# The most prescient words ever uttered in film or fiction **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 9, 2009, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804 "2009-03-09T04:26:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2009, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804/1 "2009-03-09T04:26:32Z")
> [@The Graduate (movie 1968](#): > > : : : Mr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you -just one word. > : : : Ben: Yes sir. > : : : Mr. McGuire: Are you listening? > : : : Ben: Yes I am. > : : : Mr. McGuire: ‘Plastics.’ I think the intent of _plastic_ in the dialogue is symbolize the fake and derivative in contrast to the genuine and original. But it was only recently it occurred to me how absolutely prescient that turned out to be with regard to our everyday lives. In 1968, and even more so in 1964, shen the novel was published, we still lived in a world largely of glass and metal. Now, of course, everything comes in plastic, and most things seem to be made of plastic. About a week ago, my wife decided to put a liner in the paper receptacle from an old shredder, and use that for the kitchen trashcan. It’s made of metal, and it’s turned out to be a tremendous improvement, because it doesn’t acquire the immortal stench that our old plastic can did. No matter how much Clorox, Lysol, soap and water, or ammonia we tried on that thing, there was something living in it we couldn’t kill. Plastic containers rule the world of kitchen leftovers–those containers that seem so adhesive to food oils, unless scrubbed for minutes under scalding water and soap. Water adheres to them to the extent that it takes many hours to drip-dry, and they won’t come dry out of the dishwasher. In 1968 just about every kind of drink came in a glass bottle if not a can, but now that can be said only of alcohol, and even there plastic is making its inroads. Plastic is unbreakable, but I wonder how often people actually used to break glass bottles and jars, and if the advantage of unbreakability is more than offset by the disadvantages that stem from common plastic’s reactivity with its contents, its fossil fuel origins, and its non-biodegradability. (I realize that there are many kinds of plastic, including some that aren’t made from petrochemicals, but I believe the overwhelming majority are.) I have no doubt that plastic containers are cheaper to make than those of glass or metal, and it consumes less energy to do so. But it seems to me that fossil fuel not burned as such, but made into containers, becomes fossil pollution. If I’m wrong about that, please say so. It’s rather disturbing when one realizes how ubiquitous this is. Just one word. Plastic. Indeed. ---
**Author:** ![tesseract](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bb73d2/32.png) [@tesseract](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tesseract)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804/2 "2009-03-11T04:24:58Z")
I have been thinking about plastic a lot recently, too. I used to wonder what the new asbestos and Thalidomide would be – what common, supposed-to-be-safe substances are we using every day and thinking nothing of it, meanwhile they’re killing us? Is it plastic? I’m too tired to look for cites right now, but supposedly you’re supposed to throw away all your #7 hard plastic bottles, right? And not heat your food with plastic wrap…(?) Does it cause all sorts of cancer? Maybe it’s plastic and not Jenny McCarthy that causes autism? OK, I’m just kidding about the last part, but…plastic, indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804/3 "2009-03-11T04:35:14Z")
“Florida wins the Penant” or something like that from one of the back to the future movies…when the movie came out Florida didnt even have a baseball team ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804/4 "2009-03-11T05:21:44Z")
Back to the Future had Miami winning the Series, actually. Pretty close, but not quite. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804/5 "2009-03-11T05:33:47Z")
Lester del Rey wrote a book, _Rocket Jockey_, about the first moon landing in 1952 - and the name he made up for the first man to set foot on the moon was Armstrong. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804/6 "2009-03-11T06:12:45Z")
I don’t think most plastic is dangerous, except possibly for its near immortality, but recycling can solve much of that. I’m more bothered by the aesthetic damage and, as already mentioned, how poorly the substance often performs. It’s cheap, and it doesn’t break. But otherwise, it can be a pain in the ass to use and clean. If glass and metal were a cool neon sign, then plastic is a dumpy storefront or motel sign lit from within by concealed ordinary incandescant bulbs, and, naturally, made of colored plastic. Like [this](http://www.lileks.com/motels/AL/2.html). ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804/7 "2009-03-11T06:14:11Z")
[_Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futility,_or_the_Wreck_of_the_Titan) Sorry, I posted a work rather than a quote. But I imagine if I went through the text I could find a few choice bits, something like “Psaw, man, this is the greatest luxury liner ever built! Utterly unsinkable! Icebergs? _Fiddlesticks!_” ---
**Author:** ![Indian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@Indian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indian)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804/8 "2009-03-11T06:36:29Z")
A movie in malayalam language had a comedian say this " How easy it would have been , if there was a phone that one can carry in a bus and a plane and so on.". This was in early 70s . ---
**Author:** ![SomeBodyUK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@SomeBodyUK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SomeBodyUK)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804/9 "2009-03-11T07:33:46Z")
[Pretty famous scene from Network regarding big business democracy from 1976](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeCMSLP3Wy8) ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804/10 "2009-03-11T12:26:39Z")
[Cleve Cartmill](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleve_Cartmill) was investigated by the FBI for publishing a story about U-235 based atomic bombs in 1944. While others had written about nuclear weapons for decades, I think the U-235 part was what really created a stir. ---
**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:** [March 11, 2009, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804/11 "2009-03-11T12:37:22Z")
In **Sleeper** one of the future scientists showed a clip of Richard Nixon and said, “We think this man was president of the United States, but did something so horrible that all records of him were erased.” It came out in late 1973 and was filmed just as Watergate was breaking, and long before Nixon resigned. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804/12 "2009-03-11T13:02:34Z")
> [@indian](#): > > A movie in malayalam language had a comedian say this " How easy it would have been , if there was a phone that one can carry in a bus and a plane and so on.". > > This was in early 70s . I’m sure he wasn’t the first one to think of this. > [@](#): > > In 1908, U.S. Patent 887,357 for a wireless telephone was issued in to Nathan B. Stubblefield of Murray, Kentucky. He applied this patent to “cave radio” telephones and not directly to cellular telephony as the term is currently understood.[2] Cells for mobile phone base stations were invented in 1947 by Bell Labs engineers at AT&T and further developed by Bell Labs during the 1960s. Radiophones have a long and varied history going back to Reginald Fessenden’s invention and shore-to-ship demonstration of radio telephony, through the Second World War with military use of radio telephony links and civil services in the 1950s, while hand-held cellular radio devices have been available since 1973. A patent for the first wireless phone as we know today was issued in US Patent Number 3,449,750 to George Sweigert of Euclid, Ohio on June 10, 1969. from [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone) ---
**Author:** ![Scougs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scougs/32/3158_2.png) [@Scougs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scougs)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804/13 "2009-03-11T13:24:18Z")
Not prescient as such, but sent a shiver down my spine when I saw it post-2001. Led Zeppelin’s “The Song Remains The Same”, when Robert Plant introduces Stairway to Heaven with the words “this is a song of hope…”, what’s on screen? The twin towers of the World Trade Center, reflecting the pinkening sunset. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804/14 "2009-03-11T13:28:36Z")
A 1976 episode of All in the Family featured an argument between Archie and Mike. I’ll give you a moment to let that sink in. Heavy stuff, indeed. They were arguing about politics and the election. Archie said that he voted for someone that Mike found completely ridiculous, and Mike stormed out. When Edith asked Archie if that was true, he said “Naw, I just told him that to make him mad. Actually I wrote in Ronald Reagan.” In a later fight, Archie yelled to Mike “You’re gonna get Reagan in '80, mister!” Hilarious, because at the time Reagan was such a ridiculous and unlikely candidate. Who would vote for such a clown? ---
**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:** [March 11, 2009, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804/15 "2009-03-11T14:57:57Z")
how about Vizzini’s “Never get involved in a land war in Asia!” Some people thought he was talking about Vietnam. ---
**Author:** ![Ponderoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponderoid/32/19221_2.png) [@Ponderoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponderoid)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804/16 "2009-03-11T15:00:59Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > [in 1976] Reagan was such a ridiculous and unlikely candidate. Who would vote for such a clown? Reagan wasn’t unlikely at all. He came very close to beating Ford, the _incumbent_, in the [Republican Primary](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_(United_States)_presidential_primaries,_1976). \*\*\* Ponder ---
**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:** [March 11, 2009, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804/17 "2009-03-11T15:02:43Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > A 1976 episode of All in the Family featured an argument between Archie and Mike. > > I’ll give you a moment to let that sink in. Heavy stuff, indeed. > > They were arguing about politics and the election. Archie said that he voted for someone that Mike found completely ridiculous, and Mike stormed out. When Edith asked Archie if that was true, he said “Naw, I just told him that to make him mad. Actually I wrote in Ronald Reagan.” > > In a later fight, Archie yelled to Mike “You’re gonna get Reagan in '80, mister!” > > Hilarious, because at the time Reagan was such a ridiculous and unlikely candidate. Who would vote for such a clown? And it wasn’t even new. A decade earlier _Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In_ News of the Future (20 years from now!) segment referred to “President Ronald Reagan” with the same sarcastic jab. ---
**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 11, 2009, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804/18 "2009-03-11T15:05:33Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > [_Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futility,_or_the_Wreck_of_the_Titan) > > Sorry, I posted a work rather than a quote. But I imagine if I went through the text I could find a few choice bits, something like “Psaw, man, this is the greatest luxury liner ever built! Utterly unsinkable! Icebergs? _Fiddlesticks!_” That book is what I came in here to post, too. Uncanny. Jules Verne had his Moon travelers depart from the coast of Florida, just as the Apollo astronauts later did, as well as some other good predictions: [From the Earth to the Moon - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon) I always liked this story: [Crossword Panic of 1944 - Historic UK](http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/England-History/Crossword.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804/19 "2009-03-11T15:11:48Z")
How about this headline in The Onion of January 17, 2001: [Bush: ‘Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over’](http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28784) ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2009, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804/20 "2009-03-11T16:03:51Z")
I’ve posted this one before, but in both the short story _Lost Legacy_ and the juvenile novel _Space Cadet_, Robert Heinlein foresaw that cell phones would become a royal pain in the ass. Predicting the cell\* phone? Trivial. Predicting that people would find them annoying, and deliberately leave them behind, because they didn’t want to be reached? Brilliant. - Heinlein called it a “pocket” phone, same diff. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-prescient-words-ever-uttered-in-film-or-fiction/488804.md?page=2)