# How well did 1984 hold up in 1985? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [June 12, 2024, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799 "2024-06-12T21:28:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2024, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799/1 "2024-06-12T21:28:38Z")
I’m thinking about literature or film that was set in the future compared to when it was produced. Like 2001 written in 1968. Or 1984 written in 1949. Which such works held up the best once that future date had actually come and gone? Right now, I’m reading Vonnegut’s Player Piano, written in 1952. So far, the word I’m thinking of most often is “quaint.” The author describes technological changes which are far short of what is now commonplace, and the culture it describes seems like 1950s suburbia. Other works seem to overshoot the mark, like 2001, promising technological advances that remain way beyond us. I’m not solely talking about authors who accurately predicted specific technology or social/political developments. Tho it IS somewhat jarring to read/watch about any futuristic society without cellphones… But I’m eager to hear of authors/producers who reasonably portrayed versions of the future which have proven to be not completely unbelievable. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2024, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799/2 "2024-06-12T21:40:29Z")
For what it’s worth, Orwell just reversed '48 (when he was writing it) to get '84. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2024, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799/3 "2024-06-12T21:49:29Z")
IIRC, Winston Smith isn’t even sure if it is 1984 - it’s just a guess since he was born in the aftermath of WWII and he’s about forty. It could easily be any year the Party decides it wants it to be. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2024, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799/4 "2024-06-13T01:30:41Z")
I think evaluating _1984_ for its scientific and technological accuracy is completely missing the point. Orwell could have as easily called the book _1584_ and the Ministry of Truth could be a Star Chamber court. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2024, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799/5 "2024-06-13T02:05:06Z")
I do remember that it was reissued and hit the best-seller list. I sure rung up plenty of copies at Target, which had it on the checkout racks. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2024, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799/6 "2024-06-13T02:20:14Z")
_ **1984** _ obviously did not come to pass because there was not an atomic war in the early 1950s that resulted in the destruction of liberal democracy. On the other hand the concept of verifiable objective truth has been taking a beating in recent years. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2024, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799/7 "2024-06-13T02:50:13Z")
The thing I remember the most clearly from the assorted comments about the book 1984 in the year 1984 was the person (I wish I remember who) who wrote that Orwell had posited a world in which everyone had a television which watched them and told them what to do; and in the actual 1984 almost everyone had a television which they watched, and it told them (in somewhat less obvious ways) what to do. And that there might not be as much difference between the two as we were congratulating ourselves on. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2024, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799/8 "2024-06-13T03:18:29Z")
Since most of the people who read _ **1984** _ are middle class and because the protagonist of the novel is what passes for middle class (the Outer Party) in that world, I think most readers take away a mistaken impression. We’re repeatedly told that the vast majority of the population are proles- uneducated workers who live in shanty towns and perform manual labor for the barest pittance of survival. The proles are mostly beneath political notice; they aren’t subject to the discipline of the Inner and Outer Parties and often don’t even have telescreens in their homes. In other words, most people there don’t share Winston Smith’s experiences; it’s as if 80% of the population were ghetto dweller day laborers or derelicts living in homeless encampments. By percentages anyway most people would not be under the strict scrutiny of the Thought Police- proles and animals are free. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2024, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799/9 "2024-06-13T03:27:31Z")
I think one of the best examples of predicting a plausible future was **Max Headroom** , which was a bit more dystopian than where we’re likely to end up, but the technology it presented was not far off what we have recently developed with AI, the Internet, and authentic digital hosts. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2024, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799/10 "2024-06-13T06:03:30Z")
Are you asking specifically about _1984_? You know it’s about Stalinism and totalitarianism and so forth, right? I don’t think Orwell was trying to predict exactly how many flat-screen TVs and IBM PCs and mobile phones would be out by 1984. It’s not even about _future_ totalitarianism: like most science fiction, it was about the present. ---
**Author:** ![FinsToTheLeft](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finstotheleft/32/2930_2.png) [@FinsToTheLeft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinsToTheLeft)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2024, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799/11 "2024-06-13T10:04:36Z")
I read 1984 for the first time in grade 8, in 1984. My English teacher had been waiting for years for the crossover of time. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2024, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799/12 "2024-06-13T10:55:59Z")
Sorry for the apparent confusion. No, I am NOT asking specifially about 1984. As I said, I thought about this thread as I am reaing Player Piano. I just thought 1984 made for an amusing title. > [@Dinsdale](#): > > But I’m eager to hear of authors/producers who reasonably portrayed versions of the future which have proven to be not completely unbelievable. ---
**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 13, 2024, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799/13 "2024-06-13T13:29:10Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > But I’m eager to hear of authors/producers who reasonably portrayed versions of the future which have proven to be not completely unbelievable. It would take a long time to analyze all the works set in a future date (when the book was published) and determine which underestimate the amount of change and which overestimate the amount of change and which get the amount approximately correct. In any case, correctly estimating the amount of change isn’t really what such books are about. Partly, reading a lot of them can give you information about many of the things that might happen. Partly, many of them are really about things that are currently happening at the time they are written. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2024, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799/14 "2024-06-13T13:37:49Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > By percentages anyway most people would not be under the strict scrutiny of the Thought Police- proles and animals are free. True. (Though I’m not sure that they’re “free” exactly; free from the strict supervision, but not free of living in awful conditions, working terrible jobs, and being turned into cannon fodder.) However, I don’t think that much changes the point – other than possibly to point out that even more people were/are affected by the actual version. ETA: > [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > In any case, correctly estimating the amount of change isn’t really what such books are about. Partly, reading a lot of them can give you information about many of the things that might happen. Partly, many of them are really about things that are currently happening at the time they are written. Also true. And dystopias in particular are warning stories; they’re about ‘if we keep going this way, this might happen. So let’s not go there!’ A difference between reality and the prediction is exactly what they’re trying to bring about. ---
**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:** [June 13, 2024, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799/15 "2024-06-13T14:18:12Z")
Canny science fiction authors know not to attach dates to their works. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2024, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799/16 "2024-06-13T14:27:17Z")
I’m not sure the goal of any Science Fiction writer is to accurately predict the future. Would reading a book in 1973 about things that actually happened in 2023 really be all that interesting without aliens, robot assassins, or nuclear holocaust? For sheer predictive accuracy, you would do better to look at the one panel cartoons of Arthur Radebaugh. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/lZH16NLcd3M/maxresdefault.jpg "Closer Than We Think | 30 Minute Presentation | Retrofuturism") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZH16NLcd3M) ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2024, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799/17 "2024-06-13T14:49:44Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > had a television which watched them Instead of having a device forced on you which watches and listens to your every move, now people willing pay for a device that watches and listens to your every move, and they anthropomorphize it and give it a cutsie name. 2001 has been mentioned. Not only don’t we have giant space stations and nukular ships than can travel between planets, we don’t even have Pan Am! But _Blade Runner_ was an oddly-specific prediction. “Off world colonies” , machines that are more human than human, a wet Los Angeles, all prior to 2017? The movie didn’t even need to specify a date. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2024, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799/18 "2024-06-13T15:39:04Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Would reading a book in 1973 about things that actually happened in 2023 really be all that interesting without aliens, robot assassins, or nuclear holocaust? Since lots of people read books in any given year that are set in that year, or in previous years, in fields other than science fiction that contain no aliens, robot assassins, or nuclear holocausts (and sometimes containing no assassins at all): I can only conclude that yes, it might well be. And there is science fiction of that sort, or at least used to be: utopias or dystopias or alternate-worlds that are just humans trying to cope with imagined different circumstances. > [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > > > had a television which watched them > > Instead of having a device forced on you which watches and listens to your every move, now people willing pay for a device that watches and listens to your every move, and they anthropomorphize it and give it a cutsie name. Yup, it’s gotten even more so. ---
**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:** [June 13, 2024, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799/19 "2024-06-13T18:29:39Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > I’m thinking about literature or film that was set in the future compared to when it was produced. Like 2001 written in 1968. Or 1984 written in 1949. Which such works held up the best once that future date had actually come and gone? For what bit’s worth, the version of **1984** starring John Hurt (who looks amazingly like George Orwell – which is certainly intentional) was actually filmed in London in the year 1984, and in the months the novel takes place, much of it in places that weren’t sets. So London in the year 1984 could pass for the world of _1984_ > [@](#): > > The opening scenes of the film showing the [Two Minutes Hate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Minutes_Hate) were filmed in a grass-covered hangar at [RAF Hullavington](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Hullavington) near [Chippenham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chippenham) in [Wiltshire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiltshire).[[14]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four_(1984_film)#cite_note-16) Some scenes set in Victory Square were also filmed at [Alexandra Palace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Palace) in London.[[15]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four_(1984_film)#cite_note-17) [Senate House (University of London)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_House_(University_of_London)) was used for exterior shots of the [Ministry of Truth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Truth).[_[citation needed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed)_] > > The disused [Battersea Power Station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battersea_Power_Station) in [Wandsworth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Borough_of_Wandsworth) served as the façade for the Victory Mansions, and the [Beckton Gas Works](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beckton_Gas_Works) in the [Docklands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Docklands) of [Newham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Borough_of_Newham) was used as the setting for the proletarian zones. The pawnshop exterior, a pub scene and a scene with a prostitute were filmed in [Cheshire Street](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheshire_Street), in London’s East End, an area Orwell had visited and commented on in his first book, _[Down and Out in Paris and London](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_Paris_and_London)_. The canteen interiors were filmed in a [disused grain mill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Mills) at [Silvertown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvertown). In contrast, the idyllic, dreamlike “Golden Country”, where Winston and Julia repair for their first tryst and which recurs in Winston’s fantasies, was filmed in the southwest county of [Wiltshire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiltshire) at a natural circle of hills called “Roundway”, near the town of [Devizes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devizes). The scenes on the train were shot on the [Kent and East Sussex Railway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_and_East_Sussex_Railway). The film shared a number of locations with [Terry Gilliam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Gilliam)’s _[Brazil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_(1985_film))_, which was filmed the same year.[[8]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four_(1984_film)#cite_note-DenGeek-10) > **[Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four_(1984_film))** > > Nineteen Eighty-Four, also known as 1984, is a 1984 dystopian drama film written and directed by Michael Radford, based upon George Orwell's 1949 novel of the same name. Starring John Hurt, Richard Burton, Suzanna Hamilton, and Cyril Cusack, the film follows the life of Winston Smith (Hurt), a low-ranking civil servant in a war-torn London ruled by Oceania, a totalitarian superstate. Smith struggles to maintain his sanity and his grip on reality as the regime's overwhelming power and influenc... > [@](#): > > Many of the scenes were shot on the days noted in Winston Smith’s diary. The scene where Smith enters his apartment and writes in his diary, dating the entry April 4, 1984, was filmed on April 4, 1984. > > The movie was filmed during April, May, and June 1984. The closing credits declare that “This film was photographed in and around London during the period April-June 1984, the exact time and setting imagined by the author ([George Orwell](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000567/?ref_=tttrv_tr)).” > **[1984 (1984) - Trivia - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087803/trivia/?ref_=tt_trv_trv)** > > 1984 (1984) - Trivia on IMDb: Cameos, Mistakes, Spoilers and more... ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2024, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799/20 "2024-06-13T19:44:49Z")
I remember overhearing a conversation between two young adults in 1984 or 1985 after the movie was out: A: Did you see 1984 yet? B: Not yet. Do you know what it’s about? A. Not really. It’s based on a book I think but I don’t know the name of it. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-did-1984-hold-up-in-1985/1002799.md?page=2)