6 Sci-Fi Movie Technologies That Went Stupidly Backwards

"Let's give them an uninterruptible wireless connection to a central robot leader. A 'general,' if you will."

The plot kicks off with the apparent suicide of Dr. Lanning, a doctor of robot-making. Before he "fell" out a window, he set up a hologram of himself that would automatically call Will Smith in the event of his death. It's an incredible interactive program that can a multitude of questions Smith's character is anticipated to ask. Well, sort of. It has extremely limited responses, and never tells Smith anything with any practical use. It hints at a "revolution," but not who will start it. When asked why Dr. Lanning would commit suicide, it coyly suggests that's "the right question," but offers no real answers. It's so vague and cute that it almost seems like it was designed for romantic scavenger hunts, not for future investigators to investigate your death. Why even make it? Just leave a note that says "THE ROBOTS ARE REBELLING, SO IF I COMMIT SUICIDE, I PROBABLY DIDN'T."

"Why are you so damn useless?"
"That, Detective, is the right question. Go to the SAUCY place where we first ca-NOODLED to BITE into the next clue!"

Sure, the hologram obviously utilizes some advanced technology, but all of its basic requirements could be fulfilled by a voicemail. The doctor wanted Will to investigate the robots and discover their evil intentions, but why turn that into a series of word puzzles? Wouldn't most robot-hating detectives be perfectly willing to look into an uprising of terrorist murderbots without a hologram of a dead guy winking at them and leading them toward a fun mystery?

And the cuteness does not pay off. The robots take over before Smith manages to unravel much of anything. A goddamn piece of paper that said "Kill all the robots, like right now" would have solved every problem Act 1 presented. The movie attempts to explain this away by saying that the evil AI, VIKI, was holding Lanning hostage in his apartment, but that makes the fact that he created a pointlessly complicated avatar MORE dumb, not less.

"What? What? No, sorry, you sound really moist. I just lotioned."

These hand phones are supposed to be badass spy tech that only covert agents use. Why, you can make calls by putting your hand to your face, and you can utilize any glass surface for video calls. You know, when it's important to keep your discussions private.

"About time you checked in, agen- oh shit, are you at Dumpling King? Can you grab me 12 xiaolongbao?"

For starters, modern phone technology gives you infinitely more freedom while you talk. Right now, you can share a video call while you walk around, or sexily point the camera down your pants. In Total Recall, you have to stay in one spot with your hand glued to a window. Do you have any idea how flexible you have to be to get your genitals into the frame from that position? With one of those, you're either looking at the taint of the world's greatest yoga master or your phone call is rated G.

And forget how everyone nearby gets to see and hear your conversation. Where is the camera? Does the guy on the other end also have his hand pressed up against some department store's window? And what happens when you need to reboot your phone? Do you have to go to a surgeon and carve it out every time, or can you slap your hand against something hard a few times? And let's not look past how you'll be talking to everyone with the exact same device you use to masturbate. It's like answering a video call from your mother on your fleshlight.

"You are now a size 6, human. Pray I do not make it a 5."

And you have to sit through a flash intro before you can use it.

And this movie came out in 2001, when search engines definitely existed. There were television commercials for a website where you could ask an internet butler to find things for you. And yet while the regular world could ask Jeeves the location of both of Cindy Margolis' tits for free, the robots of the future were stuck pumping quarters into an idiot mall kiosk with the deductive reasoning of barely one of Cindy Margolis' tits.

"Welcome, Michael Douglas. This virtual drawer contains nearly six files. Would you like to know about tennis, ham, red pandas, Missouri's state flag, episode 43 of M*A*S*H, or select a new drawer?"

The virtual building is enormous and takes actual minutes to walk from wing to wing, and for added convenience, there are also deadly pits. Oh, did we forget to mention this file system is littered with certain-death pits?

Whoaaah! Look out, Michael Douglas!!! This archive is craaazy!

And that doesn't even account for the dangers of evil virtual intruders deleting all your files. Something Douglas encounters when a skeleton wearing Demi Moore's headshot hacks into the system and attacks his cabinets.

"Intruder Skeleton, stop deleting files! It's not working! One last thing to try! Intruder Skeleton, hand job, medium speed!"

Similar VR storage systems exist in almost every '90s movie about technology. Something about that decade really made us think the future would involve crawling into our computers and manually carrying files around. The Lawnmower Man and Johnny Mnemonic took it a step further and added a bunch of random unlabeled shapes to their interfaces, accurately predicting that all modern hard drives would be cluttered with useless, floating 20-sided dice.

"16 SIDES ARE USEFUL INFORMATION! FOUR SIDES ARE POEMS WRITTEN BY DEATH ROW PRISONERS! ROLL WHEN READY, INTERFACE USER!!!"

And if you think file storage was ridiculous, hoo boy, wait'll you see what they thought sex was going to be like. '90s movies were absolutely certain that the cyber-future of sex was chaotic flashes of elbows and nipples, Trapper Keeper landscapes, and featureless chrome monsters embracing. Picture rubbing up against a mouth-like area of a silvery fractal man amidst lovescapes of bouncing polyhedrons. You know what, why don't we leave you with a shot of it? Warning: EXTREMELY NSFW.

Behold the future of lovemaking.

Nathan Kamal lives in Oregon and writes there. He co-founded Asymmetry Fiction http://www.asymmetryfiction.com for all your fiction needs. Jordan Breeding is a part-time writer, a full-time lover, and an all-the-time guitarist. Check out his band at http://www.skywardband.com or on Spotify here.

Also check out 7 Famous Sci-Fi Inventions With Huge Flaws The Movies Ignore and 6 Pieces of Sci-Fi Technology That Make No Sense.

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