MovieChat Forums > Runaway (1984) Discussion > Missed the future but that's okay

Missed the future but that's okay

posted 8 years ago by jeffyoung1
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I'm writing a new post to my 2011 one about RUNAWAY being charming even if it missed the mark on the gadgets of the future.

Five years have passed quickly and it's 2016. Only now have we video drones at the sophistication of the one in RUNAWAY, although today's real drones are typically four propeller types for better stability, maneuverability, and power.

We're actually living in 2016 already pass the projected time period of RUNAWAY. According to some movie source I read a long time ago, RUNAWAY was supposed to be set just before or at the turn of the 21st century, meaning sometime between the mid-1990s to 2000. No futuristic movie can truly predict the future but RUNAWAY did succeed in one aspect. Society depicted in the movie looks very much the same today in 2016. The clothing, the people, the speech, dining habits, look so 2016. All that's missing is people walking around with their glass phones, earplugs in ears; laptops and tablets, the Internet, other than that, the movie still looks contemporary in most respects.

[–] Darren (1127) 2 years ago

It's funny just how they missed the mark. We don't have robots anything like the ones seen in this movie -- the robot housekeepers, robot janitors, self-driving cars, etc.; but what we have instead is much more advanced computers than anything seen in the film, including small, pocket-sized computers that are also portable radio/telephone units, as well as cameras, recording devices, game pads, etc. They didn't envision electronics even remotely as advanced and multi-purpose as the computers we actually have.

It's also amusing when Luther watching Ramsay on the police station's security cameras, into which he's hacked, tells him that he sees Ramsay punching buttons on his computer console "trying to trace this call, which won't do shit, 'cause I'm calling from a mobile phone!" With today's actual technology, Ramsey would laugh, as the mobile phone's GPS -- which all recently made ones have -- would be as good as a homing beacon.