Movies depicting the future just exaggerate the present.

I thought that about I, Robot and Minority Report immediately.

Funny thing is; the people of the 1920's didn't get the film, and it became a huge flop (which is the main reason why no complete negatives of it exists today). It was future generations who "marveled at the sprawling futuristic city", as you put it...

You don't have to go 85 years into the future to realize that Blade Runner's futuristic vision was hugely flawed. That's very obvious already today.

Your explanation as to why it is like that is sound, though.

"OUR present Science fictions of cities of the future (like Blade Runner and Judge Dredd)".

The architecture in Blade Runner looks quite a bit like Metropolis. And the bloody movie is already 30 years old, anyway.



"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

True futurists tend to be working on the future, rather than entertaining with their ideas. Then again, sometimes the future is just a expanded version of today, but that can have effects never dreamt of based on what we have, today. Computers of today are, in a sense, just exaggerated versions Charles Babbage's original designs.

That's not the point of this film.

A lot of people consider this film to be rather communist in outlook, but it is an expression of Christian Socialism. The Tower of Babel theme, for instance, is central to this story. The idea is that the Tower should be built, the perfect world should be strived for. You notice that there are no guards down there where the workers work and live. You notice they're not restricted down there.

However, what this concept fails to grasp is that you should not build the Tower of Babel. We are not God, and we shouldn't believe we can be God. Christ says to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect, but that's not the same as trying to be God. Paradise is not for this world, because Pride blinds us to the problems inherent in Man himself. Metropolis shows vividly how Sin can destroy Paradise, but then goes on to simply reform Paradise rather than consider that maybe their entire approach is wrong-headed to begin with.

Sure much of the architecture is very Art Deco, that's hard to avoid, but let's compare Metropolis' future to a bunch of science fiction cinema in the last 100 years.

1950s science fiction often had us flying around in rockets of spacecraft by the 1990s, wearing "futuristic" clothing. Compare H. G. Wells' 'response' to Metropolis, "Things to Come" which has an absurd civilization called "Wings Over the World" that in the 1970s is ridiculously advanced, then by 2036 they all live in underground, sterile cities wearing togas and other silly looking 'futuristic' clothing.

Metropolis' city, the actual above-ground city actually isn't that outrageous compared to say, the cities of today. Sure the designs might look dated (biplanes and 1920s styled cars), but the sprawling metropolis with huge buildings, is still pretty leveled in reality - cars still drive on highways, there are clubs and bars and so on. Aside from the vast amounts of manual labor involved in keeping the city running (something that isn't true about today since most of the day-to-day stuff is automated), really, the most advanced thing in the entire movie is a prototype android. I'll take an Art Deco city that looks a lot like today's world than some of the absurd notions that people had of technological advances.

Back to the Future Part II did a fantastic job parodying "the future" with silly looking clothing, technology and attitudes of people of the future being completely disconnected from the "present" (1985 in this case). They were like the antithesis of the people who thought that 1985 would look a lot different than the 1950s.

Technology has outpaced a lot of the things that have hit the big and small screens over the last few decades, but we're living largely the same as we did 60 years ago. Just yesterday I saw a silly article that proposed the housing that we'll be living in by 2050. I laughed. We'll be living in the exact same kinds of housing that people have lived in for 70, 80, 90, +100 years.

"You've shown your quality sir. The very highest."

Yeah, I agree, that is pretty much all we could do with (obviously) futuristic movies.





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Funny you should mention Blade Runner. A local movie critic was discussing the film at the time of its (I think) 25th anniversary. He pointed out that in addition to flying cars (there are always flying cars in SciFi movies - why is that?) that they were still using corded land-line telephones and big honking desk-top computers. That was the 1980s and no one foresaw the miniaturization of everything...tiny mobile phones and computers. No one saw an IPad or smartphone. I absolutely agree with you that no one can reasonably foresee future innovation.

I read something once about the guy who won the Nobel for the laser. He said he had no idea what practical uses a laser would have; he just made (for lack of a better word) the technology to formulate one. Now we use lasers from everything from brain surgery to cat toys.

Remember that the government (U.S.) wanted to close the patent office in the early 20th century because they felt there was nothing left to invent!