# Coporations/Gadgetry already extinct in movies set in the future **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 23, 2005, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coporations-gadgetry-already-extinct-in-movies-set-in-the-future/309575 "2005-06-23T18:55:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2005, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coporations-gadgetry-already-extinct-in-movies-set-in-the-future/309575/1 "2005-06-23T18:55:42Z")
Inspired by me watching **Blade Runner** last night. After the opening scene where they’re testing Leon, it switches to a cityscape, where a Spinner is heading past a monitor that shows an Asian woman selling something. In the background atop one of the skyscrapers is “Pan Am.” Heh. A gadgetry example: the golf game circa 1980 where you hit the ball against a home movie screen, and the screen shows where the ball would have gone. Somehow I think video games would have moved beyond that in the year in which **Outland** was set. ¿Qué mas? ---
**Author:** ![Genghis\_Bob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/45deac/32.png) [@Genghis\_Bob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Genghis_Bob)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2005, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coporations-gadgetry-already-extinct-in-movies-set-in-the-future/309575/2 "2005-06-23T19:01:24Z")
Caught a few minutes of Westworld while flipping channels last night. In the control room for this resort boasting near-sentient robots indistinguishable from people were green-screen displays, reostats and gigantic clunky monitors. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2005, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coporations-gadgetry-already-extinct-in-movies-set-in-the-future/309575/3 "2005-06-23T19:13:13Z")
Well, we see the World Trade Center in **A.I.**'s futuristic New York. **Blade Runner** features ads for Pan-Am, Atari and Schlitz. Pan-Am is also in **2001: A Space Odyssey** , along with Bell telephone. ---
**Author:** ![FatBaldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecd19e/32.png) [@FatBaldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FatBaldGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2005, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coporations-gadgetry-already-extinct-in-movies-set-in-the-future/309575/4 "2005-06-23T19:19:55Z")
Not in the movies, but in the old sci-fi books by E.E. “Doc” Smith, when the engineer needed to calculate a trajectory through space he whipped out his slide rule. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2005, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coporations-gadgetry-already-extinct-in-movies-set-in-the-future/309575/5 "2005-06-23T19:21:05Z")
> [@Dooku](#): > > A gadgetry example: the golf game circa 1980 where you hit the ball against a home movie screen, and the screen shows where the ball would have gone. Somehow I think video games would have moved beyond that in the year in which **Outland** was set. Not so much. I just got a review copy of one of these. You actually hit a ball with your clubs and your monitor/televisions handles the game from there. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2005, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coporations-gadgetry-already-extinct-in-movies-set-in-the-future/309575/6 "2005-06-23T19:30:32Z")
> [@FatBaldGuy](#): > > Not in the movies, but in the old sci-fi books by E.E. “Doc” Smith, when the engineer needed to calculate a trajectory through space he whipped out his slide rule. Mr. Spock uses a silde rule in an episode of the original Star Trek, but the scene was cut out in the syndicated versions which were all most of us had access to before DVD. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2005, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coporations-gadgetry-already-extinct-in-movies-set-in-the-future/309575/7 "2005-06-23T19:48:06Z")
> [@Jonathan Chance](#): > > Not so much. I just got a review copy of one of these. You actually hit a ball with your clubs and your monitor/televisions handles the game from there. OK, but Outland was not set in the year 2005. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2005, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coporations-gadgetry-already-extinct-in-movies-set-in-the-future/309575/8 "2005-06-23T19:48:36Z")
Before opening the thread the first thing that ran through my mind was Blade Runner. Of course if you had a flying car, why would you need any airline? ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2005, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coporations-gadgetry-already-extinct-in-movies-set-in-the-future/309575/9 "2005-06-23T19:56:04Z")
> [@ArchiveGuy](#): > > **Blade Runner** features ads for Pan-Am, Atari and Schlitz. Nitpick: Atari is still around, but nowadays it’s a rebranded version of the French software company Infogrames. The _original_ Atari was mutilated by a series of incompetent CEOs and eventually liquidated. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Odinoneeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/97f17d/32.png) [@Odinoneeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odinoneeye)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2005, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coporations-gadgetry-already-extinct-in-movies-set-in-the-future/309575/10 "2005-06-23T19:56:37Z")
Also, Spock uses what looks like 3 1/2" floppy disks. When they came out in the 80s it was like “wow, Star Trek predicted this” of course, now in the 21st century, they’re not used very much. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2005, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coporations-gadgetry-already-extinct-in-movies-set-in-the-future/309575/11 "2005-06-23T20:04:10Z")
Michael Douglas’s firebrick-sized cellphone in _Wall Street_ (1987) deserves mention, not that the movie was set in the future, but that a cellphone was presented as such a gee-whiz-nifty-cool gizmo. ---
**Author:** ![Winston\_Bongo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a9adbd/32.png) [@Winston\_Bongo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winston_Bongo)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2005, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coporations-gadgetry-already-extinct-in-movies-set-in-the-future/309575/12 "2005-06-24T02:00:14Z")
> [@ArchiveGuy](#): > > Well, we see the World Trade Center in **A.I.**'s futuristic New York. Reminds me of another one: Snake Plisskin landing on top of the WTC in _Escape From New York._ ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2005, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coporations-gadgetry-already-extinct-in-movies-set-in-the-future/309575/13 "2005-06-24T02:01:33Z")
Why, when there are aircars, would there be airlines? Why, when there are cars, are there also buses & trains? _G_ Also, RE the archaic corporations/brand names- well, maybe they’ve been revived for a whole retro feel. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2005, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coporations-gadgetry-already-extinct-in-movies-set-in-the-future/309575/14 "2005-06-24T02:18:50Z")
My absolute favorite my or may not fit the OP, but it’s close. In _The Running Man_ with Arnold Schwartzeneger, there’s a scene where two people are at a vending machine getting sodas. In a commentary on inflation, one of them says to the other something along the lines of “$4.50 for a Coke, eh? I need 6 more quarters, do you have any?” This was _just before_ vending machines advanced to the point where they could accept paper money, and ever since that innovation I couldn’t help but laugh whenever I saw that scene. I mean, really, if your premise is that a soda costs closes to $5, and arcades had already had change machines accepting bills for years, how much of a leap in logic was this particular innovation? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2005, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coporations-gadgetry-already-extinct-in-movies-set-in-the-future/309575/15 "2005-06-24T03:31:19Z")
Winston Bongo writes: \> Reminds me of another one: Snake Plisskin landing on top of the WTC in Escape \> From New York. _Escape from New York_ is set in 1997, so the fact that the World Trade Center is still around in that year is one of the few things that they got right. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2005, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coporations-gadgetry-already-extinct-in-movies-set-in-the-future/309575/16 "2005-06-24T03:39:40Z")
—Most of the computer equipment shown in _Robocop_ that isn’t actually, well, _in_ Robocop. (That is, implanted in his skull. They can build a tiny computer able to interface with and replace human brain tissue, and they’re still using _huge banks of reel-to-reel computer tape drives?_) —Pretty much any computer operating system (and a lot of input devices) shown in movies made before the mid 90s. —Didn’t Deckard’s TV set in _Blade Runner_ have knobs on the front? —The Soviet Union. (_Escape from New York; 2010_…gotta be more. Probably shouldn’t be on the list, I guess, seeing as it ain’t a gadget or a corporation) And…as of now, the PanAm name is [owned by a railroad company.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilford_Transportation_Industries) Maybe in the future, it’s a Maglev service. 😃