# Lost Futures **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 18, 2007, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-futures/423123 "2007-10-18T01:26:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2008, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-futures/423123/101 "2008-01-12T20:10:29Z")
[QUOTE=Othar the Tooth Collector] In 1994, a runaway planet tears the Moon in two, causing huge catastrophes and leading to a world dominated by mutants, super-science, and sorcery! (Thundarr the Barbarian). [/QUOTE] Demon dogs! šŸ˜ƒ ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-futures/423123/102 "2021-03-14T20:08:06Z")
Bumped. In his 1976 sf novel _Imperial Earth_ , which I just reread (set in 2276), Arthur C. Clarke wrote that the Gondwana reactor was destroyed due to sabotage ā€œin the early twenty-first century.ā€ He also refers to the first manned landing on Saturnā€™s large moon Titan in 2015, with the first permanent base there being established in 2046, so weā€™d better get cracking. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-futures/423123/103 "2021-03-14T20:20:58Z")
FYI: Orycon 30 was a success, and I learned something important. I will NEVER do that again. šŸ˜ ---
**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:** [March 14, 2021, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-futures/423123/104 "2021-03-14T20:42:56Z")
I have been making a list for some time of movies that occur sometime near to the present year but which predict it very wrong. I created the list so that the book club I belong to can perhaps someday watch a few of them. Once a year we have a movie day which we spend watching movies with some kind of theme. Hereā€™s my list: _2001: A Space Odyssey_, _Blade Runner_, _Akira_, _The Running Man_, _Soylent Green_, _The Terminator_, _Reign of Fire_, _Pacific Rim_, _Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet_, _Roujin Z_, _Yesterday_ (2002), _The Island_ (2005), _Real Steel_, _Rollerball_ (1975), _Mission to Mars_, _Robocop_, _A Clockwork Orange_, _A Scanner Darkly_, _Timecop_, _Escape from New York_, _Mad Max_, _Deathrace 2000_, _1990: The Bronx Warriors_, _2019: After the Fall of New York_, _Absolon_, _Americathon_, _Brick Mansions_, _Iron Sky_, _Annihilation Earth_, _I Robot_, _V for Vendetta_, _The 6th Day_, _Surrogates_, _Terminator Salvation_, _Back to the Future Part II_, _A Boy and His Dog_, and _Daybreakers_ ---
**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:** [March 14, 2021, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-futures/423123/105 "2021-03-14T20:45:40Z")
I didnā€™t read the OP carefully, so I didnā€™t realize that it was posted in 2007. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2021, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-futures/423123/106 "2021-03-14T22:16:44Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > I didnā€™t read the OP carefully, so I didnā€™t realize that it was posted in 2007. Soā€¦ this thread is a lost future! I too didnā€™t see the date and was going to drop in with comments and linksā€¦ but mostly to say ā€œLOVE the theme! Great idea.ā€ > [@Czarcasm](#): > > FYI: Orycon 30 was a success, and I learned something important. > I will NEVER do that again. šŸ˜ Huge congrats! I canā€™t imagine taking something like that on. But I can imagine saying ā€œNever againā€ā€¦ ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2021, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-futures/423123/107 "2021-03-21T05:03:27Z")
On March 15, 2017, President Frank Underwood, Democrat of South Carolina, resigned from office (_House of Cards_, Season 5). ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2021, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-futures/423123/108 "2021-03-21T07:11:43Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > I didnā€™t read the OP carefully, so I didnā€™t realize that it was posted in 2007 Quite all right. It isnā€™t the first time that theme has been used and, Armageddon notwithstanding, it will be used again. If I see that some con is using a similar theme, Iā€™ll pass your post along. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2021, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-futures/423123/109 "2021-05-08T17:54:05Z")
On Aug. 11, 2006, all-out war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union resulted in the extinction of all life on Earth, ā€œfrom the bottom of the ocean to the top of the atmosphere; [with] not a cockroach, not a paramecium, not a virusā€ surviving, according to Joe Haldemanā€™s _The Hemingway Hoax_ (1990). ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2021, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-futures/423123/110 "2021-05-08T18:47:53Z")
My personal fan theory is that Dick Tracy takes place in an alternate universe where everybody still wears hats and trench coats. And people stop aging when their in their 30ā€™s. ---
**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:** [February 5, 2023, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-futures/423123/111 "2023-02-05T03:46:51Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > Iā€™m not sure exactly when **Moon Zero Two** was set, but itā€™s using Apollo-era technology in a ā€œfutureā€ setting. So it implies the 80ā€™s or 90ā€™s as the venue. The date given at the start of the movie is May 9, 2021 ETA: is this the only ā€œfuture dates that have passedā€ thread? I thought we had a couple of others but I couldnā€™t find them. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2026, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-futures/423123/112 "2026-09-06T15:53:33Z")
Bumped. Hereā€™s at least one other thread, **Lumpy** : [The (SF) Futures Left Behind](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sf-futures-left-behind/708674/1) Just rewatched _V for Vendetta_ (2005), about a near-future Fascist Britain. The original graphic novel, released in 1989 and drawn from a serialized comic strip which ran from 1982-85, was set in the 1990s; the latest year shown on any computer screen in the movie is 2020. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2026, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-futures/423123/113 "2026-09-06T21:11:06Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > Do comic books count? This one was from Gold Key, and set in the near future: [M.A.R.S. Patrol Total War - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.A.R.S._Patrol_Total_War) ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2026, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-futures/423123/114 "2026-09-06T21:27:52Z")
In the awful 1987 miniseries _ **Ameяika** _, the US surrendered to the USSR for no apparent reason right in the middle of Ronald Reaganā€™s second term. The British miniseries _ **An Englishmanā€™s Castle** _ (1978) was set in a UK that had lost WWII to the Germans. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-futures/423123/115 "2026-09-09T01:23:18Z")
Ernest Callenbachā€™s ā€œEcotopia,ā€ published in 1975, has Washington, Oregon, and Northern California secede to form an independent green no-growth society in 1980. The novel picks up the story in 1999. If only! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lost-futures/423123.md?page=5)