1. Universal Jumpsuits
The Star Trek series and movies, Battlestar Galactica, Logan's Run. A universal, monochromatic jumpsuit seems to constantly rear its ugly head in sci-fi films, as if everyone in the future gets some sort of style memo. But unfortunately, we're still in the old-school, individualist mind-set of wearing different clothes from everyone else. However, in one of Jerry Seinfeld's funnier comedy routines, he predicts that eventually fashion won't even exist. "Anytime I see a movie or a TV show where there are people from the future or another planet, they're all wearing the same outfit. Somehow they all decided, 'All right, that's enough. From now on, this is going to be our outfit: one-piece silver jumpsuit with a V-stripe on the chest and boots. That's it. We're going to start visiting other planets and we want to look like a team.'"
2. Jet Packs
So there are jet packs out there. They just aren't available to the masses. The idea of gas-filled backpacks came into vogue in 1920s science-fiction magazines like Amazing Stories and later reappeared in popular culture in the James Bond movie Thunderball (pictured) as well as in the comic book (and movie) The Rocketeer. During World War II, Germany experimented with pulse jet tubes by attaching them to the bodies of pilots to fly them over minefields, but the project never got far off the ground. While various attempts have since been made to make jet packs commercially available, the devices have been limited to astronauts, who use them on space stations so as not to float away. This year, however, the New Zealand–based Martin Aircraft Company reportedly signed a $12 million joint-venture deal to begin the manufacture of jet packs that would eventually be available commercially. That news is sure to make one indie band very happy.
3. Meals in Pill Form
Food of the future wasn't supposed to be concerned with good carbs or trans fats. Instead, the act of eating was itself supposed to go away, replaced with taking a pill. Characters from George Jetson to Leela on Futurama popped pills with the full taste, and sometimes the indigestion, that comes with a typical meal. Imagine the possibilities — feeling full and getting the right nutrients without ever cooking or worrying about calories.
Unfortunately, the physics just don't work out. The average person needs 2,000 calories each day. If you put all those calories into fat form and placed them into pills, you'd need to swallow a half-pound of pills every day. And that wouldn't even include protein, carbohydrates or essential vitamins. So why constantly swallow pills to get your fat requirement when you can have a slice of pizza?
Though our food-pill dreams may be dashed, we are getting closer to a portable flavor experience. Scientists at the Institute of Food Research in Norwich, England, say they're close to coming up with a chewing gum that tastes like a full meal, like the one Violet Beauregarde chomped on in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The full calories won't be there, but the flavors are expected to be released at different times, simulating a three-course meal while chewing. Let's just hope the gum doesn't turn us into blueberries.
4. A Worldwide Government
Fans of that particularly epic sci-fi genre of space opera (think fleets of spaceships and big laser cannons) have long been prepared for the day when earth is ruled by one single, benign government. What's the point of our current world order, that inchoate mess of nation-states and petty geopolitical divisions, when we have far bigger fish — or alien planets — to fry? A host of television series, from Star Trek to Babylon 5 to the short-lived Space: Above and Beyond, all ensured that the political exigencies of our little rock in the solar system were managed by just one global entity: call it a federation or an alliance or even the U.N.
Robert Heinlein, author of the cult novel Starship Troopers (made into a film in 1997), gave considerable thought to what a one-world government would look like. The Terran Federation in Starship Troopers emerges after the world's many democracies collapse into disarray in the 21st century, allowing a group of military vigilantes to establish a kind of global Spartan republic. True citizenship is only conferred after military service — and the whole situation eventually carries creepy, fascist undertones. Even if the Terran Federation would be better prepared to face the threat of those bulbous, bug-eyed arachnids, TIME reckons we'd rather take our chances with what we've got.
5. Flying Cars
When we met George Jetson, his boy Elroy, daughter Judy and Jane (his wife), we met them in their flying automobile. Back to the Future II memorably featured flying cars, as did Blade Runner, The Fifth Element and loads of other movies. Indeed, the flying car is a staple of most respectable fictional future worlds. Yet compared with some other futuristic goals (like, say, time travel or teleportation) flying cars really don't seem all that far-fetched. We have cars. We have planes. Why don't we have flying cars? Granted, their mechanics may be tricky. And they would require some complicated infrastructure. And perhaps fuel could be a problem. And sure, some people have a hard enough time getting their driver's licenses ...
But the dream lives! The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Transformer program is aimed at creating four-person "vertical takeoff and landing, road-worthy vehicles." Terrafugia is working on the Transition Roadable Aircraft, and according to the company's website, they're supposed to be out next year and "over 80 aircraft have been reserved." Of course, the website also notes that "the Transition isn't designed to replace anyone's car, but it could replace your airplane." So ... it's not for everyone.
6. Time Travel
We've been teased mercilessly with the prospect of time travel by literature (The Time Machine, Slaughterhouse-Five), movies (Back to the Future, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure) and even television (Quantum Leap). But so far, the concept has remained limited strictly to fiction. The advantages to being able to travel through time are clear (meeting Napoleon, watching the moon landing), and the disadvantages have been pretty well chronicled too (i.e. really screwing things up). As much as we all would like to see time travel become a reality, some things are probably best left to the imagination.
7. Teleportation
"Beam me up, Scotty!" The show: Star Trek. The Scotty: Montgomery Scott. The beaming: teleportation. It's a staple of many sci-fi plots, this ability to be transported from place to place instantaneously. While nothing even close has yet made its way to the real world, a number of physicists have studied whether we really could hurtle ourselves through a hypothetical wormhole. The U.S. Air Force has undertaken a study on it, and one man has even filed a patent for "a pulsed gravitational wave wormhole generator system that teleports a human being through hyperspace from one location to another."
8. Underwater Cities
Who needs space when there remain the unfathomable depths of our own oceans? James Cameron's Abyss conjured a world of deep-sea sentient aliens, but they end up being all ethereal tendrils and no fun. Filmmakers of an earlier era had a better idea: underwater cities! A glut of B movies from War Gods of the Deep to Captain Nemo and the Underwater City dump their protagonists in latter day Atlantises and surround them with amphibian humanoids and curmudgeonly mad scientists. And why not? With water levels rising, we may as well start thinking about oceanic living. A few super-high-end luxury hotels in places like Dubai and the Maldives offer "underwater" accommodation and dining, replete with stunning views of marine life. But where are the trident-wielding frog men?
9. Cyborg Abilities
Thanks to television series The Six Million Dollar Man, bionic beings were all the rage in the '70s. Protagonist Steve Austin was "Better. Stronger. Faster." Today, some people could be considered cyborgs — think Kevin Warwick, the scientist who implanted a radio-frequency ID chip in his body, or Jesse Sullivan, who after he lost his arms was given bionic ones — but most of us aren't artificially better, stronger or faster ... not like the Terminator or RoboCop. At least, not yet. Perhaps it's for the best. There's no guarantee all will use superhuman abilities for good. Also, if you're someone who still struggles with or is confounded by technology, maybe incorporating it directly into your body isn't the best idea.
10. A Postapocalyptic Landscape
The Mad Max films, Planet of the Apes, The Road, The Terminator, War of the Worlds, WALL-E — pop-culture visions of the future have oft shown us depressing depictions of what it would be like to survive a nuclear war or a war against robots or a war against pollution. Lots of war. On second thought ... this should probably be No. 1 on our next list: Top 10 Predictions for the Future That, Thankfully, Did Not Come True.
Source here
1 comment:
meals in pills. yum2 soylent green!
Post a Comment