Most of the science fiction movies does not age well, and the predictions they make are funnily misguided.
For example, the 1980’s sci-fi film “The Running Man,” claimed that in the year 2019, we’d be watching battle royale-style murder on live TV.
The 2007 movie “The Island” also predicted that human clones would be available for farmed like livestock for their organs.
But there are sci-fi films that made rock-solid predictions that proved eerily accurate decades later.
Here are six solid performing movie predictions from old sci-fi movies that actually came true.
1.) Minority Report (2002) – Facebook Ads
Future visions may be hard to believe, but Minority Report’s world came true in other ways. The personalized advertisements people experience, for example, are much like the Facebook ads people see today. Phones are responsive to our choices and listen to our conversations then present products based on what they heard.
2.) Lawnmower Man (1992) – VR Devices
The movie predicted virtual reality technology with some surprising accuracy. The headsets depicted in the film show eerily accurate look a lot like modern-day VR platforms.
3.) ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’ (1968) – Skype
There are various list of technologies that “2001: A Space Odyssey” predicted and could probably fill an article all by itself, from tablet computers to space tourism.
But one technology in the film stands out: Skype.
In fact, no one in “2001” actually logs into the Microsoft-operated video chat service. But video calling is featured prominently in the movie, such as when Dr. Heywood Floyd calls his family from a space station orbiting the earth.
4.) Darkman (1990) – 3D Printer
Sam Raimi’s classic Darkman showcased a 3D printer decades before they became reality. In it, the hero uses one to make a face for himself. The most important part to Darkman’s story is the use of 3D printing to create human skin.
Two decades later, the tech shown is only now becoming a reality. Anne Zieger from The Healthcare AI Institute confirms:
It’s now possible to 3-D print many human organs, including skin. This was not even remotely possible with early-90s computing technology, which makes the film’s prediction somewhat remarkable.
5.) The Martian (2015) – SpaceX and NASA Mars Exploration
This award-winning film makes a bold technological prediction about space travel.
The mission science, engineering, and survival technology are among the most realistic of all popular sci-fi. The spacecraft, spacesuits, tools, and mission objectives are just like what we’d expect an early mission to Mars to look like.
In a case of life imitating art, numerous NASA and university research projects to study growing food in Martian dirt were inspired by the Martian. NASA and private industries such as SpaceX hope to send the first human expeditions to Mars in the coming decades.
6.) HER (2013) – Virtual AI, Assistant
The movie is centered in which Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with an A.I. that lives inside his smartphone-like device.
Named “Samantha”, the A.I. displays human emotions such as empathy and love. Its C+ grade comes from being a little too advanced for reality, as Peter Scott explains:
All the hardware depicted in this movie currently exists, but we are several major breakthroughs away from developing machine consciousness.
The first level three A.I. assistant (able to consider context and respond to different and unexpected inputs), on a scale where Samantha inhabits level five (strategic level intelligence), has just been released. It is able to fool some people into thinking they are talking with a human being in certain narrow contexts, such as making an appointment for a haircut or ordering a pizza.
