Stop and think for a moment; where would we be without science-fiction? No aliens beaming us up into space, no dinosaurs coming to life and scaring the tar out of us, and no artificial-intelligence to fetch us our daily paper and tea. Oh, and you can forget about time travel, superpowers, and lightsabers.
In short, a life without sci-fi is no life at all.
If we glance back in retrospect over the last half a century of film making, we'll often gasp and utter in disbelief “No way!” or “I can't believe I didn't notice that before!” at just how often Hollywood has predicted the future.
Take a look at these five films and how Hollywood created these technological gadgets long before they hit the consumer market.
1. The Terminator (1984)
This iconic science-fiction thriller about a cyborg assassin bent on killing the mother of a soon-to-be savior to mankind brought us the technology of augmented reality.
A number of times during the film, we see the world through the Terminator's (Arnold Schwarzenegger) eyes, which simulates a computerized method of instantaneously documenting personalized information about the objects around him, such as: a person's name and background history. Thanks to smartphones today, likely over half the world's population carries an augmented reality device on a daily basis.
2. Woman in the Moon (1929)
Perhaps this scientific feat has been duplicated multitudes of times by other films prior to NASA successfully bringing into reality in 1969, but this film in particular brought us the fantasy of the moon landing to the big screen.
Aside from the film's poor acting and primitive scientific data calculations, along with some very inaccurate construction on building a viable rocket ship, Woman in the Moon predicted the moon landing forty years in advance!
3. Blade Runner (1982)
This cutting edge sci-fi dystopian film brought us the technology of retinal scanning.
The theory of retinal scanning has been around since the mid 1930s and is one of the oldest biometric technologies known to man. But in 1984, the Eyedentification, created by Eyedentify, was the world's first retinal scanner developed for commercial use. However, the film may have had a some help, as a retinal scanner prototype was first manufactured in 1981, one year prior to the film's release.
4. Back to the Future II (1989)
Due to the nature of this film and how the storyline revolves around time travel, we should assume futuristic gadgets are to be seen at different points throughout the film. Let's take a look at a couple of them.
Possibly the most memorable gadget was the hover board Marty McFly uses to get around the city. In late 2015, Razor hover boards hit the market, not quite like the ones we see Marty using in the movie, but perhaps we'll get there one day soon. Another gadget we see is when one of Marty's kids is using a object that resembles a head-mounted virtual-reality device. On November 15th, 2015, Samsung released it's first generation VR gear, where gaming and movie watching is escalated to an entirely new dynamic.
Did Samsung copy McFly's gadget, or did the producers of the film get lucky with their creative imaginations?
5. Minority Report (2002)
Perhaps Philip K Dick was more imaginative than people give him credit for, as his short story was the inspiration to this highly popular science-fiction film.
At multiple times during the movie, we see Captain John Anderson (Tom Cruise) use hand gestures to navigate screens on his computer, similar to how Tony Stark navigates Jarvis in Iron Man. It should be taken note that Minority Report was released long before touch screen devices were owned by the masses and long before the pinch-and-swipe methods were in use.
Glancing back at some of the hottest sci-fi movies to hit the market, you have to wonder if Hollywood had some insider information when developing certain films, or were they just plain lucky? Either way, it's exciting to see what new gadgets they'll think up next and how long it will be before we see them in reality.
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