As we all do from time to time, I was in the shower thinking about Back to the Future Part II this morning and realized that we’re only 7 years away from 2015 and 19 years from when the movie was released. Nuts! Now that we’re so close to the “Future” as envisioned by Robert Zemeckis, just how close was he to getting it right? Well, seeing as that flying cars, food rehydrators, self-tying nike shoes and rocket propelled hoverboards aren’t even close to becoming a reality, I’d say his predictions are going to fall far short of the mark.

This got me thinking about other films that have predicted the future and I’ve come to a conclusion:

Filmmakers suck at predicting the future… at least for the most part. However, despite the many, many predictions that have not come to pass and will not, there are some that just might become a reality.

Let’s look at a few examples.

2001: A Space Odyssey – This movie is science fiction at its best. Released in 1968, 2001 revolutionized the sci-fi genre. Stanley Kubrick adapted the novel by the recently deceased sci-fi guru Arthur C. Clark and shaped it into a cinematic masterpiece. Clark and Kubrick predicted a world, still 31 years in the future, where mankind has colonized the moon, take vacations on massive, rotating space stations and regularly travel back and forth on commercial space airliners. Of all the films that predict the future, this one, at the time, was probably the most probable. Considering that the film was made during the ever-important “Space Race,” a time when science was being pushed to it’s limits, the odds of us continuing on towards those predictions, seemed very probable, almost certain. Unfortunately, after we made the first Apollo landing, interest in NASA’s programs dropped significantly and was overtaken by other events, such as the Vietnam war. Now, if we had continued on at the same rate we had in the 60’s, we’d almost certainly have commercial space flight and bases on the moon. But, as it is, 2001 didn’t get it right… unfortunately.

I, Robot – Very, very loosely based on Isaac Asimov’s classic novel, I, Robot makes less audacious predictions that just might come true. Taking place in 2035, the technology presented doesn’t seem too improbable. There’s no floating cars or giant holographic sharks advertising Jaws 19, but there are artificially intelligent robots that function as our very own personal assistants; taking care of menial tasks and other sundry chores we just don’t want to mess with. We’re still 27 years away from the time where this movie takes place, but it seems like some of the predictions made are very realistic and likely. Breakthroughs are being made all the time in the robotics field. In my opinion, artificial intelligence is something that we’ll have, at least on a basic to moderate level, within the next 10-15 years. Some of us are already getting used to having robots help us out around the house. Does the name Roomba ring a bell? In addition to robots, I, Robot presented us with cars that drive themselves. DARPA is already holding a yearly competition that pits un-manned self-driven vehicles against each other in an attempt to navigate a course as quickly and safely as possible. All in all, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see these things within our lifetime… and maybe sooner than we expect.

Terminator 2 – Turns out 3 billion people weren’t killed on August 27, 1997. Also, full-blown killing machines aren’t around… yet.

But in a world where Ah-nold can become the Governor of California, you can’t rule anything out of the realm of possibility.

Blade Runner – As a lot of filmmakers have done, Ridley Scott adapted Philip K. Dick’s story to create the 1982 classic film noir/sci-fi mainstay. In the process, he made a lot of predictions about the future as it will be in 2019. Scott predicted that, at least in Los Angeles, life sucks. Horrible pollution, climate change, human replicants(clones), off-world colonies, urban over-development, flying cars and lots of tunes courtesy of Vangelis are all part of our daily lives. While it’s not looking like the world won’t be as horribly depressing as he envisioned, some of his predictions are fairly, if not wholly accurate. Take the concept of urban over-development. It’s happening now. We see it all over in major cities around the world and it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better. Pollution. While I don’t think it’ll reach the point that was predicted in the film, it’s still on the rise and is definitely noticeable when you visit any large city. Now, as far as cloning humans that will work in off-world colonies goes; I’m doubting that one’s going to come to fruition. At least not in the way Scott predicted.

Escape From New York – This movie is ridiculous… and awesome! However, New York wasn’t turned into a massive, prison island in 1988 and, unfortunately, Snake Plissken isn’t real, damnit.

Minority Report – Steven Spielberg made some seriously hardcore predictions in this film. Everything from awesome display technology to psychics that can predict crimes to iris scanning ads and magnetically levitating cars is present in the Tom Cruise sci-fi/action flick. I don’t see such a thing as “Precogs” or future crime sensing psychics coming into existence by 2054, or ever for that matter, but the display technology that we saw in the film will almost certainly become a reality… and much sooner than 2054. With display technology such as Microsoft’s “Surface” and Apple’s iPhone already a reality, holographic 3-D interactive display technology is a few miles down the road, but definitely on it’s way into our homes, cars and offices. Mark my words. The “E-Paper,” or electronic, paper-thin, wirelessly updated newspaper seems to be a technology that we’re also on our way towards. There’s no telling if it will be used by the newspaper industry, but we’re already seeing technology (OLED display and The Kindle) that hints towards “E-Paper” becoming a reality.

While many of the predictions (moon colonization, floating cars, precogs, etc…) didn’t or won’t come true anytime soon, a lot of them have or (I believe) will. We will have A.I. robots in our home, interactive, 3-D display technology will be commonplace and I’m willing to bet that humans will be cloned well within our lifetime. Now as far as the Cubs winning the World Series goes, we’ll just have see how that one pans out.

Note: There are a lot of other films with predictions of the future that I didn’t have time to go into; Gattaca, Mad Max, Soylent Green, Total Recall. What do you think about the predictions made in those movies?