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Since the dawn of time, or at least the movie theater, people have looked far into the future, telling foreboding tales of the way the world would be. But even with the help of Hollywood’s highest paid futurists, these visions have largely flown off the radar, leaving the hallowed queues of Netflix filled with relics of a future that fortunately or in some cases unfortunately never found us. To that point, the following are a few films about the future that have us feeling pretty frightened:
Star Trek: The Motion Picture – Star Trek: Nemesis
The future, as told by the first ten Star Trek films, was a pretty terrifying thing. True, there was still a pursuit of self-awareness and peace in the galaxy. But seriously, take a closer look at the technology of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Looking like a Circuit City of the late 80s, the Enterprise is largely guided by tube-based TV sets and other malfunctioning tech. Are we to assume the United Federation of Planets really built the entire fleet using parts from the free section on Craigslist? Horrifying.
Back to the Future Part II
If the hoverboard-heavy idea of 2015 still awaits our arrival, then we’re all about to spend a ton of money updating our gizmos. And while new styles of cars and pizza re-hydrators might be the most awesome bits of retro ever to grab us by the brass, we’re in the midst of a dilapidated economy here! I can’t afford to spend that kind of money just to keep up with the future of the next four years! Damn it, Robert Zemekis! When the hell am I supposed to go on that vacation I’ve been talking about?!
Children of Men
Just imagine: a future without kids. The eyes of a child? Blind. Childlike wonder? Missing. The age of innocence? Never happened. The loo—wait a minute! If there aren’t any kids around, there won’t be any teen pregnancy. And if there’s no teen pregnancy, there won’t be TV programming built around teen pregnancy! BRILLIANT! On second thought, Children of Men doesn’t belong on this list.
Minority Report
I’ll be honest: I commit future murders ala Minority Report on a regular basis; I mean, I future murdered Tom Cruise last night. But according to Murphy’s Law, even if future murder laws gets repealed, as they did in the 2002 film, we’ll all still be stuck paying the price, just like I did with the red light ticket I landed in LA, weeks before that law was repealed. Long story short, if you find a time machine, go back in time and kill Murphy so that his laws, as well as future murder laws, never exist.
The Running Man
A future where Richard Dawson is a leader in the free world? No thanks. If that’s the case, every woman in the world will have the stink of old man tongue on their breath. And while a world filled with colorful insults is certainly welcome (from “Here’s your Sub-Zero—Now PLAIN ZERO!” to “Hey, Christmas Tree!”), the stink of Dawson’s slobber on your wife would just be too much to handle. If it were another host of Family Feud, ala Ray Combs (God rest his soul), that’s a different story.
Elijah Bates is a contributing writer to CBS Local
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