Beam Me Up, Scotty

Open the pod bay doors, HAL. Soylent Green is people. I’ll be back! While we’re not quite at the point of taking our flying cars to work while our robot maids dutifully dust and vacuum our homes, we’re inarguably living in a time where the thought of such things don’t seem too unreasonable. The movies, shows and literature of the past, at the time appearing deeply entrenched in science fiction, now at times appear very normal in how they portray future technologies. Self driving cars? Facial recognition? Virtual reality? Psh. How quaint! But what else did writers and directors get right about predicting how our future might look, and what other movie magic can we look forward to becoming a reality? Spoiler alert: it’s probably not lightsabers.

Now, I’ll be the first to point out that an awful lot of these predictions for at least the foreseeable future are wildly misguided. Faster than light speed travel, for example, is a fairly popular movie trope which has no business even flirting with reality as we understand it. The “pew-pew” lasers which often show up alongside this idea, also ignore some fairly well-established laws of physics. What this doesn’t do however, is make these ideas any less fun from an entertainment standpoint. Warp speed? Invisibility? Robots indistinguishable from humans? All solid reasons to show up to the cinema, or settle into the couch for a Netflix series binge.

Space travel is, however, generally heading in the direction early media said it might. Moon landings, Mars missions, even the idea of space flights for the general population isn’t a ridiculous one. The first mention of traveling to the heavens by way of a rocket appeared in the 1861 book “Good Words,” written by William Leitch. The very first science fiction film in fact didn’t appear until 1902 with “Le Voyage dans la Lune” by Georges Méliès. This remarkable piece filled with early special effects, depicts the building of a spacecraft which is then fired at the moon, taking six travelers with it. Considering the first human in space wasn’t until 1961, the foresight here was both impressive and considerable.

Even on a much smaller scale, science fiction has become fact in so many ways. The idea of communications technology which fits on your wrist, or tiny earpieces totally devoid of wires are commonplace now to the point of being unremarkable. Two decades ago, though? Madness. Our houses have become thoroughly space-age too; smart home accessories such as lighting and thermostats are common, accessible and voice controllable. While we don’t quite have Rosie pottering around the house making us feel like George Jetson, a Roomba (or equivalent robot vacuum) is within reach for most of our budgets. Those smartphones we use every day? Motorola took early design cues for the first mobile phones from Star Trek.

Of interest I think, is how much these stories shape our expectations for future technologies. Would we have video calling if it didn’t appear in Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”; or Tesla’s autopilot feature if it wasn’t for the 1990 personal favorite of mine, “Total Recall”? Lots of technologies can trace their origins back to once having been a writer’s dream of how things might appear in years to come. How long until the favorites of modern times such as “The Martian” or “Interstellar” feature technology which we’ve become blasé about? Until we’re able to pop down to the dealership to spec out our shiny, new flying car, I think it’s best to enjoy these sources of great entertainment, and the real life technology they inspire, rooted firmly in the moment.