5 Sci-Fi Movies From The ’70s That Predicted The Future

The Seventies was a time of nice scientific jumps ahead because of tasks just like the space-exploring Voyager program and the varied developments in laser and medical scanning expertise. Even the last decade’s science fiction storytelling was fairly audacious. As expertise and science moved ahead, the fears about what may come from these new developments started manifesting in sci-fi cinema, and a few of these considerations have, sadly, since been validated.

Science fiction media has usually been dependable at predicting the longer term to some extent, save for these sci-fi movies that got a little too fantastical. All the identical, there had been some critically prescient ’70s movies directed by titans of the style, together with George Lucas, Stanley Kubrick, and Michael Crichton. Certainly, by trying on the societal and technological considerations of the time, the screenwriters and administrators behind these motion pictures had been in a position to foresee the longer term with unsettling accuracy. With that in thoughts, listed here are 5 of the perfect of the sci-fi movies of the Seventies that managed to foretell our current.

Primarily based on the Ira Levin novel of the identical identify, “The Stepford Wives” facilities on Joanna Eberhart (Katharine Ross), a girl who strikes along with her husband and youngsters from New York Metropolis to the bougie Connecticut group of Stepford. As soon as there, nonetheless, she realizes she does not actually slot in with the opposite girls, a lot of whom are utterly subservient to their husbands. It seems that the boys of Stepford are changing their wives with robotic replicas to be able to have the “good” wives, getting rid of the human variations. “The Stepford Wives” is type of sci-fi feminism 101 and has impressed an entire slew of twists on the formulation (amongst them Olivia Wilde’s “Don’t Worry Darling” and Drew Hancock’s “Companion”), all of which look at how (by and enormous cisgender and heterosexual) males may attempt to management their companions via technological means. 

Sadly, there are a number of methods “The Stepford Wives” has develop into a bit too actual. There’s the quite apparent instance of males changing human companions with AI chat companions and selecting synthetic relationships over actual ones, however there’s additionally the straightforward proven fact that in case you have a uterus, your physique does not actually belong to you, a minimum of according to the U.S. government. It is type of a bummer that “The Stepford Wives” truly misplaced relevancy for some time solely to return again stronger than earlier than — it is a tremendous story, however sooner or later, I hope that it is pure fiction.

Earlier than author and director George Lucas turned well-known for creating the “Star Wars” franchise and taking us all to a galaxy far, far-off, he wrote and directed a thought-provoking dystopian movie known as “THX 1138.” The film stars Robert Duvall because the titular THX 1138, who lives in a future the place individuals are anonymous drones working for an enormous company machine. Intercourse is prohibited, and the work pressure is stored compliant via using obligatory psychoactive medicine to maintain them docile and numb. When THX stops taking his remedy and begins seeing the issues with such a system, his life adjustments without end, and he begins to see the true horrors preserving the system in place. Among the movie’s anti-totalitarian beliefs would make their way into the much more popular “Star Wars” property, however this bleak first movie from Lucas was a bit an excessive amount of for many audiences.

Lately, it isn’t too arduous to see the parallels between the nightmarish “THX 1138” universe and the company U.S. world, the place warehouse, manufacturing unit, and discipline staff are handled like inhuman cogs in a machine with minimal breaks and ridiculously meager incentives to maintain going. Loads of wage laborers use medicine to get by (or to work double and triple shifts), making for a world the place Lucas’ sci-fi movie really did predict the future. 

This one’s a tiny cheat as a result of, actually, “Westworld” and “Futureworld” are each working in the identical universe and predicting the identical horrors, and each had been launched within the Seventies. “Westworld” was written and directed by famend science fiction creator Michael Crichton and facilities on the titular sci-fi theme park, a spot the place superior synthetic beings are handled as disposable sport items for the human guests to abuse. Its sequel, “Futureworld,” then goes on to disclose that there are different such parks, considered one of which is even being operated by the robots, with human clones working for them. Oh, and the company that runs the parks? They’re utilizing the robots to report details about guests, for each primary capitalist and rather more nefarious causes.

Whereas we do not have absolutely aware artificially clever robots in theme parks simply but, people treating AI creations as disposable is nothing new. Not solely that, however as we inch nearer and nearer to precise synthetic sentience, we’re getting nearer to these AI creations preventing again (and never simply Chat GPT telling customers horrible issues). Oh, and the “spying in your park guests utilizing the tech” factor is about as related as you will get, with firms monitoring our each transfer in the true world and digitally to allow them to higher goal commercials. The HBO “Westworld” series delved into these ideas as well (and did a greater job of it), however both the “Westworld” and “Futureworld” films managed to foretell a little bit of our up to date company espionage.

“The Andromeda Pressure,” as directed by Robert Sensible and based on the Michael Crichton novel of the identical identify, follows a gaggle of scientists, docs, and nurses as they try to include and management a contagious pathogen from outer area. Fortunately, so far as I do know, we have not needed to take care of any real-world extraterrestrial pathogens making folks sick, though loads of pathogens on our personal planet have completed simply that. Seeing the scientists work collectively to try to cease the illness is an terrible lot like what occurred when real-life docs and scientists teamed as much as try to stop the unfold of the COVID-19 virus and create a vaccine as shortly as potential, albeit with considerably much less quarantining. 

“The Andromeda Pressure” is fairly dry, scientific stuff, however it’s kind of extra thrilling when you’ll be able to evaluate it to actual life. Science can save us simply as simply as it will possibly harm us, so, hopefully, we’ll get extra science fiction tales predicting optimistic outcomes sooner or later (even when “The Andromeda Pressure” does not precisely have essentially the most hopeful ending on this planet).

Each the 1971 Stanley Kubrick movie “A Clockwork Orange” and the 1962 Anthony Burgess novel on which it was primarily based attracted an incredible amount of controversy, as considerations about copycat crimes and the film model’s intense sexual violence led to the movie being banned in numerous international locations, together with Nice Britain. “A Clockwork Orange” is ready in a dystopian future beneath totalitarian rule. Outdated folks by no means go away their houses and spend their days losing away watching tv, whereas the younger of us are all out breaking the legislation and wreaking havoc. Such is the case with Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and his gang of goons, who spend their days invading houses, committing sexual assault, brutally attacking homeless folks, and extra. 

Nonetheless, when Alex is caught and charged for his crimes, he is put via a type of brainwashing torture to try to get him to vary. After all, he isn’t really “cured” by the procedure in Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange”; he merely learns the way to faux to behave for the system so he can commit his crimes in secret. (Within the unique guide, Alex truly is reformed by the reprogramming, although that chapter was usually eliminated for the novel’s preliminary launch in the usbased on the idea that American readers would not purchase that ending.)

“A Clockwork Orange” is a harsh indictment of the jail system and the failures of punishment as a method of rehabilitation. Hundreds of thousands of individuals are both in or have been in jail within the U.S., and the nation itself has the best incarceration fee on this planet, creating extra criminals via a damaged system. And whereas nobody’s on the market consuming moloko plus but, simply give it time.