Video Throughput: Science Fiction From Fritz Lang to the Daniels

Michael Siegel

Michael Siegel is an astronomer living in Pennsylvania. He blogs at his own site, and has written a novel.

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3 Responses

  1. Michael Cain says:

    It would be interesting to consider the very large number of movies about a dystopian future and rate them as to right or wrong. Eg Blade Runner, much as I like the movie, was set in 2019 Los Angeles. Which still has plenty of bright sunshine.Report

    • And in a lot of ways depicts technology that’s still very far in our (potential) future, if it is possible at all.

      In my mind, when I see either Blade Runner movie, I add a hundred years to the stated date — it feels easier to accept the climate change, cultural change, and technology as being from 2119 rather than “about thirty years in the future” or worse yet “four years ago.”Report

      • I sympathize with the writers. It’s easy to seize on a concept — in a novel I read recently, create super-soldiers by designing their DNA from scratch — but it’s a bear to put such concepts at an appropriate distance in the future and then do the rest of the world-building.

        Blade Runner had so many things hinted at: faster than light travel (“Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.”); complete DNA sequencing (“You think I would be working in a place like this if I could afford a real snake?”); cheap anti-gravity. Setting those in 2019 was silly. OTOH, if you set it 1,000 years out, well, society probably differs more from today than today differs from 1000 CE.Report