The Trump presidency and Covid-2019: films and books that predicted the future
Writers and directors, when creating a book or a film, include maximum imagination and often come up with something that does not really exist. However, some events and inventions that were described in screenplays and literature many years ago, eventually came into our lives. Is this a coincidence or a real prophecy?
The sci-fi trilogy "Back to the Future" about time travel, released more than 30 years ago, conveyed incredible pictures of the upcoming. But the most surprising thing is that some of the inventions and objects invented by screenwriters and director Robert Zemeckis then, people saw quite recently.
And although the world is not yet filled with flying cars, mechanical engineering is developing so rapidly that some companies have already introduced similar supercars. For example, in September 2020, the Turkish company Baykar conducted the first tests of its flying electric car Cezeri. The experimental model rose to a height of 10 meters.
The film franchise also gave the audience the dream of a device resembling a skateboard, with anti-gravitators instead of wheels. The so-called hoferboards are not yet available for free sale, but there are already many similar inventions and technologies have been created that allow you to repeat levitating boards.
Well, what can we say about the famous sneakers that are laced automatically. Such shoes were released by the Nike brand. In 2016, the world saw how from the screens TV the Nike Air MAG model "descended" into reality, which in appearance resembles the shoes of the main character from the second part of the Back to the Future trilogy by Marty McFly. The main feature of the sneakers was the automatic lacing function.
Films about the Terminator starring Arnold Schwarzenegger impressed the audience not only with the originality of the plot, but also with a huge number of flying cars without manual control.
At that time, it was difficult to imagine something like this in reality, but now drones are widely used by the military all over the world. Moreover, Skynet drones have found real use in the British army. There is even a satellite communication system with the same name.
The American film by Francis Lawrence seems to have truly predicted the future. The most enthusiastic viewers, watching the hero of Will Smith, paid attention to the billboard of the ruined Times Square.
It featured a combined Batman and Superman logo. You've probably heard about what happened next.
In 2016, director Zack Snyder brought this idea to life and presented the film "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice". Who would have thought at the beginning of the two thousandth that a second frame from "I am a Legend" would give rise to a superhero action movie?
The heroes of the movie" Star Trek " by Jeffrey Jacob Abramson wear communicators on their wrists, which are very much like modern smart watches. There are other inventions shown in the picture, which the creators seemed to have spied, looking into the future.
One of these is a mobile phone, although the inventor Martin Cooper, who was behind the creation of the first mobile phone, did not hide that he was inspired by Captain Kirk's communicator.
Also in" Star Trek", a PADD personal data access device was presented. And if you have no idea what it looks like, then look at the tablet computers that are familiar to us. And the original Uhura headset looks exactly like modern Bluetooth devices.
Most of the predictions were made by the creators of the American animated series "The Simpsons", which was first released in 1989.
In one of the 1995 episodes, in the dorm room where the main characters lived, the audience could notice a poster predicting the 2010 Rolling Stones tour. And it really took place! Then the writers did not expect that the British rockers would go on tour, but only in 2013, in honor of the anniversary of the band.
The artists of" The Simpsons " also clearly knew something. In the episode "Lisa's Wedding" of the 6th season, which was released in 1995, the main character goes to London in 2010. One of the frames shows a pointed skyscraper behind the Tower Bridge, similar to the famous "Shard", the construction of which began in 2009. Before that, there was nothing similar in the London landscape.
And although it is difficult to call it a prediction of the future, however, a very similar picture from The Simpsons was embodied by singer Miley Cyrus. In the 1994 cartoon series, Bart rode an iron ball to demolish a building, and almost the same way Miley flew a gray ball in the video for the song Wrecking Ball in 2013.
But perhaps one of the most shocking predictions of the series is the presidency of Donald Trump. The future US leader appeared in a short video on the official YouTube channel of the series in 2015. In it, Trump wins the election and becomes the head of state. And so it happened, in 2017 he took up this post.
It is one thing to predict the creation of certain inventions, where specialists could be inspired by frames from films and objects shown in them, but it is quite another to predict the fate of a person.
In the fantastic action movie "The Destroyer" starring Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes, you can pay attention to the footage showing the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger to the post of president of the United States. And even though Arnie never became the head of state, although he declared his intention to run, he still played an important role in politics, becoming governor of California in 2003.
The black comedy "The Cable Guy" was able to predict not a separate fragment of a person's life or the appearance of a technical novelty, but the invention of services that occupied a whole layer in the entertainment industry. Moreover, neither Amazon nor Netflix existed at that time.
The main character, played by Jim Carrey, in the story, trying to make a friend, promises mountains of gold that can be obtained by connecting to the world Wide Web. This includes movies of your choice at any time, a full set of channels, the possibility of shopping in a TV store, and even a video game with someone who is on the other side of the earth. Does it remind you of anything?
The film "The Truman Show" predicted the appearance of real reality shows. Once the screenwriters assumed that the whole world would follow the everyday boring life of an ordinary person.
Today, on almost any channel, you can see reality shows about people's lives, relationships, superpowers, upbringing and not only.
Now the possibilities of medicine are amazing, people have learned to get rid of terrible ailments, to transplant organs — and this is only a small part of what we are capable of.
The main character of the fantastic melodrama "Eternal Sunshine of the Pure Mind" decided on a memory cleansing procedure. In reality, at that time, it was impossible to erase sad memories from your head at the click of your fingers. It's hard to believe, but in 2020, a similar procedure exists. Of course, this technology is not so simple, but specialists will be able to close some brain cells.
In 2011, the film "Infection"by Steven Soderbergh was published. It tells the story of how humanity is fighting a deadly infection.
But the film collected the largest number of views only in 2020. After all, the tape supposedly predicted the occurrence of Covid-19. The plot turned out to be very similar to the real events of this year.
Back in 1735, Jonathan Swift presented the first part of Gulliver's travel stories to the world. Then the author suggested that Mars has satellites.
But at that time, science had not yet proved that this fantastic phenomenon could be true. Only 142 years later, in 1872, astronomers discovered the moons of the Red planet Deimos and Phobos.
In the book "20,000 leagues under the Sea", Jules Verne described the amazing submarine "Nautilus", which is powered by electricity. Then it seemed to readers something incredible. However, 90 years later, a real submarine with an electric motor appeared in the world. This was a real technical breakthrough in the 60s of the twentieth century.
This was not the end of Jules Verne's amazing predictions, on the pages of books he described a fantastic aerial advertisement that was left in the sky by a flying plane. The guess described in 1889 also came true in 1915. At the airshow in The San Francisco plane left the first drawing of a smoke trail.
This work was seriously discussed in 1924, when the first polygraph was invented, very much resembling the lie detector invented by E. Ballmer and V. Mchagen.
It was difficult to predict the appearance of such an invention.
The American Morgan Robertson in 1898 described, perhaps, one of the most terrible disasters of modern history — the death of the Titanic.
The "Futility" was about a luxury passenger liner "Titan", which was considered unsinkable. In the story, the liner sank as a result of a collision with an iceberg.
14 years later, when the" unsinkable "Titanic crashed in the North Atlantic Ocean due to a collision with an iceberg (also in April), the story found a second life. The circumstances of the disaster and even the name of the ship frighteningly coincided with reality.
Keywords: The future | Books | Prediction | Movies