In this article, we will look over some examples of technology envisioned in sci-fi movies that have since been realised. We will then consider science fiction’s role in influencing the development of new technologies before looking at the implications of deriving tech from the genre. 

Movie Technology In Real Life

1. Tablet Computers – 2001: A Space Odyssey

There has been no shortage of words written about how much 2001 got right about modern technology. But interestingly one of its technological predictions was so close to reality that Samsung offered it as evidence in a legal battle between them and Apple. That being the tablet computers that the crew of the Discovery One use during their Jupiter mission to watch videos. A scarily accurate vision of the future.

2. 3D Projected Images – Star Wars

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, R2-D2 used holographic technology to relay Princess Leia’s call for help to Obi-Wan Kenobi. In actuality, this was done by superimposing an element isolated from a TV screen. Now scientists have actually created 3D holograms which don’t need to be projected onto a 2D surface. Let’s hope that means more distress signals will be heard.

3. Digital Billboards – Blade Runner

Considering the amount of detail thrown into Blade Runner‘s world design it’s understandable how some things can be overlooked. However, in the background of many shots showing the then-futuristic 2019 Los Angeles, we see digital billboards advertising various products. At the time the film was made this practice had not yet emerged. Now they are everywhere. Just like the film predicted.

4. Biometric Security – Back To The Future Part 2

Every fan of Back To The Future Part 2 is still disappointed we don’t have flying hoverboards. But we have seen something else from the movie become widely available, biometric security, which is now commonly used in things like mobile phone security.

Art Influences Life

While many like to view science fiction as just a fantasy it has clearly had some level of influence. There are of course direct real-world influences with companies and researchers citing various movies as inspiration. But even without one-to-one examples, science fiction is a popular film genre (for example 8 of the 10 highest-grossing films of all time have some level of sci-fi genre trappings to them) that is seen by a huge number of people. With such a wide reach and its juxtaposition of seemingly fantastical inventions with real scientific theories (though rarely presented accurately), it is understandable why some people would try to realise what appears on screen.

Missing The Point?

However, it’s important to note that while movies like Star Wars are generally optimistic about advanced technology, and 2001 showcases the great possibilities of technology, so long as we don’t lose sight of humanity, many sci-fi movies also present a darker side to how technology can be used. 

The looming advertisements of Blade Runner are not presented positively. They symbolise how much capitalist corporations intrude on our lives. And while Back to the Future Part 2’s convenient biometric security is awed over it also notes how it can be used by forces like the police to keep watch over us. Science fiction encourages us to imagine but to be cautious of how technology can be corrupted for profit and for use by oppressive systems. Science fiction preaches altruism, and invention for the benefit of all, something science fact doesn’t always do.

Also Read: The Technology Inspired By Star Trek

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Planet of the Apes – The Problem with Communication

Planet of the Apes is a sci-fi classic from 1968 starring Hollywood legend Charlton Heston. In the film, Heston plays George Taylor, an astronaut who crashes on a mysterious and distant planet where apes rule and humans are little more than cattle. The shocking reveal being that this is not a distant alien world, but Earth in the future.

The Plot Hole: Language – Taylor has no problem communicating with the apes as they all speak English and not only English but the exact same dialect. Their written communication is also the same. Given how much language can change in just a hundred years it’s inconceivable that after all this time and the evolution of apes that they would be able to communicate so easily. This is true in many sci-fi films where people can converse easily. The film Arrival is essentially about overcoming that almost insurmountable problem.

Cabin In The Woods – I Thought You Were Dead!

A horror/scifi/genre mashup Cabin In The Woods is a post-modern take on horror films where many of the curious behaviours of people in horror movies are explained. Why are people so stupid? They’re drugged. Why do they abandon weapons? They are given mild electric shocks to drop them. Ultimately we learn that the typical horror scenarios are just setups, elaborate ritual human sacrifices to stop ancient gods from destroying the world.

The Plot Hole(s) In the scenario playing out in the film there are five victims all archetypes: the athlete, the scholar, the whore, the fool and the virgin. We see them get picked off one by one until only Dana – the virgin – is left. But we then learn that Marty – the fool – is not dead as had previously been suggested. Given that each death is accompanied by a lever where blood pours down to the ancient gods – how was there any confusion about this? The second one is the organisation behind all this boasts that they have an excellent success rate, but most horror films end with the monster losing.

Back To The Future Part II – Time Travel Troubles

A spectacular sci-fi film of time travelling adventure this sequel builds on the original by going to the future. When Marty and Doc are visiting the future their perennial nemesis Biff steals the time machine to go back to the 1950s, giving the younger version of himself a sports almanack, allowing him to always win when betting on sports. When Marty and Doc return to their time they are in a very different Hill Valley, destroyed by crime and ran by the incredibly rich Biff. Marty’s father is dead (murdered by Biff), his mother remarried to Biff and Doc has been institutionalised.

The Plot Hole When they return to their present are there now two Martys and two Docs? Doc is in a hospital and Marty is in Switzerland but they’re now also in Hill Valley – do these doubles still exist in their respective locations? Or were they deleted when Marty and Doc returned? Also, of course, changing time is not some trivial thing, when Biff did this the whole world changed, people were born who didn’t exist in the “original” timeline and when they put it back these people no longer exist. While Marty and Doc are on the sharp end of the timeline many people will have had better lives, are they right to change that?

The Last Jedi – That Was Quick

The Last Jedi is an odd film, part brilliant, part not-so-brilliant, but there are a number of plot holes in this film. Most of the film takes place with the First Order fleet pursuing the Resistance fleet whilst various characters try to devise plans to escape their enemy.

The Plot Hole – Where to start…but sticking to just one. Finn and Rose slip away from the Resistance fleet, travel to the city of Canto Bight on Cantonica, get involved in all manner of shenanigans, rescue a prisoner, get back and this chase is still going on and only a few hours seem to have passed. This already seems implausible as space is really big and travelling across it takes a long time but after a little bit of research into the Star Wars canon shows D’Qar and Cantonica are seemingly on opposite ends of the galaxy. An appropriate comparison might be if involved in a car chase in America one person gets out of the car, travels to India, comes back and gets back and the chase is still going on.

Alien – An Overly Elaborate Plan

Generally accepted to be one of the greatest films of all time Alien is the story of a commercial spaceship that stumbles across an alien lifeform that promptly wipes out most of the crew, with Ripley and the ship’s cat being the only survivors. It is revealed it was no accident that the ship came across the alien, with Weyland-Yutani engineering the situation and planting the synthetic Ash to make sure the mission is successful.

The Plot Hole – Weyland-Yutani seem very well aware of just how dangerous the alien creature is. They also know where it is and yet their plan revolves around a seven-person crew of a civilian ship with no weapons managing to transport the alien. There are so many things that could have gone wrong with this plan – from the crew simply refusing to investigate, to the crew following better procedures to ensure no crewmember is infected and/or brought back on board (this is a moment where Ash intervenes, Ripley tries to enforce quarantine but Ash opens the door). The real question is why Weyland-Yutani, an organisation of seemingly endless resources, couldn’t commission a specialist team to retrieve the creature. It would have been simpler and far more likely to succeed. Aliens carries on some of the bizarre decisions of this company who when the Nostromo didn’t return seem to have simply forgotten all about the aliens to the extent they colonised the planet!

Also Read: The Best Sci-Fi Films of the Decade (2010 – 2019)

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Protect The Timeline

We would all do well to remember Abe Simpson’s advice to his son Homer on his wedding day “If you ever travel back in time, don’t step on anything because even the tiniest change can alter the future in ways you can’t imagine.” A dire warning issued to virtually every time traveller is to protect the timeline – do not do anything that will change the present or future. This is explored wonderfully in Back To The Future Part II, Marty buys a sports almanac in the future with the idea of using it to place winning bets in his present. Unfortunately, the almanac winds up in the hands of villain Biff who gives it to his younger self. When Marty returns to his present he finds a very different Hill Valley, beset with crime and corruption in which multi-millionaire Biff essentially runs the town, his mother is married to Biff and his father is dead – later revealed to have been murdered by Biff. The rest of the film is Marty and Doc trying to restore the original timeline by getting the almanac back.

Beware of Paradoxes

There are a number of paradoxes that can beset the unwary time traveller – the most famous being The Grandfather Paradox and the Bootstrap Paradox. The Terminator franchise is a classic example of the Bootstrap Paradox, taking its name from the literal impossibility of a person “pulling themselves up by their bootstraps”. Essentially this is when by going back in time you invent or create something that already existed in your time – meaning its actual moment of creation is lost in a paradox. In The Terminator franchise a war is raging between humans and machines in the distant future (the year 1997), the computers send a killer robot, a Terminator, back in time to kill the mother of the human leader. This terminator is defeated and destroyed…or nearly destroyed, parts of it are salvaged by a company that then go on to create the very computer system fighting humankind. The groundbreaking technology that enabled the creation of artificial intelligence is only possible because that artificial intelligence sent an example of it back in time. Given that there are now six Terminator films as well as a television series the complicated overlapping timelines and paradoxes are essentially nonsensical and any attempt to tell a story has been abandoned.

The setup for The Grandfather Paradox is suitably demonstrated in the Back to the Future trilogy, this time with the first instalment. Marty travels back in time and interrupts the meeting of his parents, thus erasing himself from the timeline. In the film, Marty begins to fade from reality. The paradoxical nature of what he has done is never explored but essentially if Marty erases himself from history then his parents will successfully meet, then he will exist, so he will go back in time, interrupt the meeting and will no longer exist and so on forever. Of course, Back to the Future adds the weird and creepy element of your own mother developing a crush on you, taken to the logical conclusion in Futurama with The Grandmother Paradox – where Fry travels back in time, kills his grandfather and then sleeps with his grandmother, becoming his own grandfather.

The Future Isn’t Necessarily Going To Be Better

In our modern times looking back at the past it can sometimes seem like we’ve be on an almost inevitably upward trajectory of progress – both scientific and social. This is wrong. There is no reason to suppose the future would be better than the present. Few time travel films portray this better than the 1960 classic The Time Machine, based on H.G. Wells’ novel. Setting off from Victorian England the protagonist travels forward in time and while at first he sees the march of science and progress things turn bad, at some point in the 1960s there is a terrible, world-wide calamity, seemingly brought on by humankind itself in which the world is covered in lava. Finally stopping in the far distant future when the lava is gone he finds the Eloi, a group of beautiful people but who seem to understand little of the world and laze around waiting for food to be delivered. The protagonist learns that the Eloi are little more than cattle for the subterranean Morlocks, ugly monstrous creatures but have vastly more intellect. In fact, both the Eloi and the Morlocks are the descendants of the human race, each taking a diverging path. Our future could contain killer robots, a world-ending plague or maybe nothing at all.

Getting Things Right

Time travel offers unique opportunities to get things right the second time around. Action sci-fi blockbuster Edge of Tomorrow (also known as Live. Die. Repeat) starred Tom Cruise as a soldier, Cage, infected by alien blood who travels back in time each time he dies, reliving the same day. This is the alien’s ultimate weapon that allows them to avoid defeat by learning and changing their tactics appropriately. Cage is transformed from manipulative PR coward into a battle-hardened hero by repeatedly dying, slowly getting better. Groundhog Day is one of the best films ever made and while it doesn’t even attempt to look at the science or magic or whatever of time travel, it investigates what it might do to a person. Arrogant and selfish weatherman Phil Connors is trapped in a seemingly endless loop, repeating the same day over and over again. Connors goes through a variety of stages from enjoying the absence of consequences, to using his future knowledge to get money and sex, to becoming suicidal from the never-ending sameness of it all to eventually becoming a better man. What both films show, amongst other things, is that an ability to know the future, even just a few hours, can give you immense powers. To others Cage seems damn near indestructible, knowing where wreckage will fall from the sky or where aliens are hiding to Connors performing perfectly timed bank heists where no one even knows a robbery has been committed or simply getting every answer on Jeopardy. In Edge of Tomorrow Cage dies on screen 24 times, but it is suggested the total is a lot higher. Groundhog Day director Harold Ramis has put out that he thinks Connors was stuck in the same day for somewhere between thirty and forty years.

It is perhaps unlikely any of us will be called upon our knowledge of time travel learned from movies but hopefully, if you are, this will have been a helpful guide.

Also Read: Flashpoint: The Defining Film of the DCEU

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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

The Plot – The film follows Jyn Erso a woman who has been on the run from the Empire since her childhood because her father is the man who designed the Death Star. Forced by the Rebel Alliance into a mission to extract her father from the Empire’s clutches and so disrupt their plans, Jyn becomes more and more involved in the civil war that is only just beginning.

Why It’s Great – In my opinion this has been the best of the new crop of Star Wars films. A self-contained story (more or less) that fixed perhaps the biggest plot-hole in all of Star Wars – namely, who builds a priceless weapon of mass destruction with such an easy Achilles’ Heel. The cast is sensational with Felicity Jones and Diego Luna as great leads, Ben Mendelsohn doing his Evil Scumbag routine in space and with great actors like Mads Mikkelsen and Forest Whitaker taking on small roles.

Verdict – A wonderful addition to the Star Wars Saga.

Inception (2010)

The Plot – Leonardo Di Caprio plays Cobb, a very special kind of criminal who enters peoples’ dreams to steal information. Challenged to the seemingly impossible act of “inception” – implanting a new idea in a dream that the dreamer will believe to be their own Cobb puts together a crack team to accomplish his goal.

Why It’s Great – Christopher Nolan doesn’t make bad films. Or at least he hasn’t yet. Inception was the first film Nolan directed after Nolan makes blockbusters like no one else, making them as intelligent and original as they are a spectacle. There is a lot of the “one last job for a criminal” motif going on but that is just a great jumping off point. The special effects are truly stunning with the city landscape being twisted and folded as the high point and even if the writing and acting were terrible – which they aren’t – it would be worth watching for the effects alone. As frustrating as the ambiguous ending might be, I like a film that is brave enough not to give you all the answers.

Verdict – A dazzling and smart sci-fi blockbuster.

The World’s End (2013)

The Plot – Gary King wants to reassemble his school friends to complete the “Golden Mile” a pub crawl along twelve pubs in their home town. Sadly for Gary much has changed since school, the group is estranged and he is no longer – if he ever really was – their leader. As the friends reunite and start their pub crawl things in the town become increasingly odd leading to a sensational fight in a pub toilet that reveals what is going on in the town.

Why It’s Great – All of the Cornetto Trilogy are more than what a simple category can describe – all of them are excellent examples of their genre but excel in being films about people. The World’s End is a film about aliens slowly taking over the planet but it’s also about friendship, betrayal, dealing with disappointment in life, youth (and losing your youth), what is life about and more. I would say this is my least favourite of the trilogy but that still could put it in my top twenty films of all time. It has another feature of the Cornetto Trilogy in combining huge, over the top scenarios, in small unlikely places. Few films pack the emotional punch of The World’s End let alone comparing it to other sci-fi comedies.

Verdict – A triumphant end to the Cornetto Trilogy.

Back To The Future Trilogy (1985, 1989, 1990)

The Plot – After accidentally travelling backwards in time teenager Marty McFly interrupts the meet-cute between his parents and thus will never be born. Recruiting the younger version of the scientist who sent him back in time, Doc, Marty seeks to set the timeline right and save himself. In Part 2 Marty and Doc travel to the future to avert a disaster for Marty’s son only to make things much worse everyone – well, nearly everyone. And Part 3…well Part 3 is set in the Old West for some reason ( just go with it, it’s fun).

Why It’s Great – I suppose it’s cheating to put a whole trilogy into one slot but it’s surely a crime to break up these wonderful films when they make such a satisfying collection. It’s hard to overstate the impact these films had on science-fiction and pop culture in general. For many these are the films that made time-travel (and all the paradoxes, dangers and opportunities that come with it) vaguely possible to understand, partly through literally drawing it on a blackboard in Part 2.

Verdict – If for any reason you have not seen these films prepare to watch three of the most enjoyable films ever made.

Annihilation (2018)

The Plot – Lena’s soldier husband returns mysteriously to their home but something is very wrong with him and it isn’t long before the government swoops in and takes control of the situation. It turns out her husband was sent on a secret mission into The Shimmer – a mysterious area of land where normal rules do not apply and her husband is the only person to return from numerous missions. Lena, a scientist and former soldier joins the next team determined to find out what happened.

Why It’s Great – While it does feel somewhat fitting to include a Netflix original film on this list doesn’t mean Annihilation doesn’t got a free pass – it’s a great sci-fi film, and in a way that few sci-fi films are. It has gunfights and monsters and all those things going on it has also has unusual ideas that make you think about the world and the universe. Science-fiction gets a lot of criticism but to me it’s always been the genre of big ideas – whether that’s time travel or space flight or what it means to be human. Written and directed by filmmaking genius Alex Garland and adapted from the successful Southern Reach book trilogy this film comes with exemplary sci-fi credentials.

Verdict – Bizarre mind-bending sci-fi epic.

The post Five Sci-Fi Films To Watch Right Now On Netflix appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

Blade Runner – set in 2019, Los Angeles, made in 1982

Rick Deckard is a blade runner, a cop who hunts replicants who have made it to Earth. Replicants are artificial creatures that are identical to humans but stronger, faster and maybe even smarter. As Deckard is sent to hunt down a group of replicants, he is drawn into the world of the Tyrell Corporation, the somewhat sinister manufacturer of replicants.

The Film – Los Angeles 2019

This LA is a dark and rainy place, perhaps caused by the radioactive fallout. On top of that, the city is dirty and cramped, which is not surprising as the population of LA is 106 million people. Flying cars nimbly navigate this dense mess of towers, surely the only reasonable way to get around. Huge adverts fill the sky and cover skyscrapers and it is hard to escape from their presence.

In terms of technology, people use video phones and voice command equipment. But the most obvious technology is one that in the film isn’t supposed to be on Earth – replicants.

The Reality – Los Angeles 2019

While not perfect, LA remains a bright and sunny place. The population stands at a more manageable 4 million. And while LA does have its skyscrapers, it is nothing like the oppressive city Ridley Scott imagined. As for technology, we do have voice command technology and video phones, indeed I’d say we put their video phones to shame, but no flying cars. Nor do we have replicants or anything like them, but that’s probably for the best. Perhaps its most prescient feature was advertising, which is one of the dominant modes of expression in the modern world.

Back To The Future Part II, set in 2015, Hill Valley California, made in 1989

Following on from the hijinks of Back To The Future Doc brings Marty to 2015 to avert a crisis in his family. Once that is settled, Marty makes the unfortunate decision to try and manipulate his future, which has unforeseen consequences.

The film – Hill Valley 2015

Back To The Future is set in the fictional town of Hill Valley in California, but I think we can substitute any small Californian town. Like Blade Runner, it has flying cars – seemingly something of an obsession in the 1980s – but additionally flying skateboards. Giant holograms are commonplace and perhaps even a bit old hat. Fashion is bizarre with young people wearing their clothes inside out, but that’s balanced by the fact that they change size to suit you. Nuclear reactors are home gadgets, food is hydrated to save space and everyone has LOTS of fax machines.

The Reality – “Hill Valley” 2015

BTTF2 was intentionally a bit out there with its predictions, so unsurprisingly, no flying cars, no holograms on every street corner, no hydrated food. In 2015, the fax machine was deadlier than Elvis. Clothes weren’t as advanced or worn inside out, but arguably fashion was (and still is) just as ridiculous.

2001: A Space Odyssey, set in 2001 made in 1968

2001: A Space Odyssey is an epic Sci-Fi film taking the audience from the birth of mankind to them becoming a higher form of life, with a central story revolving around one spaceship’s secret mission and the brilliant computer on board.

The Film -The Solar System, 2001

Kubrick focused on two aspects of future technology – computers and space travel. Commercial spaceships drift leisurely through space with clever velcro shoes for flight attendants to deal with the lack of gravity. Not only that but there are even colonies on the moon.

As for computers, they have Hal 9000, the world’s greatest supercomputer, thought to be practically infallible, although he does speak with an odd arch monotone voice. He spends his time beating humans at chess, lipreading and murdering.

The Reality – The Solar System 2001

Even in 2019, the human race is still stubbornly stuck on Earth with no moon colonies. George Bush scrapped the space shuttle in 2004, and commercial space flight is really just a dream of ambitious billionaires. Deep Blue had beaten Gary Kasparov at chess in the 90s, but I don’t think he’d be a match for Hal.

The Running Man, set in 2019, filmed in 1987

A police officer framed for causing a massacre is forced to participate in The Running Man, a brutal gameshow where convicts are forced to fight against trained killers with a chance to win their freedom.

The Film 2019

Another bleak picture of the future – a totalitarian government feeds the population brutal gameshows to keep them quiet. The Running Man is extremely theatrical; the show’s killers have gimmicks and characters and feel like a mix between professional wrestling and The Price Is Right, but additionally, people die. The audience ecstatically cheers while people are brutally killed the same way they cheer when someone wins The Running Man board game.

The Reality 2019

Fortunately gameshows and reality television haven’t quite gotten to this stage, but there is an increasing element of cruelty in a lot of these and glee taken in the suffering of others. Fortunately, professional wrestling remains the absurd spectacle it always was, with no need to cater to more brutal tastes.

Escape From New York – set in 1997, made in 1981

In a crime-ridden future, Manhattan Island has been turned into one giant prison, which is fine until the President’s plane crashes on the island. Former special forces soldier Snake Plissken is sent to rescue the President.

The Film 1997

Crime in America has become a huge problem; in fact, the biggest problem. So much so that Manhattan Island has been turned into one giant prison. The island is completely overrun with rubbish, and vicious gangs attack anyone unlucky to cross their paths

NATO is fighting a brutal war with the USSR in Europe that may very well bring about the destruction of the whole world through nuclear Armageddon. One ray of hope is that nuclear fusion has been invented, which was hoped to be what brought about peace between the warring sides.

Reality 1997

Crime may have been a problem in 1997, but nothing like the levels seen in the film, with law and order largely still in effect. Manhattan Island remained a glorious part of New York City with skyscrapers, museums and Central Park.

As for the USSR, by 1997 it no longer existed and the Cold War was long over. Nuclear fusion does happen, but only in stars as we haven’t yet worked out how to do it ourselves.

Predictions or Warnings?

It’s important to remember filmmakers weren’t trying to predict the future but merely imagining one way it could turn out, and usually their imagined future was not the one they wanted to happen. That said, Blade Runner was very specifically set in November 2019, so we have a little while yet…

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