Writers from the '80s, the '70s, '60s, and yes, even the 50s had imaginations that were deemed “out of this world” back then but seem a lot more “reasonable” today. If you go back and watch those hidden Star Trek NG episodes or movies by writers like Kubrick, Nolan, and others, you’ll notice some eerie similarities between the conceptual settings they wrote about and our lives in 2024.

Of course, these writers made predictions based on the limited scientific knowledge of the day. Nevertheless, some of those predictions were accurate–some more than others. Let’s take a look at some of the shows and movies that present painfully accurate concepts today.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Although many movies have predicted the use of touchscreens and digital tablets, honorable mention must be given to Stanley Kubrick’s film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, for its accurate prediction of when this technology would surface.

Today, you can gather images and Sci-Fi stock footage online and recreate your own Sci-Fi wonderland on a tablet, smart device, or iPhone. How far we’ve come since Kubrick’s eerily accurate prediction in the sixties!  

By 2001 (in reality), touchscreen tablets and mobile devices were a realized technological concept. People read the news, watched shows, and performed work tasks on tablets in much the same way the explorers on Discovery One did in the movie. This prediction preceded most others and was probably the inspiration for other touchscreen-featuring films like RoboCop and Metropolis.

Star Trek Enterprise (2001)

Although not as distant as others on the list, a particular prediction was made in one episode of Star Trek Enterprise, which would have seemed foreign even to the society of 22 years ago. The show depicts ‘how it all began,’ depicting Captain Jonathan Archer boldly going where no man has gone before while the Federation is still in its younger years (even before Kirk).

In one episode during the second season, Archer’s engineer, Trip Tucker, gets intimately involved with the J’naii race, which has three biological genders. In many ways, we would perceive the third gender as ‘genderless.’ These “cogenitors” are necessary for the procreation between male and female J’naii but are treated as secondary citizens within the race.

Today, we see stark similarities to this concept, where people identify as non-binary (neither male nor female). This prediction was made during a time when this concept was nowhere near as mainstream as it is now.

Total Recall (1990)

Total Recall is a movie that’s still as far-fetched as it was to earlier nineties audiences. But if you missed it, let’s remind you that this movie depicted a driverless car—a reality we see today. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character, Douglas Quaid, is in the middle of a life-and-death situation when he jumps into an automated taxicab.

The “JohnnyCab” not only politely talks to Quaid throughout this scene but automatically drives him to where he wants to go. Even though Quaid decides not to trust the cab to help him escape his pursuers–quickly dismantling the head of the robot cab–it’s a notable prediction we see in automobile development today.

In 2024, you can temporarily engage auto-driving abilities in the Tesla -3.6% Full Self Driving and the GM Super Cruise. While this technology is still in its infancy, it won’t be long before we start seeing Total Recall’s JohnnyCab become a reality.

1984 (1956)

In George Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four novel, which was made into a film in 1984, Orwell predicts a world where ‘Big Brother’ is always watching. In 2024, we only have to watch YouTube to see that cameras have flooded our streets, our homes, and even the devices we carry around.

In 2021, there were over 85 million cameras present on the streets of the United States alone, not to mention the rest of the world. It’s become an accepted realization that every step we take in public is likely being monitored and recorded. While this footage isn’t necessarily all being sent to one big room as depicted by Kubrick, it is an eerily accurate prediction of his novel, which was written more than six decades ago.

Final Thoughts

Science fiction is still a popular genre today, which makes you wonder how many of the films and shows we watch are accurate depictions of the world we may live in not long from now. So the next time you watch a futuristic or dystopian film, don’t think it is as far-fetched as those before us.