which sci fi movie takes place the farthest in the future?

[Fearless Freep]

I think Star Trek: TNG actually did a fairly good job of inventing a comuter-user interface sufficiently futuristic; it was all touch sensitive, flexible/configurable, integrated with everything else, etc...it was pretty advanced compared to what we use today

[Master Blaster]

Since Foundation and War Hammer were never made into movies I guess it's a tossup between Dune and the Time Machine. Which one goes further out?

[Ed]

Well, a semi-Official timeline in my old "Dune Encyclopedia" indicates roughly 29,000 years between now and the book "God Emperor of Dune".  Since we are talking films, Dune takes place 24,000 years in the future.
Ed

[kriegerg69]

.....for those who missed it B4.

[No-Shipfreak]

Its definately The Time machine.,  inthe time machine, the treaveller ends up eight hundred thousand years from now ( 8 with 5 zeros) humanity is divided in two, morlocks and eloi, a human agrarian culture and an ape like mechanical culture.
both suck!


Freaky!

[Eirik]

I can't believe nobody brought up Planet of the Apes.  I forget how many years the counter said, but I would think it was pretty far out.  Time Machine probably takes the cake.  I didn't like the recent version, but the scene where the moon comes apart was very well done.

I think any movie going past 4,000-5,000 years -- if it wants to be realistic -- needs to deal with the eventual evolution of humans into something else.

[DaveMunger]

Unless there's an explanation for why we'd stay nearly the same like extreme longevity, time dialation, or whatever.

[Fearless Freep]

I still say if you alllow for tv series that Hichicker's Guide To The Galaxy takes the prize with The Restauraunt At The End Of The Universe.  Hard to top that

[AndyC]

Then again, as we get better at adapting our surroundings to suit our present form, there is less reason for our form to adapt to our surroundings. Could be that more advanced technology would halt, or at least slow, evolution. There are quite a few animals that haven't changed much in millions of years, simply because they were just right for their habitat. If we make our habitat just right for us, would the same not also be true?

Barring some catastrophe, I'd be more likely to expect changes due to genetic engineering or cybernetic augmentation.

Either that, or defects creeping in, due to the fact that certain flaws might become less of an obstacle to living and reproducing. For example, somebody has a hereditary defect that is usually fatal. It's easily corrected by surgery, he gets married and passes the trait onto three or four children who, if they don't develop the condition, might at least carry the gene. Of course, genetic engineering might fix that.

[DaveMunger]

I think distant future stuff, at least in books, usually assume certain things, like society collapsing at some point so that natural selection reasserts itself, Clarke's Law coming into effect, whatever's left of civilization being so decadent that no one knows how anything works anyway... And of course, the giant red sun and lengthened days that show everyone how long it's been. Movies don't seem to have the same rules. I think the main rule there is that they write things as if it were 1,000+ years in the future, but give the date as 100 years in the future.

[Eirik]

Very interesting thought AndyC.  Medical technology itself allows people with certain conditions to live and procreate when they otherwise wouldn't.  I think technology has a huge effect on evolution, at least in terms of preventing certain things from becoming extinct.  But that in itself doesn't stop it (I don't think) so much as changes its direction.  In fact, if you argue that developing technologies are a part of nature (because humans are a part of nature) and a part of the way humans adapt, then it's all fair game in a Darwinian sense.