scifi movies that went way ahead of their time!

CyberGhost

today is 2004! - no problems(for reminding you)

what movies you know that predicted/showed flying cars and completely scified life styles in years 2000+ ?


the only one I can remember is the time cop, man that is funny now! they showed all those computerized cars and stuff, and people probably thought that life would be really like that in 2004!

Makaveli

Terminator.

Etain

The Fifth Element.
Blade Runner portrayed a pretty grim future. Before that, Soylent Green presented an alarming view of the future. These are the ones that immediately came to mind, I'm sure there are others.

CyberGhost

oh man I love Blade Runner!

I love Film Noir style! dark with rain and scifi! AWESOME!

CuLT

The most obvious example, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Pugsley

Battleship: Galactica

It was set in 2000 wasnt it?

Hecate

haha, Demolition Man

Kêrmêttê

Space 1999 was a tv show in the 1970's but I think they made a pretty crappy movie out of it too.
There's a colony of people went to live on the moon in a research centre and, because of a huge explosion involving radioactive waste, the moon drifted off into space.
1999?? People actually LIVING ON THE MOON?? Like c'monnnnnn!!:rolleyes:

Etain

Thought of a few more.
Rollerball, Logan's Run, Planet of the Apes, Freejack.

mycroft

Logan's Run

Dammit why don't have a flashing crystal installed in my palm like they promised.

dazberry

Originally posted by Kêrmêttê
Space 1999 was a tv show in the 1970's but I think they made a pretty crappy movie out of it too.
There's a colony of people went to live on the moon in a research centre and, because of a huge explosion involving radioactive waste, the moon drifted off into space.
1999?? People actually LIVING ON THE MOON?? Like c'monnnnnn!!:rolleyes:

No, there was no movie - but the explosion was on September 13th 1999 :eek: Have 2 episodes on Video - must go and watch one to remind myself how bad it was!

There was some interesting technology - commlocks for example which were like streaming video mobile phones (albeit in black and white), the transport system to the landing pads - and of course the Eagles themselves - but possibly only because I thought they looked cool .

D.

sceptre

Originally posted by Pugsley
Battleship: Galactica

It was set in 2000 wasnt it?

The Galactics 1980 series was set in 1980 (oddly enough). It was set thirty years after the first Battlestar Galactica series which was presumably set in 1950 then. Of course the time travel three episodes in Galactica 1980 were set in WW2.

Etain

flashing crystal installed in my palm

Remember, if the crystal is flashing, you're nearly out of time!
Maybe it's just as well.

mycroft

Remember, if the crystal is flashing, you're nearly out of time!

Depressingly I have a scant few years before my crystal goes a flashing and Micheal York comes after me. But this is just weird

Not sure if I want to see it.

I was thinking about soylent green, it came out in the 70s just about the time as the book "the population bomb" which theorised that we had a scant few decades between overpopulation and climatic changes we'd all starve to death. In the past decade it's been climate change, and in the 60s it was nuclear war. I think writers knock a few decades off the projected timeline to make things seem more immediate and relevant to the audience.

Here's a great one, death race 2000

Etain

Not sure if I want to see it.

Not very appealing.
Apparently 30 is just too old now. Why remake a movie and change something like that ?

Death Race 2000--- just good fun!

The Ultimate Warrior is another dealing with the future after nuclear holocaust.

lodgepole

Originally posted by Etain
Not very appealing.
Apparently 30 is just too old now. Why remake a movie and change something like that ?

The age was 21 in the original novel, so the first film was the one that changed the detail. The new adaptation is actually rectifying it.

mycroft

All this talk of bad sci fi has got my motor neurons firing, anyone seen this ?? A teenage Don Johnson and his talking dog inhabit a post apocalyptical waste land.

Haven't seen Ulitmate Warrior, which is a shame because I was a teenage junkie for that kind of film. The worst of the bunch having to be damnation alley

Death Race 2000--- just good fun!

Correction, good clean wholesome fun for the whole family.

Corben Dallas

Fifth Element (of Course!) Blade Runner, Gattacia (cool flic) Equilbrium, 1984, Clockwork Orange ( there are 60's tower block in the Uk jus off the set of that film)
+ plus that cool film with Charlton Heston were hes the only non mutant person left in city they only come out as night (the Omega Strain? <def wrong title) and the one where they worship the Nuclear missile (Same flic?)

and Mad Max 2 the Road Warrior
This was sooooooo realistic as what might happen if they drop the big one and civiliasation goes tits up.

"Ak Chunk AK Chunk, all day long its goes.........Gasoline....much as ya want" Etc
:ninja:

LoneGunM@n

Back to the Future 2 ... I want those Nike Boots & the self drying jacket ... Only 11 more years to wait

mycroft

Omega Strain?

Omega Man, rewritten from the book, to give it a christ like metaphor to the story by right wing nut heston. I mean for f**ks sake HIS blood is the cure, and he DIES in a crufixition pose.

The worshipping the nuke you're thinking Planet of the Apes 2, "beneath the planet of the apes". Incidently has anyone seen Escape from Planet of the Apes and who can explain to me how Cornelius managed to salvage a space ship figure out how to travel back in time when during the first film he couldn't make a paper airplane!

And finally conquest of the planet of the planet of the apes lied to us, dammit I want my monkey bulter.

Etain

The worshipping the nuke you're thinking Planet of the Apes 2, "beneath the planet of the apes".

That it such a chilling and memorable scene! Then they remove their masks and reveal their radiation damage. Quite memorable.

tuxy

but blade runner is set in 2019
thats still 15 years away

gandalf

For some reason when I read this thread the film Dark City popped into my mind even though it has not particular date set against it (as far as I remember anyway). Must watch it again, an excellent film.

Anyway favourite old sci-fi movie set around this time is Logans Run.

Hecate

Steel Dawn was a Mad Max knock off made in the early 80s, back then it was accepted thinking that the oil would run out in 20 years (ie: now) and it would be time to grow a bad mullet, dress in leather and start riding a motorbike around the desert; fighting with the odd post apocalyptic, crazed punk...

In the 70s and 80s there was a certain bleak view that permeated a lot of films, so you had things like Soylent Green and the Omega Man all having really downbeat endings. The 1984 BBC TV movie, Threads - I think it was mentioned on this board once or twice - showed one very plausible outcome of the cold war turning hot and its effects on ordinary people, thankfully that never happened.

And of course 1984 didn't turn out the way orwell predicted it would...but the way things are going now I think he might have just been 20 years off.

sceptre

Originally posted by Hecate
Steel Dawn was a Mad Max knock off made in the early 80s, back then it was accepted thinking that the oil would run out in 20 years (ie: now) and it would be time to grow a bad mullet, dress in leather and start riding a motorbike around the desert; fighting with the odd post apocalyptic, crazed punk...

Ah the early 80s and oil. I can remember persuading my father not to put oil heating in 1981 as we were probably going to run out of the stuff in a decade or two. That's what you get for listening to a six-year old:D

beardedchicken

i can't believe no one's mentioned quantum leap before now! that was a classic, and so totally off the mark: of course, by 1999, we'll be able to go back in time to fix people's lives and stuff.... mmmm... scott bakula (c'mon, i was eight!!!)

Corben Dallas

Cool knew it was Omega something. Charton Heston is the MAN!
* goes off to join the NRA*

ixoy

Originally posted by beardedchicken
i can't believe no one's mentioned quantum leap before now!

I can, given that Quantum Leap is a TV show and this is a thread about movies on the film forum...

Etain

I thought of two more, IMO both highly forgetable.
My apologies to any Kevin Costner fans.

The Postman and Waterworld (no actual date for this one that I can recall-- just sometime in the future after the polar ice caps have melted)

CyberGhost

I loved Waterworld, IMO it was a good mofie!

murdoc8

total recall, the film is good but the imagination behind it is great
in a hundred years people won't have to go anywere.

monkeyfudge

In AKIRA, Tokyo is first destroyed by Akira in 1988.

And I believe 2nd Impact takes place in 2001 in Evangelion... oh but, in the future in Evangelion they still use Apple G3 Powerbooks... how retro...

Etain

Fahrenheit 451 was set in the future (no date that I'm aware of)
People in the future will be self-medicated and slaves to tv viewing--- how crazy is that?!
It's supposed to be remade soon.

Lorddrakul

Outland with Sean Connery was a pretty good one set in the near future, off world mining, designer drugs. A forgotten gem.

LD

pork99

Originally posted by mycroft
Omega Man, rewritten from the book, to give it a christ like metaphor to the story by right wing nut heston. I mean for f**ks sake HIS blood is the cure, and he DIES in a crufixition pose.

As parodied in the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror VIII as the "Homega Man"

pork99

Originally posted by Etain
Fahrenheit 451 was set in the future (no date that I'm aware of)
People in the future will be self-medicated and slaves to tv viewing--- how crazy is that?!
It's supposed to be remade soon.

Novel by Ray Bradbury

Adapted for screen in 1966 and directed by François Truffaut. Cyril Cusack played the senior fireman. According to IMDB the remake is due next year.

I remember seeing it on TV in the 70s and thinking how futuristic the monorail in it looked

It was more prophetic than 1984 or Brave New World. OK no one burns books but that can be seen as a metaphor for an element of aggressive anti-literacy and "dumbing-down" in modern culture.

Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs.... Don't give them slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.

As for the all-day soap operas on wall sized screens - look at "Big Brother Live" on E4.

Etain

Outland with Sean Connery

A good movie. Peter Boyle played a very convincing villian.


I saw Fahrenheit 451 again just recently. Although things are taken to the extreme in the movie, I found myself impressed by how close to the mark Bradbury called it.

Jim

Transformers : The Movie.

Its set in 2005. So theres still time...

CathyMoran

Anyone remember Silent Running? Last saw it properly when I was 4 so a bit fuzzy but it dealt with environmental issues...it had robots...my brother and I used to love it - it was filmed in 1972? We tried to watch it again last year and failed:-(

Etain

Silent Running

I remember that movie! It's been years since I've seen it. The spaceship is a big floating greenhouse. Bruce Dern goes crazy trying to save the plants rescued from Earth and he kills the rest of the crew. The robots were named Huey, Dewey , and Louie.

CathyMoran

Ah, so that is why I loved it! I managed to get it on DVD, but fell asleep watching it - will try again...

Etain

will try again

It is a slowly paced movie.

sceptre

I loved Silent Running as a kiddie. Could never figure out why the robots had legs but no arms though.