# Any old movies about the future that got it right? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 14, 2009, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075 "2009-04-14T15:52:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075/1 "2009-04-14T15:52:33Z")
Yahoo has [this slideshow](http://movies.yahoo.com/photos/celebrities/gallery/1633/top-10-inaccurate-movies-about-the-future/fp#photo0) about movies that were pretty off in predicting what the future would be like. Are there any examples where the filmakers got it right (or at least parts of it right)? Any movies made prior to 1990 showing everyone walking around talking on tiny little wireless phones? Any movies made prior to 1980 showing an office setting with everyone sitting at keyboards and monitors? Flat panel TVs? Digital cameras? Anything close to resembling the internet? Any other examples? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075/2 "2009-04-14T16:24:13Z")
Filmmakers and writers weren’t making predictions, so anything is coincidental. Isaac Asimov did predict (and name) pocket calculators in his story “The Feeling of Power,” but that was incidental. Star Trek Communicators are similar to cell phones. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075/3 "2009-04-14T16:30:36Z")
Star Trek not only had cell phones, but automatic sliding doors. Video phones are now almost a reality. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075/4 "2009-04-14T16:36:31Z")
There were plenty of old movies with the moving walkways you see in airports. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075/5 "2009-04-14T17:10:50Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > There were plenty of old movies with the moving walkways you see in airports. Well how old are the actual walkways? I remember them for years. What movie showed them that pre-dates them? ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075/6 "2009-04-14T18:09:28Z")
Woody Allen’s Sleeper had gigantic fruit. Have you seen supermarket strawberries lately? ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075/7 "2009-04-14T18:22:33Z")
Somewhat on topic. In 90/91/92? I read a story/novel probably written 2 or 3 decades earlier that was placed in the future, and not like 2525, probably more like 2020 give or take. And it did not predict any specific thing so much as a general principle, which on first glance seems rather backwards. Enough power? Warp drive and flying cars, no problem in theory. Advanced enough electronics? Cell phones and home computers no problem. What this book predicted (it was more a detail of the story than any important plot point) was that High technologly like cell phones, electronic cameras, computers…would be so cheap and available as to become disposable. On the other hand, stuff like a D cell battery, a gallon or water or milk, or a candy bar, would cost way more than the high tech stuff, to the point of actually being expensive. I’d say we are getting there, much to my surprise. ---
**Author:** ![dotchan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@dotchan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dotchan)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075/8 "2009-04-14T18:28:29Z")
First, obligatory link to the life-ruining experience that is [TV Tropes](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage) 😃 Second, according to that wiki, _Neuromancer_ was the first depiction of a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game well before anything even resembling one appeared. ---
**Author:** ![Invisible\_Chimp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f05b48/32.png) [@Invisible\_Chimp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Invisible_Chimp)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075/9 "2009-04-14T18:29:46Z")
I would guess that books are more likely to get it right than TV or movies. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075/10 "2009-04-14T18:45:57Z")
7 of [The 10 Most Prophetic Sci-Fi Movies](http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/reviews/4256186.html?series=6) were made before 1990. And here are [some](http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2007/01/on-the-silver-and-plasma-screen-wayward-thoughts-on-2001/) [different](http://www.currybet.net/cbet_blog/2009/02/2001_a_space_odyssey.php) [articles](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/12/31/PK28953.DTL&type=movies) about how many things Kubrick’s _2001_ got right. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075/11 "2009-04-14T18:49:35Z")
As noted, Science Fiction wasn’t an attempt to accurately predict the future, and SF cinema ids easily dumbed than SF literature. Nevertheles, here are a few hits: **Operation Moonbase** – partially written by Robert A. Heinlein, has telephones with no direct connection between the desk set and the handheld microphone/speaker. There’s a short antenna on the desk set and another on the handset. I feel pretty confident that Heinlein’s responsible for that – they don’t call attention to it, and it’s exactly the sort of “throwaway” technology that pops up in his books. **Bladerunner** has magazines with cover prices of twelve dollars or more. This seemed outrageous in 1982, but go to your newsstand and see how many specialty mags cost that much. The Pan Am Space Clipper in **2001: A Space Odyssey** looks uncannily like the Space Shuttle, if the latter wwere a little longer, thinner, and graceful. I suspect they had access to NASA conceptual drawings. One cliche of the Future has been Picture Phones, and it shows up in SF film as well, from **Metropolis** to **2001**. well, we effectively have them now, although they’re still by no means as ubiquitous as the movies would have us believe. A lot of people feel that :asers met a lot of the requirements of Ray Guns, from **F;ash Gordon** and **War of the Worlds** and lots of other Space Opera. When they made **Goldfinger** , they didn’t really have a laser that could do what the one shown did (the episode isn’t in the book) – the laser depicted is pretty clearly a blown-up version of a Ruby Laser, right down to outsized spiral flashtube and the red beam, but the ruby laser delivered pulses unless chilled, and the beam ought to have had speckle. Some people claim that the CO[sub]2[/sub] gas-dynamic laser delivered the goods a year later. But it was invisible. Unfortunately, they got a lot more wrong than right. Even ideas that sorta half made it, in being actually built and operated, generally didn’t catch on in a big way – like Rocket Packs, Flying Cars, and Monorail Transportation, or those gleaming metallic cars speedling on ruthlessly clean Highways of Tomorrow (as in the GM or Ford exhibits, or the short "Highway to the Future’ that MST3K spoofed so wonderfully) And most ideas didn’t even get that far. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075/12 "2009-04-14T18:55:46Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Star Trek Communicators are similar to cell phones. Uhuru’s earpiece looks like a BlueTooth. Those data cards they used for the computer were about the size of a 3.5" diskette. The no-needle hypodermic used by McCoy came to be used for some types of vaccinations (don’t know if they’re still in use or already obsolete). But IIRC we never got to see Earth, so we don’t know how they envisioned everyday life. ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075/13 "2009-04-14T19:12:49Z")
A cell phone has only a very superficial resemblance to a Star Trek communicator. Some cell phones and some communicators have a clam-shell design, though it’s not an essential feature of either. But there’s nothing “cellular” about communicators. They function more like walkie-talkies, which had been around for decades before the TV series. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075/14 "2009-04-14T20:40:38Z")
> [@](#): > > Second, according to that wiki, Neuromancer was the first depiction of a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game well before anything even resembling one appeared. I’m pretty sure that MUDs date back to some time in the 70s (1978, according to [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD)). They just had a quiet decade or two before becoming popular again and changing their name to MMORPGs. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075/15 "2009-04-14T20:41:05Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > Yahoo has [this slideshow](http://movies.yahoo.com/photos/celebrities/gallery/1633/top-10-inaccurate-movies-about-the-future/fp#photo0)… I looked at the slideshow, and picking out movies with innacuracies about the future is like shooting fish in a barrel. Hell, they can’t even make a movie that is accurate about the _present_. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075/16 "2009-04-14T21:08:07Z")
> [@dotchan](#): > > Second, according to that wiki, _Neuromancer_ was the first depiction of a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game well before anything even resembling one appeared. If you don’t count Arthur C. Clarke’s _The City And The Stars_, that is: it was published in 1956 and has a scene in which a group of characters use the city’s computer to play what is clearly an interactive multiplayer online fantasy RPG, Tolkienesque setting and all. I always thought that was pretty good: it’s one thing to predict powerful computers, it’s quite another to figure that people will just use them to play D&D. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075/17 "2009-04-14T23:20:45Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Somewhat on topic. > > In 90/91/92? I read a story/novel probably written 2 or 3 decades earlier that was placed in the future, and not like 2525, probably more like 2020 give or take. > > And it did not predict any specific thing so much as a general principle, which on first glance seems rather backwards. > > Enough power? Warp drive and flying cars, no problem in theory. Advanced enough electronics? Cell phones and home computers no problem. > > What this book predicted (it was more a detail of the story than any important plot point) was that High technologly like cell phones, electronic cameras, computers…would be so cheap and available as to become disposable. On the other hand, stuff like a D cell battery, a gallon or water or milk, or a candy bar, would cost way more than the high tech stuff, to the point of actually being expensive. > > I’d say we are getting there, much to my surprise. You’re possibly thinking of David Brin’s [Earth](http://www.amazon.com/Earth-David-Brin/dp/055329024X), which was published in 1991. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2009, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075/18 "2009-04-14T23:29:22Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > You’re possibly thinking of David Brin’s [Earth](http://www.amazon.com/Earth-David-Brin/dp/055329024X), which was published in 1991. What was the plot? I am pretty sure it was an OLD paperback I was reading back then. But hey, memory and all that. IIRC the story I read a bunch of kids befriend an old guy and basically screw him over. ---
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075/19 "2009-04-15T00:25:35Z")
I seem to recall a scene in 2010 where Dr. Floyd is using a notebook computer, of about the same dimensions as those of today. The film came out in 1984, I think the first notebooks were early 90’s and initially a lot bulkier than todays. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075/20 "2009-04-15T00:39:24Z")
The story _True Names_ was built on the accurate prediction that with the rise of computer networks, the people who used them would be in the position of the wizards of myth. Where someone knowing your true name would have power over you. It also depicted a form of virtual reality, and the idea of cyberspace ( it’s often given co-credit with _Neuromancer_ for those ). > [@billfish678](#): > > What was the plot? > > I am pretty sure it was an OLD paperback I was reading back then. But hey, memory and all that. > > IIRC the story I read a bunch of kids befriend an old guy and basically screw him over. Well, in _Earth_ a bunch of kids befriend an old guy and he screws THEM over. Plus there’s an attempt to destroy the planet by unknown aliens, and another to kill humanity by an eco-fanatic. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-old-movies-about-the-future-that-got-it-right/493075.md?page=2)