The Future?

While "futurist" has become a semi-respectable job description, especially for talk-show guests, no element of society has done as much speculating about the future as the entertainment community. True, it hasn't always been right: In 1991, the world was not overrun with intelligent apes, as outlined in the 1972 movie Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes, nor did the grim world of Class Of 1984 come to fruition. But that's no reason to think it won't be correct in the years to come. With that in mind, The Onion A.V. Club presents this guide to the future, as predicted by a number of films.

1999

Title: Strange Days (1995)

Vision of the future: America is on the cusp of the new millennium, the nation has become fixated on the pleasures of virtual reality, and Juliette Lewis has become the world's biggest rock star by performing PJ Harvey songs.

Probability: Unclear. Though the Internet has proven to be a powerful information tool, virtual-reality entertainment is still relatively primitive. The world will never become enamored of the song stylings of Juliette Lewis.

2000

Title: Death Race 2000 (1975)

Vision of the future: America has achieved total global domination with a culture that revolves around an annual auto race from New York to New Los Angeles, during which participants score points by running down innocent bystanders. Sylvester Stallone plays a gangsterish thug competing against a scarfaced masked racer named Frankenstein (David Carradine).

Probability: Moderate. The rise in the popularity of extreme sports, from bungee jumping to ultimate fighting, as well as the success of such TV shows as World's Deadliest Police Chases!, suggests that the world of Death Race 2000 might not be too far off.

2001

Title: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Vision of the future: The discovery of a black monolith on the moon leads to humanity's first contact with an alien species.

Probability: Low. Actual trips to the moon since the film's release have revealed no monoliths, and the intervening years have seen the emergence of the more plausible theory that alien contact will be achieved by way of crop circles, cattle mutilations, and anal probery.

2004

Title: Timecop (1994)

Vision of the future: The introduction of time-travel technology necessitates a police division to prevent its abuse. Among the group's ranks is grizzled cop Jean-Claude Van Damme, who must jump back a decade to throw a wrench in the election campaign of evil senator Ron Silver and prevent the death of his wife.

Probability: Low to moderate. The laws of physics still hinder attempts at time travel, though it is likely that Van Damme, whose recent movies haven't even reached theaters, will be looking for a new line of work by 2004.

2009

Title: Freejack (1992)

Vision of the future: In the dim, ecologically troubled, economically divided America of the early 21st century, ailing industrialists including Anthony Hopkins loot the past, taking over the healthy bodies of such brat-pack stars as Emilio Estevez.

Probability: Low. As the century draws to a close, America is united in its desire not to be Emilio Estevez.

2013

Title: Escape From L.A. (1996)

Vision of the future: An earthquake has separated Los Angeles from the rest of America, leading to its use as a penal colony.

Probability: Moderate. The threat of earthquakes has long loomed over L.A., while prison overcrowding will likely soon blossom into a full-scale crisis, possibly prompting the logical synergistic thinking demonstrated in Escape From L.A.

2013

Title: The Postman (1997)

Vision of the future: In a grim, post-apocalyptic future, Kevin Costner inspires hope and revives American ideals by traveling about in a postal uniform and delivering mail.

Probability: Low. Everyone knows that in a grim, post-apocalyptic future, Kevin Costner will inspire hope and revive American ideals by traveling about on various watercraft, fighting Dennis Hopper, and searching for the mythical, non-watery world known as Dry Land.

2015

Title: Back To The Future Part II (1989)

Vision of the future: Skateboards have given way to hoverboards, machines walk dogs automatically, the ubiquity of Pepsico products indicates that it has won the cola and fast-food wars, and theme cafés misrepresent the 1980s as the decade in which everyone listened exclusively to Michael Jackson.

Probability: Moderate to high. Hovercraft technology no longer seems as unlikely as it once did, and though the cola war seems to be at a stalemate, Pepsi's acquisition of spokesman Cuba Gooding Jr., America's second most popular effeminate black man, could change that. The Wedding Singer's selective representation of the '80s suggests that it might be remembered not as the decade of Michael Jackson, but the decade of A Flock Of Seagulls.

2018

Title: Rollerball (1975)

Vision of the future: In a violence- and independence-free America, corporations rule society at every level. This includes the universally beloved sport of rollerball, an ultraviolent combination of hockey, motocross, and roller derby.

Probability: Moderate. Rollerball's vision of a society dominated by a huge corporation seems prescient, but it's unlikely that any sport could supplant in the public's imagination the one introduced by the 1998 box-office smash BASEketball.

2022

Title: Soylent Green (1973)

Vision of the future: Following an ecological disaster, everyone in a grossly overcrowded New York sweats a lot and is dependent upon a mysterious food source of horrifying origin.

Probability: High. The problem of overcrowding will only escalate in the next century, and frequent newspaper pieces on the appeal of buffalo and ostrich meat (not to mention the popularity of the film Alive) can be seen as paving the way for tolerance of stranger and stranger foodstuffs.

2024

Title: A Boy And His Dog (1975)

Vision of the future: In the wake of a nuclear war, society has collapsed. The surface is dominated by vicious nomads, including Don Johnson and his super-intelligent, telepathic canine sidekick, while a gross caricature of traditional America carries on in underground bunkers.

Probability: Already partially fulfilled. Today in Nash Bridges, Johnson roams the streets of L.A. with the help of sidekick Cheech Marin, who provided the voice of Tito The Chihuahua in Disney's Oliver & Company. The two are not known to have a psychic bond, however.

2027

Title: Nemesis (1993)

Vision of the future: Lethal, attractive female robots prowl L.A.; only wisecracking Gallic he-man Olivier Gruner can stop them from creating a state of total chaos.

Probability: High. It just makes sense, when you think about it.

2038

Title: Moon 44 (1989)

Vision of the future: After the depletion of the earth's natural resources, corporations fight viciously over those found on the moons of other planets.

Probability: High. The first film from the team that would later make Stargate, Independence Day, and Godzilla displays the same strict adherence to logic and the unassailable principles of hard science found in their later efforts.

2047

Title: Event Horizon (1997)

Vision of the future: A rescue team travels to a destitute spaceship, a journey leading to one inevitable conclusion: Sam Neill is the devil.

Probability: Low. Sam Neill is not, in fact, the devil.

2214

Title: The Fifth Element (1997)

Vision of the future: Bleach-blond cab driver Bruce Willis and toilet-paper-clad, gibberish-spouting space girl Milla Jovovich fight to save Earth and its president, former pro wrestler Tiny Lister, from something or other involving Gary Oldman.

Probability: Extremely low. The Junkyard Dog, the only ex-wrestler with the sharp political mind needed to hold public office in America, died last year.

2285

Title: Trancers (1985)

Vision of the future: In the extremely cheap-looking 23rd century, the earth is plagued by ill-defined zombie-like creatures called trancers. Only gruff comedian Tim Thomerson, with a little help from America's sweetheart Helen Hunt, can stop them from traveling back to the low-budget L.A. of 1985 and killing the ancestors of very important people.

Probability: Mixed. It's unlikely that the future will be a mish-mash of warmed-over elements from The Terminator and Blade Runner. It is likely, however, that Thomerson will continue to star in direct-to-video Trancers sequels well into the next millennium.

2293

Title: Zardoz (1973)

Vision of the future: The world is divided among a group of psychic, immortal, intellectual isolationists controlled by an all-knowing computer crystal and barbarian "brutals." Some of these brutals, including a pony-tailed, scantily clad Sean Connery, worship a giant floating stone head prone to making such pronouncements as, "The gun is good! The penis is evil!"

Probability: Low. Though potent for communing with spirits, crystals have proven ineffective when used in conjunction with computers. NASA reportedly scrapped its giant-floating-head division in the mid-1970s.