Wasn’t “Wild Palms” set in 2013? I remember a scene in which all the material relating to JFK’s assassination has been unsealed after 50 years and Oliver Stone is completely vindicated.
Soylent Green was set in 2022 (and it’s coming true). People tend to miss the scary scene in that movie; it’s not related to processing people into food, but is a calm meeting of a number of aging scientists and academics, who have completed a study proving that the oceans are irreparably damaged and dying, which pretty much dooms the human race.
I think the 1955 movie Conquest of Space was set before now. Damnit, I want my Chesley Bonestell rocketship.
The recent movie The Final Cut is unusual in that it’s set in some imagined future of indeterminate date, when the cars look like 1965 and the advanced computers have wooden keyboards.
If you have gamers as well, you could point out that if Shadowrun were correct, megacorps would have taken over North America, an earthquake would have destroyed most of New York, and the Japanese Imperial State would have been revived by now.
Oh, and remains of life on Mars were discovered secretly, so no one noticed.
I just want to second this idea. Perhaps the largest panel could be on the decade when death rays reached their design and style zenith.
Which decade was that? I keep forgetting.
More info, please. Some of us in Oregon might be interested in attending your con. Love the theme.
It doesn’t sound like it’s Orycon 29, which is Nov 16-18 and whose webpage says the theme is “Pirates, past present and future.” Ambercon was Nov 1-4. Potlatch is in Seattle in early 2008, and Westercon won’t be back for at least the next two years.
I’ve been to a few Orycons and the last two Portland Westercons, and enjoyed them as only an aging fanboy can. If there’s something else coming, I’d be very interested.
So, here’s a legit invite to share the details with the Dope.
[Note to mods: I have no financial or other connection with any con, other than that of a potential interested customer.]
I was a senior in high school in 1984 and I remember a Peanuts cartoon during New Year’s week lamenting the fact that there were going to be so many book reports and so many journalists falling over themselves to make 1984 analogies in the next few months. Dig it up and it might be an interesting display for the conference.
LAUGH-IN used to have a News of the Future segment. I remember that Dan Rowan referred to President Ronald Reagan (this from about 1970 with the news being from the 1990s) and the audience laughed.
Big Boy restaurants had comic books set in the year 2000 with $20 trips to the moon.
I recall a skit from the original-cast Saturday Night Live: “Jeopardy 2001.” Can anybody find an online link to it? My google-fu is not strong today. The only joke I remember is: “Legalized in 1994, it provided an effective solution to population growth.” BZZZ! “What is baby-killing?” Oh, and there was something about every contestant receiving a rhesus monkey torture kit.
I was going to suggest this one too. It is one of my favorites! (I wouldn’t be too sure about the zombie drugs though…)
The big missing item is, of course, time travel! But the other thing that this book is notable for is the number of things that we HAVE now that we didn’t when it was written, such as CAD and word processors, vacuum cleaners that wander around and vacuum the room for you, even automatic cat litter pans! My college adviser read this in 1970 (when it was “all the rage”) and thought it a good story. In the mid 80s when I was in college, he had re-read it and was floored by how many things that it mentions occurred between 1970 and 1984! I last re-read it in the year 2000, of course…
Marty in Central Illinois - The Land of Corn and Flatness!
I remember all those cartoons that showed “the house of the future” with the auto-vacuum that zipped around and sucked everything up, including the cat. Thanks for reminding me-I think I’ll dig up a few of those and show them during one of the panels.
The early Larry Niven stories set in his “Known Space” future history have mankind exploring the solar system in atomic spaceships in the 1980s. Instead of going back and changing the timeline, he’s made the decision that the Known Space stories are set in an alternate history where more resources were put into the space program.
Forgot to add, in 1999 an explosion of nuclear waste stored on the moon knocked it out of it’s orbit and the people living in the moonbase had many strange adventures (Space: 1999).
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).
