One of the dangers of science fiction is using dates. When you put a date on something that’s in the “distant future” there’s a very real chance (at least if you’re story is good enough to endure) that you’ll eventually reach that date. Then you will pass that date, and things may or may not have turned out quite the way you expected. 1984 is a glaring example of this, but there are a lot of other examples – particularly in film. Two examples of this have popped up and gotten my attention lately.
The first is Johnny Mnemonic. Back in 1995 the year 2021 felt like it was far away. At this point we were supposed to be using physical implants to improve our lives (faster reflexes, stronger muscles) along with those things connected directly to our brains so we could interface with the deep, inner workings of the cyberworld directly. Well, we’re here in 2021. I’m not faster, nor am I stronger. I am also not seeing chain mail shirts as a fashion statement for body guards. Io9 has a fun look at this in greater depth here. I am glad we don’t have an 80 gig limit in our noggins given that I work with terabytes of information regularly. I’m going to reserve judgment on the rest.
The second is less obvious. Reign of Fire from back in 2002. Yes, a ‘future set’ movie about dragons taking over the world and burning the place down. I went back to watch this one again since it had been a while. The opening info dump actually placed the ‘current year’ as 2020. While the world hasn’t burned to the ground, 2020 didn’t exactly register as a stellar year for anyone that I know. This is definitely an underrated movie. It’s got Christian Bale, Gerard Butler and Matthew McConaughey. Yes, all of them in the same movie. The story isn’t deep, but the movie has got lots of action, a Star Wars reenactment play AND a dragon attacking a castle. Well worth digging a copy up and giving it a view.
So, we’re not wearing chain mail. We’re not hiding from dragons. Are we better off? Debatable I think.
What “future set” movie prediction is your favorite?