back to article Blade Runner 2049: Back to the Future – the movies that showed us what's to come

Blade Runner 2049, the long-awaited sequel to Ridley Scott's immeasurably influential vision of tomorrow, was released this week. And while the sci part of the sci-fi equation may be questionable in Scott's 1982 original, the production design felt so right to audiences that it has overshadowed almost every future-set movie …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The future is:- Middlesborough

    ... with a Vangelis soundtrack that will be stuck in my head for the rest of the day.

    Don't forget to fit in a visit the transporter bridge if you decide to go on a sight seeing trip to see the chemical plant at Wilton.

  2. PipV
    Trollface

    Galaxy Quest

    Never Giving up and Never Surrendering ...

    1. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Galaxy Quest

      Don't forget avenging, by Grabthar's hammer...

  3. Hairy Spod
    Megaphone

    2001

    cough 2001

    Go away watch that and tell me he isnt reading an i pad at breakfast

    How can you not list 2001 for so many other things too

  4. hammarbtyp

    The problem I always had with Star Trek was that they always underestimated the speed of computer development. In the original it consisted of flashing lights and a primitive user interface, even in the next gen when they has a sentient android, the computers were seemingly based Windows 11.

    They also missed the idea of smart weapons. A photon torpedo basically fired into one direction and hoped it hit, no basic homing ability at all.

    1. WolfFan Silver badge

      They also missed the idea of smart weapons. A photon torpedo basically fired into one direction and hoped it hit, no basic homing ability at all.

      not quite right. In Star Trek VI they had photon torps home on the Bird of Prey with the advanced cloak which could fire when cloaked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA9fFzRd7VM There were a few other examples. Now, the quantum torpedoes used by, for example, Defiant, those were unguided.

  5. Mark #255
    Thumb Up

    Terminator Genisys

    I chanced on Terminator Genisys recently on Netflix (other streaming movie services are available) and was pleasantly surprised by it - it didn't take itself too seriously, and there was a reasonable attempt to address all the "going back in time to kill X" paradoxes.

    And (obligatory reference to The Fine Article) it did rather pointedly wag a disapproving finger at the ongoing attempts to slurpunify our online presence.

  6. Stevie

    Bah!

    Seconds.

    To find out why, watch it (but don't Wiki it or you'll ruin the experience; it's a mood piece as much as anything).

  7. barbara.hudson

    Post-racial vision? Hardly.

    "Trek creator Gene Roddenberry summed up his post-racial vision" doesn't make sense if several hundred years from now we still have the vast majority of the population in his future earth looking decidedly white, with some black, asian, etc. representation, when white folks are already a (fast shrinking) minority of the world's population.

    Then again, while TV viewers accepted the first televised inter-racial kiss (Kirk / Uhuru) back in the '60s, a future where the majority, including the majority of those in positions of power, are not white is still unthinkable in western media, never mind 50 years ago.

    The problem with stories of the future is we're still not very good at imagining it because we can't even see the present clearly, never mind understand it.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: Post-racial vision? Hardly.

      a future where the majority, including the majority of those in positions of power, are not white is still unthinkable in western media

      Gee, I dunno. Have you ever been to meeting in "Asia" or any country in the "Middle East" (including The One, which, as I may remind people, are not White when it is convenient).

  8. John 104

    @ROLLERBALL

    Also the original Deathrace 2000

    Back to the Future II 1989 2015 Hoverboard

    Seriously? An electric skateboard with the wheels turned sideways does not HOVER! unless you consider that split second before you hit the deck after you loose your balance as hovering? But, really, that seems more like falling with the very slim chance of missing the ground entirely.

  9. Chemical Bob

    Repo! The Genetic Opera

    No bankruptcy protection, everyone is ill and in spite of that life is a musical.

    Oh, and Alexa Vega...

  10. NIck Hunn

    The Year of the Sex Olympics

    Don't forget the Beeb's TV drama "The Year of the Sex Olympics" back n 1968. That got most things right about reality TV, as well as providing the style guide for The Hunger Games.

  11. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    " [...] why does Deckard need the slow and unwieldy Voight-Kampff machine to spot a skin-job when replicants can pluck eggs from boiling water and have trademarks built into their skin cells?"

    False positives? Because the tests you suggest would amount to torture when performed on an actual human. And hopefully, in the future we won't do that anymore.

    "Skin jobs". That's what Bryant called Replicants. In history books he's the kind of cop who used to call black men "niggers".

  12. hugo tyson
    FAIL

    Video Conferencing

    Star Trek has videoconferencing that actually works properly. Still beyond our grasp....

    1. tfewster
      Thumb Up

      Re: Video Conferencing

      And Universal Translators. And voice recognition (so why would you need a helmsman etc?).

      And logic solving feuds that have lasted generations. But that part's just make-believe.

  13. Philip Lewis

    A few references

    OK. Went the "full Monty" and saw it in iMax 3D. Rather awesome.

    A great "Max Headroom" reference, and what was more astounding to me was the whole "Forbydelsens Element" thing going. If you haven't seen this film, then it's worth a look - a very dark, wet and dystopian future. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Element_of_Crime

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