What was the future like when you were a kid?

[Mofo Rising]

This is inspired by the "What scared you as a kid/teenager" thread and a viewing of BLADE RUNNER.

I know there are quite a few generations posting on this board.  That's what makes it so fun to post to.  After watching BLADE RUNNER tonight, I started thinking about what the future is like in movies and literature, and what it's like to experience that as a kid.  See, I'm a bit of a sci-fi nut, but stories about the future don't hit me in the same way that they used to.  Now I usually view such stories as extrapolations of what life is like now, and I'm of the opinion that all the best sci-fi is explored as such.

But it doesn't hit me the same way it did when I was a kid.  When you're a kid, you can actually believe that that is what the world is going to be like.  It's not only what it could be like, but what it will be like, and it hits you as much as a reality as every day life does.  It's what you're expecting.  Live long enough and what you expect to be the future will disappoing you, while what actually is the future, now your present, is mind-boggingly more complex than what you previously thought.

Well, I didn't express that thought too well.  Still, the idea of this post is the same.  What was the future like when you were a kid?

Me, I grew up in the 80's.  The future to me was really bright and filled with technology.  Corporations ruled the planet with an iron fist.  Everybody who wasn't a company man was running around in a street gang, with requisite "punk" wardrobes.  It was ROBOCOP and MAX HEADROOM and nuclear wastelands.  You can see my idea of the future was shaped by the quality movies I watched.

But I can look back at the 50's, that cinematic idea of the future, and see it is completely different than mine.  I used to see it as quaint, before I realized my conception was quaint (and wrong-headed) as well.

So what was the future for you?

[Dr. Kobb]

I was a kid in the late `60's/early `70's and MAN, were the movies about the future grim.  Many movies had a sort of ecological doom aspect to them.  Many of the insect swarm movies of the era had an ecological disruption as the cause of the bug rampage.

 Some, like "Westworld" and "Silent Running", were sort of about technology collapsing or going haywire.  It was a time of anti-heroes and unhappy endings.

  "Omega Man", "Soylent Green", "Planet of the Apes"(all Chuck Heston movies, btw), nothing ever turned out well, and the future was not something to look forward to.

Others were along dystopian lines.  Y'know, like "Logan's Run" and such.  Anyone here ever catch the astounding, grim as all git Japanese movie, "Prophecies of Nostradamus" from the same time period? That thing'll drive you to drinking!  I'm forgetting a buncha flicks, but in general, a very negative theme ran through most visions of hte future on film from that time.
  I think that's part of the reason that "Star Wars" knocked everybody's socks off like it did.  Here was a film that was full of adventure and excitement and fun again, without pounding you over the head with big prophecies of DOOM.

[AndyC]

You've both pretty much covered the bases for me, from 70s dystopias to post-apocalyptic nightmares and corporate rule of the 80s. However, I think the movies that made the biggest impression on me were Star Wars and the post-Star Wars space operas, as well as things like original Star Trek, and early anime imports like Star Blazers and Force Five. Those were pretty accessible for a kid, and they came along at just the right time, when I was young enough to be innocent and impressionable, but old enough to understand a good deal of what I was seeing.

For me, the future had robots, computers with lots of blinking lights, and most importantly, it had BIG spaceships. To this day, I love movies with big, dirty, metal-plated, pipe-covered, gun-studded spaceships. Of course, since Next Generation and then the coming of CGI, spaceships have gotten a little too sleek for my taste.



Post Edited (05-16-05 06:54)

[odinn7]

My future was pretty much the same as Andy wrote except that once we hit the 80's, the future was going to be a desert wasteland with people fighting for food, water, and gasoline. I was actually quite worried about nuclear doom and had pictured that survivors of it (yeah, right) would go through this along the same lines as the movies showed. In a way, movies like this helped to shape what I am now...well, not so much now but maybe 10 or 15 years ago.

[Fearless Freep]

I'll agree with most here.  When I was young, the future was rushing toward an inevitable nuclear confrontation between the West and East, followed by the post-apocalyptic view you see in a lot of movies from that time

[Scott H.]

Soylent Green. I truly believe we are hurtling ourselves headfirst into a Soylent Green type future.... maybe without the whole eating people thing, but definitely in the overcrowding, water rationing, mass food distribution, homelessness, dirty, filthy, depraved surroundings kind of thing. It's a depressing thing to think about, but we'll all be dead before that hits.

[raj]

I'm in the same boat as Dr. Kobb.
I am still waiting for my flying car that folds into a suitcase.

[Ed]

I really really want the cool Hugo Gernsback future with the flying cars, moon cities and everyone in togas (though I'd really have to work on my toga body).  
Speaking of dystopians, remember "The Shape of Things to Come" (1936) and "Metropolis"... More dystopia all from the start.  
-Ed

[Master Blaster]

I felt pretty stupid back in 1989 when I filed my teeth to points, put on facepaint then turned on the news and David Hasslehoff was singing at the site of the fallen Berlin wall.

[Susan]

I thought everyone would be dressed like prince, neon lights and techno imagery. All streets would be dark 24 hours a day and wet..lol

[dean]

I find it interesting that those who were kids when the cold war was in full swing commonly [well most anyway] have that worry of nuclear holocaust and a reasonably bleak future.   As much as I might like Neon and techno imagery, Susan's description of a Bladerunner-esque future with Prince as a leading fashion icon is probably the scariest, but only because of the Prince thing of course.

Since I grew up mainly during the 90's [born '84] Our future was one of promise, and space colonization and robots etc.

I remember this show called 'Beyond 2000' which would talk about technology and where it is headed for the future, like future space technologies and such, and now that we are 'beyond 2000' I'd like to revisit that show and see what they got right and what they completely overstated and got wrong.

It is especially interesting watching old TV shows/movies in which the future is a much different place, and then you realise the year is supposed to be 1975.  Sometimes it can be quite funny watching something like that!

[AndyC]

Oh, I forgot that the future would also have disco. At least that's what Buck Rogers told us. Five hundred years and a nuclear war later, and people will still be getting down, with all of the coloured lights and everything. Aliens and robots will enjoy it too.

[Mr_Vindictive]

I'm with Susan.  From the films I watched growing up, I would have thought that the future would be full of neon lights and gangs roaming the streets late at night, and everywhere there would be bad synth music.

Well, it has obviously not turned out that way...although we do still have bad music.

I think that when it comes to technology, we are kind of in a rut.  There hasn't been a new "big" innovation in a while.  The personal computer / internet would be the last big thing in technology that I can think of.

As Dean mentioned, I remember Beyond 2000 as well.  I remember that it was a hard show to catch being as the local station would switch it's time slot randomly.  Great show.

I'm kind of disappointed in the current future though.  Where is my flying car, and where the hell is my virtual reality!?

[AndyC]

Didn't Avery Brooks do a commercial back in 2000 or 2001, where he asked "where's my flying car?" That seems to be one idea that really stuck from the old days.

Has anybody mentioned moving sidewalks?

[odinn7]

Never mind the flying cars and moving sidewalks...I want my phazer and transporter.

Edit- Oh yeah, and my Cherry 2000 too!



Post Edited (05-17-05 07:18)