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2001 to Timecop: 8 Movie Futures Already Proven Wrong

By Eric Karjala December 26, 2007 424,016 views
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In a few days it will be 2008, well into the future. Movies promised us we'd be flying cars to our jobs at the robot factory. Instead, we have to settle for iPods, free online checking accounts and AIDS. Of course, the future wouldn't have been such a disappointment if Hollywood hadn't gotten our hopes so high.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Set In
2001, according to our research of the title on the DVD case

The Premise
Mankind has begun colonizing space (awesome), leading to the discovery of an alien artifact under the lunar surface (even more awesome). An investigative space mission is undertaken with the help of a self-aware murderous supercomputer named HAL 9000 (so fucking awesome we just peed a little bit).

The Predictions
Advanced Artificial Intelligence: The closest thing we had to HAL in 2001 were AOL Instant Messenger Bots, which can "chat" in an irritating, judgmental way. These bots were designed to function at an intelligence level on par with your average AOL user, so let's just say we weren't in immediate danger of a HAL-like consciousness taking over a NASA mission and eliminating its crew members. Luckily, our 2001-era highly-combustible space shuttles were quite capable of killing astronauts on their own, thank you very much.

Innovative New Technology: There's a scene in 2001 in which a character is dozing in front of a flat-panel screen built into the seat in front of him--an impressively accurate prediction of JetBlue and other airlines with TVs in their seat back. Even more noteworthy is that he's watching programming that's obviously from the 1960s, eerily anticipating Nick at Nite.

Widespread Space Travel: It's easy to chide Space Odyssey for its ambitious forecast of turn-of-the-century space travel, but keep in mind that the film was released in 1968, a full year before we faked the moon landing. Nobody could have guessed that the Soviet Union would forfeit the Space Race for fear of getting its dress dirty, and then finally collapse like a little girl. This deprived us the fruits of competition. Were the Soviets still tinkering around with satellites, we'd probably be colonizing Pluto instead of bitterly revoking its status as a planet.

Overall Accuracy
2001 is often celebrated for its clairvoyance, because a few of its inane predications came vaguely true. But, the major plot elements still seem like crackhead visions of the distant future. And the movie's notion that we'd still have attractive flight attendants in 2001 now seems preposterous.

Timecop (1994)

Set In 2004

The Premise
Jean-Claude Van Damme (played by Jean-Claude Van Damme) is a Time Enforcement Agent tasked with making sure people don't use time travel to dick around with the past.

The Predictions
Time Travel: Obviously we didn't actually have access to time travel in 2004. But, what sets Timecop apart is its asinine treatment of the subject. Timecop's major rule is that when you're traveling to the past, you can't come in direct contact with your past self because "the same matter cannot occupy the same space." Right, Timecop. We suppose it can't.

Futuristic Cars: The cars in Timecop are able to navigate by themselves, with a voice activation system so advanced it can understand Jean-Claude Van Damme. Assuming the auto industry would whip up such advanced vehicles in 10 years is like making a movie today that is supposed to be set in 1985 and having everyone driving Model Ts.

Overall Accuracy
Absolutely nothing Timecop promised has come true. At one point, there's a throwaway sequence of a man preparing to masturbate with a VR headset, something we've all dreamed about at one time or another (that is, we've all dreamed of having VR porn. Hopefully your dreams aren't haunted by some guy in a big futuristic helmet masturbating). We probably shouldn't be surprised these guys weren't able to predict 10 years into the future since these are the same people who gambled their movie on the staying power of Jean-Claude Van Damme's popularity.

Death Race 2000 (1975)

Set In 2000

The Premise
After a national financial crisis, America's fascist president has created a sadistic annual Transcontinental Death Race. We've been pro-Death Race for years, but the government refuses to include it as a ballot initiative.

The Predictions
Futuristic Skyline: Even though it's only been 25 years--of financial crisis, mind you--New York has become an incredible futuristic city filled with countless metallic spires and emerald domes. The filmmakers apparently assumed construction would begin on these buildings immediately after filming was concluded. Or, they believed that by 2000 our cities would be replaced by fanciful matte painting backdrops.

Prevalence of Idiotic Violent Death Racing: OK, so we'll give them NASCAR. The only difference is that in the Death Race points are accumulated by running over pedestrians, and the points vary based on the age and gender of the person killed, whereas NASCAR is completely fucking pointless.

Overall Accuracy
Since Death Race is a goofy '70s satire, it's pretty hard to actually criticize them for their embarrassing vision of the year 2000. It's far easier to make fun of a pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone, who plays a woman-beater named "Machine Gun" Joe. One thing we could have never predicted at the time is that "Machine Gun" Joe wouldn't even crack a list of the 10 all-time stupidest Sylvester Stallone character names.

RoboCop (1987)

Set In
They claim an indeterminate "near future," but a careful analysis of the fashions, haircuts, vehicles, and computers seen in this 1987 movie lead us to believe it took place no later than 1988.

The Premise
After suffering fatal wounds, Officer Murphy is reconstructed as an unfeeling cybernetic police officer. But in a world of crime and corruption, RoboCop might just be the most human character of all-- except for the whole cyborg freak thing.

The Predictions
Cyborg Technology: Although we're still years from ungainly, plodding cyborgs like RoboCop, bionic implants and artificial hearts are inching us closer to that universal American dream: a cyborg sexual servant in every home.

Privatization of Government: The crooked Omni megacorporation is contracted to oversee the police department, leading to large-scale corruption and the cruel manipulation of RoboCop. This is an astute anticipation of the present-day debates over private military contracts. Of course, Blackwater continues to maintain it never deployed cyborgs in Iraq, if you're naive enough to believe their official account.

Detroit Even More of a Shithole: RoboCop shrewdly takes place in Detroit, the only city that actually turned out to have the dystopian future sci-fi movies have been predicting for years. The movie version of the city is so overrun with crime and poverty that the Omni corporation hatches a plan to simply replace it with "Delta City." In reality such a dramatic last resort was never undertaken. Instead, everybody just kind of gave up.

Overall Accuracy
RoboCop is an odd mixture of the incredible (cyborgs, orbiting defense lasers) and the comically obsolete (cathode ray tube televisions, the 1986 Ford Taurus.)

So, even though no specific year is given for its setting, no matter what year you assign it, everything's still going to be completely wrong.

@granny69

I just couldn't let that one go. I'm not going to bush bash, because it's just too easy at this point. But BILL CLINTON was president during the biggest economic boom in decades, and that economic boom began to peter out shortly after Bush took office. Not saying he was to blame, mind you, because the economy is way to big and complex for the president to directly effect it (for the most part). But get your f*****g facts straight.

11/7/2009 1:41:13 AM
Jeffly777

@vaine....I rofled

10/16/2009 12:13:04 PM
kiss_this56

Total Recall should be on there, but i don't remember what year it was set in. Also, why's everyone always gotta pick on Bush? He wasn't the smartest guy in the world, but i thought he was pretty cool, what with the economic boom unlike bigger than anything seen since the 70's that spanned a solid six years. Politics aside, great article

8/16/2009 8:00:41 PM
granny69

Not sure if this was pointed out, but as for Back to the Future II, the Sports Almanac did accurately predict the Miami Dolphins' win. Of course, they called them the Gators (since Miami didn't even have a team at this point)

Pretty cool coincidence.

8/7/2009 6:13:05 PM
Rabid_Dog

This loses points for bashing Bush, but then gets them back for bashing Europe.

6/4/2009 9:31:56 PM
MatthewPerry

hey... im from detroit. how dare you call us a shithole.. only im aloud to say that. lol but all in all. true.

5/13/2009 1:05:02 PM
ekkoh313

Overall Accuracy
Pretty pathetic. But, some secondhand credit must be given for the movie's sequel, Escape from L.A., which describes an outspoken "Christian militant" being elected president in 2000


George Bush was hardly a "Christian Militant", but hey, whatever makes you feel cool on the internet right?

Piss off

4/28/2009 12:58:40 PM
Devilman

The guy who wrote this was obviously sort of a dick. Just brutally shitting on these movies everyone knows are crappy and old, but not adding any sarcasm or comedy to it. Just...dicking at them.

Also, I'm sure the "Surfing in Vietnam" was actually meant to be a reference to "Apocalypse Now!"

Also, it appears to me this article is somewhat ancient, just up on the front page randomly/linked to. Apparently, I wasn't the only one that wandered my way here.

2/23/2009 9:39:35 AM
Dax

@beatcamel
the reason 1984 does not make the list is because if the events depicted therein came to pass, we would never know it (and most of us would not care if we did).

@Penis_Lightning
I do not suppose the words "comedic" and "alliteration" ever meet in your mind?

2/23/2009 3:48:30 AM
Fuckaccounts

what about Rollerball? or Running Man?

1/25/2009 12:42:07 PM
PalinIsNotAMILF

What about the 6th Day? I know some of the stuff was right-ish but considering that they expected things to change that drastically (self-driving cars, clones) in a short time is laughable. I mean this is the same crew that thought the XFL was gonna take off.

12/15/2008 1:23:13 AM
JBravoEcho09

Prior to World War II, World War I was known as The Great War.

12/4/2008 3:38:54 PM
Penis_Lightning

ROFLMAO!!!
skipster... man... wow that was f*****g awesome.
Clayheart you are a little b***h!

10/18/2008 5:46:13 PM
FreemDeem

Hey cracked staff! You guys were wrong about one thing.

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810028921/video/10133660

10/11/2008 3:35:53 PM
Lemm1w1nkz

Hey clayhart, check this out.
It's pretty cool.
Dick.
http://www.cracked.com/article_16605_8-most-obnoxious-internet-commenters.html

9/21/2008 1:28:14 PM
skipster

wow clayheart you cant just read something to get a good laugh huh? you have to nit pick at it..its a f*****g comedy site! not cnn.com. and i thought the christian extremist comment was funny not innapropriate. ill buy you a package of tampons if it stopps the bleeding of your p***y

9/19/2008 1:40:09 PM
Vaine

as for deathe race 2001 would GTA 3 qualify

9/11/2008 5:45:04 PM
oreolvrs

Sorry but you guys are off base with Escape From New York. Remember it was 1980. No computer could scan an area and create a 3D rendering like that. They had to make it by building a model city in all black with green outlines then pan shoot it. Additionally, there were no gray camo designs, the army only ever used green up to that point. Pulse monitoring watchs can be bought at Wal-Mart, but were pure sci-fi in 80. Although we do not implant explosives in people we have developed nanobots to do a variety of other things. Beyond all of this, the movie featured terrorists hijacking a plane and flying it into a building in New York City (which is not "a tasteless allusion to Sept 11" since they made it 21 years before 9-11). And although crime has not risen 400%, the incarceration rate has risen to 1% of the total American population (which is huge) so the idea of a need for mass storage and limiting costs for operation of prisions is not far fetched. Finally the "Christian militant" comment is just inappropriate, and untrue (although I am no fan, nor ever was, of Bush Jr). Conclusion: Escape From New York featured many futuristic elements that have come true both before and after the 1997 target date.

8/28/2008 3:17:41 PM
clayheart

i think were better off without most of this stuff.

8/28/2008 12:14:42 PM
willyhassertt

shut up

7/30/2008 8:37:43 PM
davo
Cracked stuff on