Think movies predict the future? Lets see...

The 1982 sci-fi flick, Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott posed a lot of questions about the future and where humanity was headed. Indeed it touched on the whole issue of what is human and what isnt, but what else did it show?

The majority of the US was covered with Asian speaking peoples, stores, skyscrapers, billboards, etc, and they werent speaking English either. This was supposed to be in the year 2019. Interesting eh?



Nothing against Asian people ofcourse, but with the recent economic crises and China's apparently deep involvement with the US, are we really about to see massive sell-offs to China, etc, for debt?

It was Hillary who said; China 'you so own America, dude'.


[edit on 3/3/09 by serbsta]

There are a few books that seem to have stories that almost seem to predict the future too.

By the way I made a thread on the movie Demolition Man before.
You might be interested.
Here:www.abovetopsecret.com...

That particular shot seems to have a "Pan Am" logo fairly prominently placed. Ridley Scott loses a few prediction points for that.

I remember, upon seeing that film in the theatre back in the early eighties, thinking that 2017 (or 2019, whatever) was way too soon for the sort of stuff depicted in that film. I still feel that way.



[edit on 3/3/09 by Fuggle]

My all time favorite but a correction is needed.

If you watch it again it was felt then when the film was made that Japan would come to dominate the world and not China so to speak also it wasn't really an Asian language it was a street language of Chinese/Japanese/Spanish and English all mixed up into one.

But it does point out several issue with over population Environmental issues and an over all decay of western civilization in favor of a more Asian one run a muck.

Well if you read the short story Blade Runner is based on the setting is not what you describe, as would scrutiny to the movie either.

The setting of the world is one after a major war and ensuing nuclear fallout, Real animals are extinct (hence the focus on robotic animals) also man is fleeing earth for the stars as a better life (you can see ads in the movie for it, as well as the designer living in the empty building) The people left on earth are those either to stubborn or not qualified for life in the stars, The androids fleeing to earth is much like a fugitive fleeing to mexico.

reply to post by serbsta


A better example of the China thing is Firefly/serenity, In it China was the base culture for that which went to the stars, Everyone cusses in Chinese and much of the writing in the background as well as the currency used had Chinese markings.

[edit on 3-3-2009 by benrl]

Check this out. Animated Sign like in Blade Runner
blogdowntown.com...

reply to post by serbsta


It was the 80s, and the Asians were supposed to be mostly the Japanese. Japan was buying up American firms left and right. People back then thought of japan like we think of china today. But then japan's economy tanked in the 90s, and we don't see that sort of thing anymore.

Soon they'll be making movies where china rules the world, unless there's some drastic change in the trends..

One of the most accurate movies about the source of all troubles is a Star Trek movie "Wrath of Khan". Though it doesn't contain "visions of future" the kind of we see in Blade Runner or in Star Wars, it properly turns focus on our Personality and seeks answers there.

"2001: A Space Odyssey" uses high tech environment combined with paleolithic rudimentary behavior (not much different from today's "survivalism", isn't it?) to point out the spiritual aspect of man (monolith) which is defined as "higher intelligence" or an "advanced form" of human being into which man is about to evolve. The technology itself (HAL) turns out to be a critical limitation to achieve such an objective.

"Blade Runner" is mostly concerned with ethical substratum of our behavior (motivation) and apocalyptic vision of an overripe "present", decaying by all means. The original book, by Phillip K. Dick is quite different from this film. The book is actually much more critical of mediocre man in a mediocre world pushing it beyond the limits of psychedelic reality.

Another film based on Dick's novel, "Total Recall", clearly deals with schizophrenic nature of man's intellectual and emotional reality.

It is really the question what we truly seek to know about future: How it is going to "look" like or What the hell this all is about?

One of the best films in this respect is certainly "Solaris" (after Stanislaw Lem book) directed by Andrei Tarkowski (not the one by Clooney).
Here man faces the reality of intelligent planet and projections of his own psyche as the ultimate reality which needs to be confirmed through exclusively personal approach.

Originally posted by DangerDeath

One of the best films in this respect is certainly "Solaris" (after Stanislaw Lem book) directed by Andrei Tarkowski (not the one by Clooney).

I was gonna say. The clooney one wasn't all that great.

My all time favorite movies that portray the future are in no order:

Gattaca, Blade Runner, Demolition Man and The Fifth Element.

They all have many many things in common, like an over abundance of law.

Running Man (2017) > Blade Runner (2019) in terms of predicting the future.


www.abovetopsecret.com...



(watch the first few minutes)


What about Children of Men? (2027)
What about Scanner Darkly? (2013)