Six Movies That Could Depict the Future in a Realistic Way

The amount of movies that portray what our existence will be years from now is practically endless.  From space westerns to apocalypse scenarios, the depiction of our future is so varied that a realistic sense of it rarely surfaces.

I mean it’s not like we’re in the Star Trek Enterprise yet, and we’re certainly not a society that contains only desert waste lands.   Truth is, the future 20 years or even 50 years from now will aesthetically look very similar to what our world looks like today.  It’s just that movies never portray that.

However, here are five movies that I think portray the future in a very real way….

Gattaca

I don’t remember where I read this but it’s been said that Gattaca is the most realistic depiction of the future film ever made. That’s a pretty bold statement. But the idea if blood and genetics determining our destinies is something that’s highly probable. I would imagine technologies are being built every day that will simply scan the skin to determine future disease, success, anything. Not to mention at some point we’ll simply be scanning our bodies just to purchase our everyday products.

The Road

It doesn’t depict the multi-tiered metropolises of an overpopulated future; nor does it contain confrontational struggles with fancy new technology. It doesn’t do any of these things, but yet it still feels like a genuine futurist film for one simple reason: it shows us a Hell on Earth that could actually come about with our reckless regard for the planet and, often, each other. The cataclysmic landscape of post-apocalyptic life is shown here in all of its disturbingly brutal reality, highlighting even more so the effect that such a situation has on human psychology and the subsequent breakdown of the social contract.

I, Robot

Anything based on the works of Isaac Asimov is going to have a solid foundation to build upon, and despite some people not really enjoying this movie it certainly makes a great futurist film that shouldn’t be missed. The boundaries of artificial intelligence and robotic technology has always fascinated futurists and this film does a great job of exploring the line between human and artificial personalities. Will we have a robot revolution in our midst? Probably not but I can certainly see a world of robots and humans existing simultaneously. Clearly we’re on that path.

District 9

What District 9 achieves is a believable examination of what might occur where we to come into contact with an alien species. Fact is, we would never have an E.T. scenario. We wouldn’t have something straight out of Independence Day. We’d have an encounter where we’d have to relate to these creatures and we’d have to learn to survive with them. But the fact is, if we were the stronger species then it’s inevitable that a scenario such as that depicted in District 9 would be most likely.

Children of Men

Perhaps the most accurate in terms of the way our world will look is Children Of Men. It’s a clear depiction of how the world would eventually wind up in a 2 class system. You either make it or you don’t, and if you don’t, you’re pretty much homeless and cast out. It could be our very future if the economy keeps up. It’s not necessarily post apocalyptic but it’s definitely in that direction.

Minority Report

he themes of social profiling (minus the precog slant) and the holographic interfaces are becoming remarkably real even in just the few years since this film came out, and a lot of effort was put into the design of technology for the film. This movie was about as close to Gattaca as possible in terms of the ways in which we would be IDing people. Plus the screen technology and use of hands is already coming into focus. I doubt we’ll have predictions of the future and past but you can bet some of the tech explored in this movie will be around in 20-30 years.