Movies

Compiling a list of the top ten movies about the future proved to be a difficult task.  Nevertheless, here we present our effort.

When considering the future, our media can often inform, inspire and raise discussion. Science fiction has long had a hand in predicting the future.

In the list presented here, we specifically are targeting films that address the key exponential technologies of genetics, nanotechnology and robotics (GNR). Associated with robotics in this format is artificial intelligence.

There are many candidates that might have also cracked the list, and should be acknowledged as well, including AI, Titan AE, Logan's Run, I Robot,The Island or even 1927's Metropolis.

For the time being, here are our top ten picks for movies about the the future:


10. Avatar

James Cameron’s huge blockbuster, Avatar is far from a great movie, with a predictable plot, cardboard characters, and questionable noble savage mythology, but on a big screen in 3D it is undeniably an amazing futuristic experience. Along the way, it at least introduces compelling ideas about simulated reality to the audience, even if its approach to them is rather juvenile and familiar.



Despite its flaws, Avatar did provide an immersive experience of space travel and future technology (especially in the theatrical 3D version). The film, which marks Cameron's first dramatic feature since 1997's Titanic, follows Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a war veteran who gets called to the depths of space to pick up the job of his slain twin brother for the scientific arm of a megacorporation looking to mine the planet of Pandora for a valued ore. Unfortunately the biggest deposit of the prized substance lies underneath the home of the Na'vi, a ten-foot-tall, blue-skinned native tribe who have been at war with the security arm of the company, lead by Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang). Because of the planet's hostile atmosphere, humans have genetically grown half-alien/half-human bodies which they can jack their consciousnesses into and explore the world in.

Memorable line: "One life ends…another begins."

9  Star Trek (2009)

The Star Trek franchise of course extends into the 1960's, however the 2009 movie directed by J.J. Abrams is arguably the best two hours of the franchaise.  (The best hour, by far was The Inner Light episode on The Next Generation).


What a treat it is to see the bridge of the USS Enterprise, box fresh and gleaming new: it is quite irrationally exciting to hear that strange, echoey-tweety heartbeat of the shipboard computer-system, the klaxon alarm in moments of peril, and the fsssht-fsssht of the automatic doors opening and closing.


As a look into the future (albeit with a big wave to the past), Star Trek delivered the goods.


Memorable line: "Dammit, man! I'm a doctor, not a physicist!"

8. Vanilla Sky

Based on the film, Open Your Eyes, Vanilla Sky from Cameron Crowe explores the issue of  uploading and full brain emulation.  Although it did not favour highly among the reviewers when it was released in 2001, the film is on this list more for the issues it explores than its execution.

Memorable line: "Tech support!!!!"

7 Star Wars (Episode IV)

Although it is now known as Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, the movie Star Wars for many was their first exposure to a vision of a world occupied by humans, aliens and robots.  The spaceships, action and religious themes surrounding the mystical 'Force' captivated this writers imagination as a child, and continues to affect him today.


Arguably in this list Star Wars is more fantasy than futurism, however the impact of the film on popular culture is really immeasurable.  Of course the movie is not necessarily a view of humanity's future--it is arguably more fantasy than science fiction--it is on our list for being a vision of a universe populated with artificial intelligence robots alongside humans (and other creatures).

Image Source: Steve Thomas

Memorable line: "May The Force be with you."

6 Tie - Meet The Robinsons & Wall-E

For this spot on the list, we feel it is important to present films that young and old can enjoy.  

The William Joyce book, A Day with Wilbur Robinson that inspired the movie, Meet the Robinsons features illustrations, which are reminiscent of  Bruce McCall's work and delight the imagination.  In the movie adaptation, the plot is extended and definitely more in keeping with the more traditional Disney fare, however the optimistic vision of the future, as seen when the two main characters travel into the future in a time machine, is energetic and engaging for viewers of all ages.


In Wall-E, we get a view of the world in the future as a product of mankind's wastefulness and consumerism run rampant.  The earth essentially dead and abandoned when the story starts, with a lone robot dutifully crushing and stacking trash.  For the first 22 minutes of the film, there is no dialogue, as we watch the routine of Wall-E.

He then encounters the pristine, steely EVE and is whisked off to a space station inhabited by human survivors who have evolved down the centuries into a race of sedentary, semi-conscious gastropods. These devolved, obese humans suck on smoothies, converse via computer screens and occasionally kerflump off their floating recliners.


Along with Wall-E and EVE, a whole cast of robot characters provide humour and entertainment to the film. Despite the sad state of affairs Wall-E presents for humanity's future, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and an optimistic ending.  Wall-E also features some great visuals


Memorable line: "Time for lunch... in a cup! "

5 Gattaca

Uma Thurman, Jude Law and Ethan Hawke Gattaca deals with the impacts of transhuman technologies on society and culture in a mostly believable and accessible way, and because it raised important issues perhaps for the first time for a lot of viewers, it seems worthy of making this list.


Set in a future when one's life is determined by genetic engineering rather than education or experience. The wealthy can choose the genetic makeup of their descendants. People are designed to fit into whatever role is decided before birth. But what happens when someone desires another way of life?


Citizens in this impersonal future-world are fashioned as perfect specimens, so those in the natural-born minority are viewed as inferior to the pre-planned perfect specimens (aka "Valids") who dominate. One of the natural-born, "In-Valids", Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke), has several defects (poor vision, emotional problems, and short 30-year life expectancy), but he also develops a different outlook on his pre-ordained fate. He yearns to break free from society's constraints, and he dreams of a journey into space as a Gattaca Corp. navigator.


Memorable line: "'Twelve fingers or one, it's how you play.' 'That piece can only be played with twelve.'"

4 Minority Report

Like Avatar, Minority Report is not a great movie, but the technology, especially the novel computer interfaces presented which are still referenced a decade later.


Based on a short story by the late Philip K. Dick, this science fiction-thriller reflects the writer's familiar preoccupation with themes of concealed identity and mind control. Tom Cruise stars as John Anderton, a Washington, D.C. detective in the year 2054. Anderton works for "Precrime," a special unit of the police department that arrests murderers before they have committed the actual crime.


Precrime bases its work on the visions of three psychics or "precogs" whose prophecies of future events are never in error. When Anderton discovers that he has been identified as the future killer of a man he's never met, he is forced to become a fugitive from his own colleagues as he tries to uncover the mystery of the victim-to-be's identity. When he kidnaps Agatha (Samantha Morton), one of the precogs, he begins to formulate a theory about a possible frame-up from within his own department.

Memorable line: "Careful, Chief. Dig up the past, all you get is dirty."

3 Akira

The  landmark film Akira is right up there with Blade Runner in its depiction of a cyberpunk, noir future city, in this case Neo-Tokyo. This story of  gang warfare and teens with massively destructive psychic powers is so iconic, its title has become shorthand for a whole kind of intense dystopian/apocalyptic storytelling.


Akira is based on the manga by Katsuhiro Otomo. The story is set in the post-apocalyptic community of Neo-Tokyo. Tetsuo is a fiercely individualistic member of a scroungy motorcycle gang. The despotic authorities, the robot-like police, and even the cycle gang pursue Tetsuo when he's bombarded with a new, insidious energy source that has rendered him telekinetic.


Memorable line: "Tetsuo!!!"

                      

 2 Blade Runner

This sci-fi classic received two Academy Award nominations. In 1993 the movie was also selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


A blend of science fiction and noir detective fiction, Blade Runner was a box office and critical bust upon its initial exhibition, but the unique postmodern production design became hugely influential within the sci-fi genre, and the film gained a significant cult following that increased its stature.


Harrison Ford stars as Rick Deckard, a retired cop in Los Angeles circa 2019. L.A. has become a pan-cultural dystopia of corporate advertising, pollution and flying automobiles, as well as replicants, human-like androids with short life spans built by the Tyrell Corporation for use in dangerous off-world colonization.


Deckard's former job in the police department was as a talented blade runner, a euphemism for detectives that hunt down and assassinate rogue replicants. Called before his one-time superior (M. Emmett Walsh), Deckard is forced back into active duty.


Four replicants led by Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) has escaped and headed to Earth, killing several humans in the process. After meeting with the eccentric Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel), creator of the replicants, Deckard finds and eliminates Zhora (Joanna Cassidy), one of his targets. Attacked by another replicant, Leon (Brion James), Deckard is about to be killed when he's saved by Rachael (Sean Young), Tyrell's assistant and a replicant who's unaware of her true nature.


In the meantime, Batty and his replicant pleasure model lover, Pris (Darryl Hannah) use a dying inventor, J.F. Sebastian (William Sanderson) to get close to Tyrell and murder him. Deckard tracks the pair to Sebastian's, where a bloody and violent final confrontation between Deckard and Batty takes place on a skyscraper rooftop high above the city. In 1992, Ridley Scott released a popular director's cut that removed Deckard's narration, added a dream sequence, and excised a happy ending imposed by the results of test screenings.


Memorable line: The line "like tears in rain" was never scripted, Rutger Hauer just made it up.

 1 2001 A Space Odyssey

I.J. Good served as consultant on supercomputers to Stanley Kubrick during the filming of the movie.
You knew we would end up here, didn’t you? Where else but with a movie that not only is central to the concerns of transhumanists, but also is among the top ten or twenty movies ever made, of any kind.


First to impress is its amazingly realistic depictions of life in space, whether on the shuttle — that flight attendant who walks upside down! — the space station, or the flight to Jupiter. And no film has ever depicted with such poignancy the troubled relationship between sentient AI and its human masters. Then comes the astonishing climax — the famous Stargate sequence — which can be regarded as Clarke’s and Kubrick’s attempt to portray, in cinematic terms, the human experience of a technological Singularity.

Remember, this is decades before Vinge wrote his seminal essay, though in 1965 I.J. Good had first described the possibility of an “intelligence explosion,” which likely influenced the filmmakers. Someday, perhaps, another even better movie will be made about the dreams/nightmares of transhumanists, but for now, this one is the pinnacle.


Memorable line: "Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over. "


Let us know what you think in the comments.  Are there any we missed, or any films you disagree with?

By 33rd Square

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