11 Movies Set in the Future That Are Now the Past
When did the future become the past? Yesterday.
As of this article’s publishing, 2040 sounds like a far-off, futuristic year. But that year is now closer to us than 2010. The same could be said in the 20th century about years in the 21st century that are now in the past. For this list, we’ll be looking at movies from the 20th century that take place in 21st century years gone by. So, Click (2006) didn’t make the list, because that movie came out in the 21st century. The Terminator movies also aren’t included because they take place later in the 20th century. This list is also organized by chronological order of the years that the movies are set in. With that, let's look at some of the movies that people thought wouldn't take place for a long time, until they did take place.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Clues in the name, this one takes place in the early 21st century (barring the scenes with the monoliths and hominids, as well as the trippy ending which may have been set after 2001). It was also understandable that, in the late 1960s, people thought that we would have bases on the moon by the 21st century. This is true for the original TV series Lost in Space, which hails from 1965 and takes place in the “space-age future” of 1997. But space travel is monstrously expensive, and it couldn’t last. The last space shuttle flight landed in 2011, but in 2026, the Artemis II mission is, as of this article's writing, headed to the moon once more. Anyway, this one is, arguably, Stanley Kubrick's best film, and is said by some to be the greatest sci-fi film of all time. Though there is a lesson to be learned from this one. The computer assistant, HAL 9000, gains sentience, which could be a cautionary tale, given the rise of modern artificial intelligence.
Freejack (1992)
Emilio Estevez takes the role of Alex Furlong, a Formula 1 racing driver who gets taken to a dystopian New York City of 2009, a time when the rich can live forever by transferring their consciousness to another body. The catch is that most of society isn't healthy. The solution? Travel back in time and save people before they die. Now, as of 2009, time travel and switching consciousness are two impossible feats. So, this one didn't hold up too well. But it sure is fun to think about either of those things becoming a reality one day, let alone both of them.
Escape from L.A. (1996)
Filmmakers in 1981 had no idea that a war between the US and Soviet Union couldn't take place in 1997 because the Soviet Union collapsed 6 years prior to that. But after the fall of the Soviet Union, director John Carpenter returned to make a sequel to Escape from New York. This time, the sequel is set in 2013. And unlike the original, the sequel centers around a device called the Sword of Damocles, which has the power to shut down every electronic device in the world. Even in 1996, this would have been catastrophic. And by today's standards, every electronic device going out would be even worse. Thankfully, the only way a website could go out now is if the Cloudfare goes out.
The Postman (1997)
Just one year after Escape from LA came a movie that takes place in the same year: 2013. Directed by and starring Kevin Costner, this movie sees Costner travel to St. Rose, Oregon, where he acts in Shakespearean plays in exchange for food and water. Seems dull from the start, right? Well, it gets weirder. He then takes over a mail truck and wears the long-dead mail carrier's jacket. Given its 3-hour runtime and serious tone, and the fact that it had to compete with Titanic, it's easy to see why this one flopped at the box office and subsequently faded into obscurity.
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
In this sequel to the beloved 80s film, the future comes into play. That is, the future that people in the 80s thought would happen, in which there were 15 other sequels to Jaws (which was an understandable thought at the time). While we don't have holographic movies, we do have 3D movies, which is about as close as we can come today. And that's not counting the infamous hoverboard craze that this movie helped get into the picture. Hoverboards like in the movie aren't possible without advanced technology (take a look at the Lexus hoverboard). The closest thing to go mainstream was something known as a "swagway" (those two-wheeled self-balancing scooters). And those died out by the end of the decade. But there were some things, like TVs with multiple channels, as well as video calls, that did catch on.
The Running Man (1987)
Set 30 years after this movie's release, this one sees the US become a totalitarian police state in 2017, where a popular TV show called "The Running Man" has prisoners face against mercenaries called stalkers. The purpose of the show is to keep the public at bay from rising up, and Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a framed ex-cop who goes on to be the first contestant to kill a stalker on the show.
Rollerball (1975)
Some people in the mid-1970s thought that by 2018, corporations would become so powerful that they would distract dissent from happening by giving the public violent sports to watch. Unfortunately, several things about this one do hold up, like how modern audiences watch MMA and boxing. Not only that, but these sports, to a certain extent, distract us from the real-world issues the world faces. As controversial as those real-life sports are, it is true to say that they are a distraction from the things we should be taking care of.
Akira (1988)
This one's predictions for 2019 were very bleak, if we're being honest. Set in a dystopian Tokyo-like city where crime is rampant, the military is violent, and people have telekinetic powers that can be used for nefarious purposes. It holds up in regard to the military's relationship with technology, as well as law and order. Somewhat eerily, this one predicted the 2020 Olympics taking place in Tokyo but everyone wanted it postponed. Not only were the 2020 Olympics supposed to take place in Tokyo, but the event was postponed to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Blade Runner (1982)
Another 80s movie set in 2019 (though the source material said 2021), Blade Runner is a loose adaptation of the 1968 Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? And the main character in both, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), is a blade runner, or bounty hunter, who has to retire (end the existence of) human-like robots called replicants in yet another dystopian setting, this time Los Angeles. Directed by Ridley Scott (who also directed 1979's sci-fi titan Alien), Blade Runner is often considered one of the best sci-fi movies of all time. Even though replicants aren't real, there are several things that hold up today. For starters, the movie got big tech recklessly running the world correct, as well as those companies valuing profit over life.
Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
In this one (which may have inspired The Matrix), Keanu Reeves is a data courier in 2021. While some things don't hold up, like brain implants that turn the wearer into a walking hard drive, other things do hold up, like the movie's concept. Technology can be used for good, but it can also change direction and cause people to almost always feel a need to be logged onto the Internet. And that's not counting the loads of information we have now that could feel overwhelming at times. So, the moral of the movie is, more or less, turn off your device for your sake.
Soylent Green (1973)
When the actual 2022 came around, many people remembered that this 1973 movie took place that year (as we did with Back to the Future, unlike many others on this list). This movie even correctly predicted things like overpopulation and the growing scarcity of resources. While we can say that Soylent Green's version of 2022 isn't as dystopian as the real one, there are problems we have that the movie did predict. And even though the 2020s have been a tumultuous decade for many, we can still come together and make Soylent Green less of a reality and more of a science fiction tale.
Do you think these movies held up well? Leave a comment!
Sources: Looper, Screen Rant, Collider
Sergio Pereira
Artemis Tsatsaki
Jeremy Urquhart
