Prophesising and predicting the future is not just something that only happens in science labs, not is it reserved for Religious cults. Looking into the future has worked its way into popular culture such that film after film are rolled out in cinemas doing their bit to satisfy our urge to know what is likely (or unlikely) to happen in the next ten, fifty, or several hundred years.
It is undeniable that most future-set motion pictures are based upon science fiction, and not science fact, but here are some that managed to get it spot on – or at least close.
The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) is the first movie we take a closer look at. The fictional Lacuna Inc offered a memory erasing service. Used by front man Jim Carrey to erase traumatic memories, Dutch scientists appear to have found a parallel. It appears that a common heart medicine might also have potential use in helping those with past trauma, and erase the particularly traumatic memories from their minds.
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There are clearly potential benefits to allowing stem the suffering of those with traumatic memories, but the memory-erasing effects of the drug are yet to be fully tested and studied. The psychological effect on someone with a partly erased history is unknown, and there is always a possibility that some other memory is accidently erased. The thought of waking up and possibly not knowing who you are makes a strong case as to why this may not slip into reality just yet.
Moving on to another movie fronted by Jim Carrey, The Truman Show (1998), followed the life of his character, Truman, as he was watched by millions on television unknowingly. Just a year after the mundanities of Truman’s life hit the cinema, the first Big Brother was aired on television in the Netherlands. This was the beginning of an explosion for reality tv, leading to a national obsession with watching the lives of others, at any moment of the day or night. It has now been a prime-time hit in nearly seventy countries, with it broaching series twelve and thirteen in the UK and US respectively. Whether The Truman Show predicted the future, or caused it, it is hard to know, but it certainly gave us a glimpse of televisual entertainment a decade later.
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From entertainment to the environment now, with Soylent Green, which was released back in 1973. The film showed us pictures of an overpopulated and over-polluted world resulting in climate chaos and wars over energy resources. We might not have reached this stage quite yet, but we are seeing global temperature increases as a result of global warming, and the potential for an energy crisis is currently on everyone’s minds.
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