If you’re a science fiction enthusiast, then chances are, you already have a clear picture of what the future holds for humanity. Be it space travel, robots, or some weird means of extradimensional communication, sci-fi films have given us a glimpse of future technologies and events one way or another. In fact, each decade, sci-fi movies’ futuristic predictions keep growing more accurate.
By the 2000s, some of them have already gotten a little too prophetic and hauntingly precise. Needless to say, they are definitely worth watching for their predictions alone. So, we present you with 10 sci-fi films from the 2000s that got the future right in one or more aspects. These masterpieces have not only entertained us but also prepared us for the coming years.
MINORITY REPORT - CRIME PREDICTION
Crime is one of the favorite subject matters of sci-fi media because it allows for creative twists in the otherwise exhaustive genre. Minority Report (2002) and its Pre-crime system is a good example. It’s basically a prediction of who will commit crimes or become criminals based on their psychological background and allows authorities to stop crim before they even happen.
As it turns out, Pre-crime is not entirely far-fetched as a law-enforcement system. Japan (who’d have thought?) has something quite similar but less advanced, from A.I. cameras that can detect shoplifters before they do the deed to a “crime analytics” system which predicts where crime will happen. Their police force only began using such tech during this decade.
A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - ROBOT PROSTITUTES
A.I. Artificial Intelligence is one of the most philosophical sci-fi films of all time and doesn’t shy away from questioning the nature of humanity and what makes us human. In that regard, it paints a rather familiar scene of the future where humans are using robots for prostitution.
In the film, this becomes apparent as soon as Jude Law’s robot character, Gigolo Joe, gets introduced. You can probably guess what he does for a living. You’ll either be pleased or weirded out to know that bots like Gigolo Joe exist today. There are now official sex dolls who can talk and even give compliments, there’s even a brothel full of dolls. Who knows what a few more years of robotics and primal human urges can bring?
WALL-E - CORPORATIONS, GARBAGE, AND OBESITY
Many things in Wall-E from 2008 are now starting to become true today. Well, perhaps they were already true back then, but they’re definitely becoming a lot more apparent today. We’re talking about the Earth becoming a giant landfill, advertisements everywhere there’s a breathing human being, drivable chairs, and of course, rising obesity rates.
Oh, there’s also the fact that certain Governments and even corporations are most likely already looking for a way out of Earth (and to Mars) before things get too messy. In a way, Wall-E is already happening and we really should be more alarmed now, shouldn’t we?
THE ISLAND - CLONE ORGAN TRANSPLANT
You’ve probably never heard of The Island before and that’s due to the film not having the best marketing. In any case, The Island is about a man who struggles to fit in at an isolated compound he lives in. He soon discovers that everyone was a clone of someone else and that they were merely being harvested for their organs to treat the social elite.
Surprise, surprise, there have been scientific and medical breakthroughs about the exact same thing. Scientists have been able to use human cloning to create stem cells that were used to regenerate the skin cells of a 75-year-old man. Further studies and developments are needed and we’re still stuck with experimenting on pigs at the moment.
I, ROBOT - WORKFORCE AUTOMATION
I, Robot was a cinematic flop but was still impressive enough to get its own meme culture more than a decade later. Critics often hailed it as a rip-off of Blade Runner but in hindsight, I, Robot was a little more radical in how it gave us a picture of future societies. In the film, corporations ruled everything, with automation and A.I. replacing many jobs, making lots of humans unemployed.
Sadly, robots might actually soon take our jobs. We’re not just referring to blue-collar work being replaced by heavy machinery; A.I. is learning fast and might take over some administrative jobs and basically everything that requires routine and repetition. It’s time to re-evaluate your career options.
ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND - MEMORY ERASURE
It’s more romance than sci-fi but Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has that one plot device (metaphorical or not) which makes quality as science fiction. That would be the memory deletion procedure which a mad neuro-surgeon in the film invented. It allows him to delete people’s memories of other people, basically selective amnesia with consent; the first application the filmmakers thought for that technology was moving on from a heartbreak.
Turns out, there are more practical uses for such a procedure in the real world. Scientists have successfully erased some traumatic memories for mice back in 2013 by locating a gene. They do hope to apply the same procedure to ease the mental pain of patients with post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD), rather than just for couples with breakup difficulties.
THE ANIMATRIX/MATRIX 2 & 3 - VIRTUAL REALITY
Unfortunately, The Matrix was released back in 1999, which makes it a year short of qualifying as a 2000s movie. Still, it had sequels and an animated anthology spin-off called The Animatrix that basically explored the same ideas. One notable technology that The Matrix franchise prophesized (see what we did there?) is virtual reality.
The protagonists of The Matrix franchise basically plug themselves into computers to sort of act as viruses that can bring down their machine enemies. To an extent, we do have this tech today in the form of VR headsets. It’s not as immersive as sticking a huge needle into your spine, of course.
IRON MAN - MILITARY TECH SUITS
Marvel’s Iron Man back in 2008 kicked off many great and influential things that we enjoy today and among those is a rekindled interest in robotics and military engineering. Apart from Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, the biggest star in Iron Man was his self-sustaining and relatively compact armor; it’s basically the equivalent of a whole country’s army controlled by one man.
We don’t have anything that advanced today; it’s practically impossible at the moment with our limited resources and lack of further frontal lobe development but the U.S. Army is trying nonetheless with its exo-suit. These allow soldiers a better physical edge on the battlefield. They did try to re-create something more similar to the Iron Man suit but failed and ended up wasting millions of dollars.
PAPRIKA - DREAM VIEWING
The idea of visiting, recording, and manipulating dreams was popularized in Hollywood by films like Inception; however, Inception’s primary inspiration was a Japanese anime film called Paprika (2006), which also explored the same concept of entering, viewing, and interfering with dreams.
These days, such a feat is no longer limited to daydreaming; in 2011, a team of scientists at UC Berkeley was able to view someone else’s dream. The scientists recorded the subjects’ brain activity and then translated the whole thing into a video. There were also scientists in Kyoto, Japan who managed to predict another person’s dream into a picture which was 60 percent accurate. No more forgetting your dreams sooner or later.
CHILDREN OF MEN - SOCIO-ECONOMIC ISSUES, IMMIGRATION PROBLEMS
You’re probably tired of seeing Children of Men in movie lists over and over again but it can’t be helped, it’s such a revelatory masterpiece that we can learn a lot from it. It’s more modern dystopia than sci-fi, meaning most of what the film foresaw are political and socio-economic struggles similar to what we’re experiencing today.
Apart from the rapidly declining birth rate which is happening to a certain country today, Children of Men also painted a picture of a disturbing immigration crisis where people of wartorn countries are rushing like animals to the only countries with functioning governments left in the world. Oh, and resources are also in decline and everyone’s out for themselves. Sounds eerily familiar.
