The future looks dated!

Ro0kins_Wedding
Ro0kins_Wedding Posts: 295
edited November 11 in Social Groups
What sci fi predictions make you cringe about how wrong or dated they look?

For example, what always makes me cringe is Johnny Mnemonic...

25-best-hacker-movies-ever-johnny-mnemonic.jpg

Keanu Reeves plays "the ultimate hard drive"; a courier who uses his brain to store corporate data packages. Sounds cool, huh? A man with a hard drive installed in his brain! That's so futuristic... Granted we don't yet have hard drives installed in our brains, but then you discover that it's 80 gigabytes. 80 gigs! in 2021? That's rubbish! He is hardly "the ultimate hard drive". I would be embarrised to tell my friends that I only had 80 gigs in my brain. What's worse is that he then attempts to double the size to 160 gigs and this could kill him. I mean come on, would you bother? I wouldn't have that procedure unless I could hold 160 terabytes, and even that would probably be nothing huge by the year 2021 in which the film is set.

Replies

  • mickipedia
    mickipedia Posts: 889 Member
    lol.. my netbook has more memory than that.. oh my :P
  • I'm going to have to watch this film now for a laugh.
  • mickipedia
    mickipedia Posts: 889 Member
    In all fairness, its not as bad as Back to the Future 2.. They seemed to think we'd have hoverboards by 2015.. Only 3 years to go but I don't see that happening lol.

    But they guessed that we'd have 100's of channels (which we do) and also predicted picture-in-picture being possible by 2015.

    And that bit in the bar when the kids are confused because Marty uses his hands when they are used to playing games without controllers etc (xbox kinect)

    Maybe they did actually time travel =O
  • Aperture_Science
    Aperture_Science Posts: 840 Member
    I re-watched Alien a few nights ago and it struck me that the comms room in the Nostromo room (where crew captain can go to speak to mother) if full of white flashing lights: What do they do? The console is also CRT with green text on black which now looks like it came off the arc.

    The monitoring device that Ash rigs up to track the alien works on "micro fluctuations in the air" (or something like that) but how the hell wold that work? Every time you moved it it would take ages to settle down again, and how can it sense something in an enclosed air vent.
  • Aperture_Science
    Aperture_Science Posts: 840 Member
    And speaking of scanners: In Start Wars IV, at the start the Imperial troops know that the escape pod that jettisons to Tattooine containing C3-P0 and R2 is devoid of life forms.

    But later when the Millennium Falcon is dragged into the Death Star by tractor beam they fail to find the crew, who are hidden in the smugglers compartments under the Falcon's flooring. What? The Stormtroopers didn't think to give the Falcon a quick scan for life forms?
  • johncaraher
    johncaraher Posts: 44 Member
    Moore's Law makes any computer-themed flick age badly. I remember my very first hard disk - a vast 20 MB of computing decadence for my Mac Plus. Who could ever use all of such a drive? I felt the same way about the 4 MB of RAM I'd installed so I could run the first version of Mathematica. My first computer was a TRS-80 with 16 kB of RAM and the larger 12 kB ROM. That was a bit more powerful than all the computing onboard the Apollo command modules that went to the Moon!
  • garnet1483
    garnet1483 Posts: 249 Member
    Definitely the other way around, but Seaquest gave me very high hopes for the future, and none of them have been realized... The original Star Trek is fantastic now, though...they were the inspiration for flip phones! If only they could imagine that communication devices could get so so small... Oh, also, Hackers: that is NOT how computers work.
  • nammer79
    nammer79 Posts: 664 Member
    I have to throw the Jetsons under the bus ...

    Wheres my jet pack and moving sidewalks!!!
  • emmamcc1981
    emmamcc1981 Posts: 133 Member
    the 'futuristic' cars in 2004 in Timecop always make me giggle :D
  • Mythel
    Mythel Posts: 72
    The best part of Johnny Mnemonic is Henry Rollins. I <3 Henry!
  • msunluckythirteen
    msunluckythirteen Posts: 335 Member
    The best part of Johnny Mnemonic is Henry Rollins. I <3 Henry!
    LOVE! Henry Rollins!!!
  • TheGoblinRoad
    TheGoblinRoad Posts: 835 Member
    funny! I hadn't thought of that.

    Back to the future seems pretty dated, though I love the story anyway.
  • jenbit
    jenbit Posts: 4,252 Member
    Anyone remeber War games that movie makes me crack up...........

    Oh and in response to the Star Wars episode 4 scanning the Falcon...... It mentioned in the books that the Falcon had special flooring that couldn't be scanned through as they where hidden compartments for smuggling..... Gotta figure if you were smuggling you wouldn't want anyone to be able to read whats in your illegal cargo holds lol...... God I'm a nerd lol:blushing:
  • Oh and in response to the Star Wars episode 4 scanning the Falcon...... It mentioned in the books that the Falcon had special flooring that couldn't be scanned through as they where hidden compartments for smuggling.....

    Luke: Boy, it's lucky you have these compartments.

    Han Solo: I use them for smuggling. I never thought I'd be smuggling myself in them.
  • LisaJ2904
    LisaJ2904 Posts: 157 Member
    I can't wait for hoverboards (They will come), I'll be one of those embarrasing nan's on harry hill (Or future YBF) falling off it and saying , I could skateboard in 1990 ! Giz a go xx lol x
  • I can't wait for hoverboards (They will come), I'll be one of those embarrasing nan's on harry hill (Or future YBF) falling off it and saying , I could skateboard in 1990 ! Giz a go xx lol x

    You will be able to buy one this Christmas...

    http://www.slashgear.com/mattel-hover-board-prepped-for-2012-holiday-release-13213241/
  • maxmariesfo
    maxmariesfo Posts: 173 Member
    War Games - did you know they made a sequel? I was shocked. They're so afraid of the super computer they stuff him off in a warehouse monitoring the water supply if I recall.

    They invent a computer ala "Eagle Eye" and "Echelon Conspiracy" - of course, it gets out of control so they have to pull Joshua out of retirement to stop it.
  • psiren28
    psiren28 Posts: 530 Member
    Anyone remeber War games that movie makes me crack up...........

    I dunno, I think Wargames taught us all an early lesson about not having stupidly easy to guess passwords.
  • DLDzioba
    DLDzioba Posts: 422 Member
    The thing we'd need for most hoverboards is some sort of magnetic grid in the ground for which a magnetic board could push off of. You can MAKE a hoverboard, it just can't really go anywhere.
  • LordBezoar
    LordBezoar Posts: 625 Member
    And speaking of scanners: In Start Wars IV, at the start the Imperial troops know that the escape pod that jettisons to Tattooine containing C3-P0 and R2 is devoid of life forms.

    But later when the Millennium Falcon is dragged into the Death Star by tractor beam they fail to find the crew, who are hidden in the smugglers compartments under the Falcon's flooring. What? The Stormtroopers didn't think to give the Falcon a quick scan for life forms?

    The smuggler compartments in the Millennium Falcon are shielded so that the scanners don't register life forms... Ah, excuse me, my geek is showing...
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