[Moderating]
Title edited at OP’s request.
If I remember correctly, as HAL is being deactivated, he mentions the day the date on which he was originally activated. It’s different on the book and movie, either 1992 or 1997, but I can’t remember which is which. On that date, rather than the birth of an intelligent machine, the area code where I lived was split into two, and a new code created for one of the pieces. I look back on that with a certain significance. Rather than ushering in a utopian era of technology and machines to do our thinking alongside of us, in the real world we were running up against the constraints of our technology and having to find ways to cope with its exploding popularity.
In the Harry Potter books, doesn’t he get a new, state-of-the-art flying broom called a Nimbus 2000? When that was written, the year 2000 seemed like the glorious future. I wonder if kids now view it as quaint and old-fashioned.
I visited The Computer Museum in Boston on the 1992 date HAL was supposed to be activated, and was amazed to see that they had no clue about what was supposed to be happening (in fiction).
I called the mayor’s office in Urbana, Illinois, to ask if they were having a birthday party. They were similarly unimpressed.
The song “1999” by Prince implies that the year 2000 will be the apocalypse, and therefore the year 1999 is when you need to enjoy things as best as you can as it will all be over.
Some lyrics for context:
I was dreamin’ when I wrote this
Forgive me if it goes astray
But when I woke up this mornin’
Could’ve sworn it was judgment day
The sky was all purple
There were people runnin’ everywhere
Tryin’ to run from the destruction
You know I didn’t even care
Say, say, 2000-00, party over
Oops, out of time
So tonight I’m gonna party like it’s 1999
These days, “party like it’s 1999” sounds more like having nostalgia for days past rather than preparing for the end of the world, as we’re more than 25 years past that point already.
It’s taking longer than we thought.
In 1978’s “Heaven Can Wait,” the main character played by Warren Beatty is taken to the afterlife way before his time. The date he supposed to die? “Due to arrive 10:17AM, March 20th of the year 2025.”
That date in 1978 seemed so far in the future it made your head spin. Now, it’s four months in the past.
The Jetsons was set one hundred years in the future - 2062.
George Jetson was born in 2022.
After reading Infinite Jest, I really expected The Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment to be more interesting.
Hehehe, yeah. When I first watched 2001 in the early 80s, I knew immediately that reality wasn’t happening on that timeline, not even close. 20-30 years later, at least.
I kind of felt the same way about the Ghost in the Shell universe when I started watching it in the late 90s. 2029? Nah, not even close, but it’s entertaining. Now that we’re just 4 years away from that? Not 2029, for sure. 2039 doesn’t seem that implausible, though.
Wilford Brimley was 49 when Cocoon started filming.
The fantasy world of The Matrix took place in what humanity assumed was the year 1999, described by Agent Smith as “the peak of your civilization.”
Looking back now, he may have been right. It was two years before the towers fell, which is arguably when things went to shit.
That’s a lie that’s a lie, shut up shut up.
He was not only one year older than I am now.
And three years younger than I am now.
I was in college when Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered. We were all kind of disturbed by the fact that the Captain in this version, unlike Captain Kirk, was “an old guy.”
I’m now older than “the old guy” who commanded the Enterprise.
Hell’s bells, Wil Wheaton is now older than “the old guy” who commanded the Enterprise.
In 1980, fur my fifth grade English class, I wrote an essay about how impressive it was that Mick Jagger was in his late thirties, and yet he was still rocking out like a young man.
Late thirties! Both Mick and I left that in the rear-view mirror decades ago….and we’re both still rockin’ out. 
It might be interesting to see Grumpy Old Men again, now that I am 32 years closer to the age of the grumpy old men.
I saw a Jay North article last night that made me think of this thread.
When I watch Dennis the Menace now, I totally empathize with Mr. Wilson. And I actually do like kids. But I also like peace and quiet.
It’s something strange that I realized when I lived in my last apartment before buying a house. When I moved it, it was a fun neighborhood. I got along with all of the neighbors I met, and the afternoons when the weather was nice was full of the joyful sounds of kids at play. Fast forward a couple of years, and those joyful sounds of kids at play had turned into the shrill shrieks of children that sounded like someone was being murdered on a regular basis.
And I turned into Mr. Wilson.
I see a lot of that in pop culture. You grow up and realize that the “mean old person” was right.
The time stamp in Soylent Green haunted me for years. In 2022, I would be 59; too old for the food riots but too young for the thanatorium and cracker factory.