Predictions by most movies about the future tend to be both dire and optimistic. But coming to real life, the ‘futures’ predicted have come and gone. Some of the films got their predictions right. Others were all wrong about the World’s future. Here are some of the movies which got their predictions wrong.
1. Geostorm – 2017 (Directed by Dean Delvin)
The 2019 version of Geostorm explains how bad climate change is to the extent that the Earth depended on the global system. The system supported satellites that alter the weather to maintain the planet’s chronic status. Stars and satellite malfunctions network were attacking the Earth. Therefore, its creator had to reveal the real threat before a global Geostorm got rid of everyone and everything in it. Though climate change remains the current threat in the World, it is not how the movie interpreted it.
2. 2012 – 2009 (Directed by Roland Emmerich)
2012 is a disaster film that predicts the world would end in 2012. The film follows Jackson Curtis playing a novelist and Adrian Helmsley playing a geologist. Adrian realized that the crust of the Earth was unstable. The instability happened when the planets aligned, causing a massive solar flare. Meanwhile, Jackson was trying to keep his family safe since the Earth was under destruction. In the real future, 2012 was not the end of the world. The natural disasters were due to the instability of the planet’s crust. In case it would, it couldn’t happen the same way the film puts it. Supervolcanoes eruption, tsunamis, plate shifts, springing earthquakes, and dramatic climate shifts occur at once.
3. Daybreakers – 2009 (Directed by Peter and Michael Spierig)
Daybreakers predict a future where a plague will turn almost everyone into a vampire. In 2019, a decade after the epidemic started, a critical blood shortage led to gruesome mutations and panic among those that turned to vampires. Edward, who plays a vampire hematologist, tries to invent a blood substitute. This idea came about when he met Audrey and Lionel, who were fugitive humans. They claimed to have a potential cure. The 2019 predictions were wrong because no vampire plagues hit the world between 2009 and 2019.
4. I Am Legend – 2007 (Directed by Francis Lawrence)
The film is based on the I Am Legend novel by Richard Matheson. The movie was set in New York City in 2012 after a virus made bloodthirsty mutants out of most humans. The original purpose of creating the virus was to cure cancer. It follows Robert Neville, a virologist in the US Army, calling out for potential survivors. He seeks to find the plague’s cure using his immune blood. The epidemic is similar to the current COVID-19 pandemic, but it began in late 2019. Though more than three million people died from the virus, those who contracted it did not become bloodthirsty mutants.
5. Children of Men – 2006 (Directed by Alfonso Cuaron)
Children Of Men is based on a novel by the same name written by P.D James. It was set in 2027, eighteen years after infertility started. The movie follows Clive Owen, a former activist, helping transport a woman who miraculously got pregnant to a sea sanctuary. It predicts that by 2009 there will be infertility in humans. The birth rate in the world is reducing in the actual future, but humans are still reproducing. Therefore we cannot conclude that the human race will vanish.
6. The Island – 2005 (Directed by Michael Bay)
The Island predicts a future where humanity perfects human cloning. The film was set in 2019, following Lincoln Six Echo struggling to fit in the current World. He later discovers that he and other inhabitants were clones. They are for organ harvesting to accommodate wealthy people in different parts of the World. After the secret is revealed, Lincoln and Jordan Two Delta plan to escape. Their mission is to expose the movement’s illegal cloning. Human cloning is theoretically possible, but its studies are really few. Today, almost seventy countries have banned it for ethical reasons.
7. Bicentennial Man – 1999 (Directed by Chris Columbus)
Bicentennial Man is based on a novel by Robert Silverberg and Isaac Asimovby the title The Positronic. The film predicts a future of robot servants and housekeepers that would be for public sale by 2005. The movie talks about Andrew, a robot purchased as a household appliance by the Martin family. Its program allows it to perform menial tasks. After several years, Andrew begins to be emotional and have creative thoughts. Finally, he fell for another robot which makes him mortal; hence he expires after the congress made him human. In the real-life future, there is no advanced robot-like Andrew, the way the film puts it. The current AI robot is Sophia. Though it is not much advanced, Sophia was declared a Saudi Arabia citizen without waiting for a lifetime.
8. The Thirteenth Floor – 1999 (Directed by Josef Rusnak)
It was expected Virtual worlds featured in The Thirteenth Floor would exist by 2020. As the video game industry is almost simulating reality, nothing proves there will be no completely realistic virtual worlds before the decade’s end. Based on Simulacron-3 novel written by Daniel F. Galouye, and the remake of the world on the Wire film, The Thirteenth Floor features Craig Bierko, an heir of a computer company. He discovers in 1937 that Los Angeles is undergoing simulation. Those simulated are not aware of the simulation. At the end of the movie, Craig realizes that Los Angeles in 1999 is also affected, and he is from 2024.
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