What They Got Right and Wrong

[aastrotech]

This is for listing Sci Fi movie stuff they got right or wrong. Extra points for the older the movie, the accuracy of what they got right and the humor of what they got wrong. Notable dicotomies extra points. And make a case for why they got it right or wrong.

The first obvious one is the comunicator. They didn't get the usefulness right. Ours is a whole lot more useful and we got it much sooner than they did. But they did get the frequent loss of signal right.

Get the idea?

2001 they got the flat screen "note book" TV that the astronauts watched their interview on BBC right. They got the timing right too as a lot of people had one by 2001. The space station thay got right and in the sense of timing the one in the movie was under construction and our real one was under construction in 2001. But they got the cost of a phone call wrong. Heywood Floyd talked to his daughter for a couple of minutes and the call cost nearly ten bucks. Maybe it was because he used Bell.

TV in the bedroom. Star Trek got that right. I don't know about the rest of you but I have a computer by my bed. Star Trek got that right because their "TV" was apparently also a computer access point.

Notable dicotomy; Many movies had video phones. Now we can have them virtually for free with the web cam but we generally don't want them or if we have them we don't use them much. I think a polite protocol is developing for their use that may result in their being accepted and used more in the future. Also it's still a little awkward to connect having to log into a messenger service like yahoo to make a call.

[jokergirl]

Very few things got the internet right.

But if we can expand this to literature, I re-read Idoru every once in a while, and every time I recognize something that was science fiction/far in the future then and has become reality now. It's an eerie feeling.

[Jim]

... Many movies had video phones. Now we can have them virtually for free with the web cam ...

Pshaw! Dick Tracy beat them all to it by decades.

[IsaacKuo]

The first obvious one is the comunicator.

Did they? I'm not familiar with pre-WWII movies. Did they anticipate the development of the walkie-talkie?

[SkepticJ]

But they got the cost of a phone call wrong. Heywood Floyd talked to his daughter for a couple of minutes and the call cost nearly ten bucks. Maybe it was because he used Bell.

Not $10, something like $1.20

That's pretty accurate, actually. Think of how much calls from commercial aircraft cost. Now consider the fact that he was on a space station in LEO. Like food in an amusement park, they'll ream as much money out of you as they can--because they can.

[stutefish]

Very few things got the internet right.

But if we can expand this to literature, I re-read Idoru every once in a while, and every time I recognize something that was science fiction/far in the future then and has become reality now. It's an eerie feeling.

My friends and I call those things "Gibsons", and take turns naming new ones as a sort of party game, the way other people might play charades, or pictionary.

[SkepticJ]

As a 'Gibson', what about viral internet videos?

Common now, but in 2003, when Pattern Recognition was published, did they exist?

I don't remember hearing the term until '06.


A 'Stephenson' would be the Metaverse of Second Life, World of Warcraft etc.

[Romanus]

One I think about a lot is Back to the Future, Part II, probably because 2015 is a stone's-throw away. Okay, granted that I don't think it was ever intended to be any other than light-hearted exaggeration of the Golden Age conception of the future, but still--flying cars aside, there are no cell phones in that movie, let alone any concept of the WWW (though I will give them semi-credit for the "countless useless channels viewed at once" shtick). They also did hit on a growing '80s nostalgia, at least among my age group.

May think of some others later...

[Lianachan]

A couple of thoughts, more on concepts that were in sci-fi long before their actual invention, rather than specific predictions from individual films - robots, and cloning.

[jokergirl]

As a 'Gibson', what about viral internet videos?

Common now, but in 2003, when Pattern Recognition was published, did they exist?

I don't remember hearing the term until '06.


A 'Stephenson' would be the Metaverse of Second Life, World of Warcraft etc.

Pretty sure they did. He uses adspeak a lot in that, I don't actually think that book qualifies as science fiction at all.
The Metaverse is somewhat based on Gibson's matrix, but I agree that it resembles Second Life a lot more. I am actually looking forward to something like this popping up rather soon.

Blacknets, too, are anticipated in places like Walled City. Idoru have been existing for a while, Hatsune Miku being the one with the longest lifetime around here I think. (She might not qualify though, as she's technically a voice for a program that got a "persona" built around her.)

They had a hydroponic garden thingy above the dinner table in BTTF2. With the emphasis on "green" right now, I expect those to be ready for delivery no later than 2012. (You can build them already now, of course.)
How about the "pick your own landscape" windows? Horribly tacky, that's for sure, but it might be effective. Personally, I want self-shading windows like in Blade Runner to be available for the general public soon (the technology is already there but not affordable for anything but huge projects yet). I also own a shiny umbrella. Very useful in the Swedish winter.

[swampyankee]

Something akin to the internet, crackers, internet worms, trojan horses, and viruses were all in John Brunner's Shockwave Rider.

[Dro2]

Slightly off topic but I think a thread like this 15+ years from now may be mentioning Minority Report on at least a couple things. Digital newspaper with live updates and Interactive screens which are all but in production at this point.

Im not sure but I think the blue tooth ear piece was in that movie well before they hit the streets.

[KaiYeves]

The famous 1950s "space" episodes of the Disneyland TV show correctly predicted that partly-reusable spaceplanes would take off near the equator, have parts fall away as they were used on ascent, and be useful in space station construction and taking very clear images of deep space from above the atmosphere. (Well, they do it with a telescope on the shuttle in the show, instead of helping an independent orbiting astronomy satellite, but it's the same concept.)

Also, amusingly, the launch facility depicted for this shuttle is a coral atoll that looks similar to the site of the SpaceX facility.

[Doodler]

Laser weapons. We do finally have them, though the effects aren't quite as science fiction predicted.

No clean burns, ruptures from water boiling under the surface makes for wet mushy mess.

[JonClarke]

Robots as generally envisaged,have not emerged yet. Those in Minority Report are perhaps the closest to reality. Same goes for any kind of intelligent computer.

Flying cars, personal helicopters, antgravity have not made it yet either.

[Lianachan]

Robots as generally envisaged,have not emerged yet.

Indeed, but robots at all have.

[jokergirl]

I thought of something. Fridges that can order groceries for you. The idea has been around at least since the 50es. They exist, but aren't generally very desired or accepted.

[Krel]

Laser weapons. We do finally have them, though the effects aren't quite as science fiction predicted.

No clean burns, ruptures from water boiling under the surface makes for wet mushy mess.

Back in the 80s, Walter Williams wrote a "Hardwired" game for the Cyberpunk game. In it he talked about two types of laser weapons. One for armor piercing, which would burn a hole through a person, and a anti-personnel version that had the beam tuned to the frequency of water, so that it caused a steam explosion in a person's flesh. Very nasty.

David.

[SkepticJ]

Flying cars, personal helicopters, antgravity have not made it yet either.

There've been flying cars and personal helicopters since the '50s. They're neither practical nor cheap enough for the masses, so haven't caught on.

Antigravity, sadly, is probably impossible.

[aastrotech]

Wasn't it Andy Warhol who said "In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes."? Well youtube seems to be giving everybody their chance. I've had about 5 minutes of mine and my halloween costume this year was a real hit.

They got the number of electric outlets I need wrong. With the computers, monitors, digital camera recharger, scanner, speakers, TV, stereo, VCRs, DVD, airconditioner, cable box and lamps my outlets look like some kind of weired wired octopi.

They got stereo cassete players with two decks right as a lot of people need two to copy. But they got VCRs with one deck wrong because you need two to copy tapes.

Didn't someone once say that heaven would be a place where you get everything you ever lost back? With E bay I've gotten back some things and I've been able to get back in digital form a lot of my old porno that old girlfriends threw out. It's easier to hide now too.

[aastrotech]

Not $10, something like $1.20

Hmmm. Maybe I saw an altered version. I saw it recently and I took a note of the cost. It was something like $7.85. I know movies have been being altered lately. The cost of the corvette driven into the lake in "Billy Jack" was altered, Mcdonalds was altered in some versions of "The Fifth Element". For Star Wars bufs; Not including stuntmen and standins, How many people played Darth Vader/Anaken on screen including the voice? Star Wars bufs always miss this one. Remember we're talking altered.

[SkepticJ]

My DVD copy dates from '01, and the same call-price was on the VHS copy I rented back in the late '90s.

Where'd you see your version?

I'm wondering what pinhead was so starved for something to do that they pointlessly modified a classic film.

[Daffy]

Didn't someone once say that heaven would be a place where you get everything you ever lost back?

George Carlin.

[JonClarke]

There've been flying cars and personal helicopters since the '50s. They're neither practical nor cheap enough for the masses, so haven't caught on.

The "flying cars" were simply cars that could have wings attached. they flew, but no very well. They were expensive, impratical., took up a lot of room, still needed runways and were often dangerous.

We don't have the helicopter in everyone's garage, which was the dream of the personal heliopter

[JonClarke]

Indeed, but robots at all have.

We have machines we call robots, but they have about as much relation to the robots of most SF as does an automatic washing machine.

The number of realistic robots in SF movies is much, much smaller than unrealistic ones. The robots of most SF are pure fantasy on the level of FTL flight and time travel.

[Lianachan]

I wonder how much sci-fi has influenced invention. I'm pretty sure some sort of study must have been done on that.

We have machines we call robots, but they have about as much relation to the robots of most SF as does an automatic washing machine.

The number of realistic robots in SF movies is much, much smaller than unrealistic ones. The robots of most SF are pure fantasy on the level of FTL flight and time travel.

I'm sorry, did you miss the part where I said I was talking about concepts that were in sci-fi long before their actual invention? With that qualification, the first word being key, I stand by my suggestion.

[JonClarke]

I'm sorry, did you miss the part where I said I was talking about concepts that were in sci-fi long before their actual invention? With that qualification, the first word being key, I stand by my suggestion.

Since we don't have anything like the robots of 99% of SF in the posulated time frame, I stand by mine.

[jokergirl]

We have machines we call robots, but they have about as much relation to the robots of most SF as does an automatic washing machine.

The number of realistic robots in SF movies is much, much smaller than unrealistic ones. The robots of most SF are pure fantasy on the level of FTL flight and time travel.

I think what you both are talking about are androids, a subclass of robot.

Realistic (i.e. fit for the task, not for being similar to a human) robots exist in and out of scifi equivalently. A washing machine is also a robot, in that way.

[HenrikOlsen]

So to conclude, robots belongs on the list of things they got wrong.

When sci fi tried to envision how dishes would be cleaned in the future, they envisioned a mechanical maid, often including a cute apron even though there was noting to hide, who would wash the dishes instead of the regular maid, rather than what we have now which is that maids are almost extinct and the dishes are washed by a box.

[Lianachan]

I think what you both are talking about are androids, a subclass of robot.

Realistic (i.e. fit for the task, not for being similar to a human) robots exist in and out of scifi equivalently. A washing machine is also a robot, in that way.

No, if I'd been talking about androids then I would have used that word. I meant robots. You're right, unhumanlike robots do exist in and out of sci-fi. It's those I was talking about.

Edited clarification: Robots like JonClarke thinks I'm talking about don't exist, certainly, so he's right. But that's not the kind of things I'm talking about, and/or he seemingly ignored my use of the word "concept".