of fielding artificially intelligent drones
capable of making their own firing decisions.
Self-driving cars 'Total Recall,' 1990
Self-driving cars 'Total Recall,' 1990
TriStar Pictures
"Total Recall" is like a live-action cartoon painted in primary colors.
But amid the memory-control technology, wall-sized TV screens, routine
commercial flights to Mars, and alien superstructures under the Martian
surface are a few interesting predictions. The most prescient:
self-driving cars.
The movie's Johnnycabs are probably what self-driving cars might look
like from a late-'80s point of view. They featured a stylized android
avatar in the driver's seat, and — if you happen to have the strength of
an Arnold Schwarzenegger — ripping out the bot meant you could sit down
and actually drive the car.
That seems a little silly and perhaps naive today, but that's only
because we know exactly what self-driving cars look like — they're in
the news and on the streets. Bristling with sensors, today's fully
self-driving cars can drive themselves without the need for anyone or
anything to sit in the driver's seat. And semi-self-driving cars are not
far behind, though they do require a pilot to keep their hands on the
controls for safety, at least for now.
SEE ALSO: 11 of the coolest Easter eggs you can find in cars today
DON'T MISS: I compared the meatless Beyond Burger with a beef burger
from Shake Shack — and I know which burger I'd rather eat
More: Features Science Fiction BI-freelancer
