Science fiction holds a secret—it’s not really about the future. In truth, most sci-fi stories are veiled critiques of current societal issues, using futuristic settings as a mask to discuss present-day concerns. Take H.G. Wells’ classic, “The War of the Worlds,” for instance. It depicts humanity’s struggle against Martian tripod invaders, serving as an allegory for British colonialism, particularly referencing the impact on Tasmania’s indigenous people. Wells poignantly asked, “Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?” (via JSTOR). Fast forward to 2006, Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of the novel mirrored the post-9/11 world, channeling the era’s pervasive anxieties into its narrative.
Despite their fictional nature, science fiction creators sometimes eerily forecast future events. Although Wells didn’t foresee a literal Martian invasion, he astutely anticipated that humanity’s colonial urges could lead to global conflict. His “War of the Worlds” was crafted before the onset of the World Wars, making his insights all the more remarkable.
While not every detail is nailed precisely, many sci-fi films have adeptly extrapolated contemporary trends to depict surprisingly accurate visions of society’s trajectory.
One film that stands out in this regard is “The Running Man,” an often overlooked adaptation of Stephen King’s work. Although it carries a certain campiness—highlighted by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s memorable line, “I’ll be back”—it also serves as a sharp critique of the entertainment industry.
Set in the dystopian future of 2017, the movie paints a picture of a United States turned police state, where government and entertainment conglomerates collaborate to placate the public with mindless TV shows. In this world, Ben Richards, played by Schwarzenegger, participates in a lethal game show called “The Running Man.” If he manages to evade and outwit the assassins sent after him, his family stands to gain wealth. The film’s premise, originally set in 2025 in the book, eerily echoes trends seen in media and governance today.
The Running Man (1987)
“The Running Man” is one of the most underrated Stephen King adaptations. Sure, it’s goofy — Arnold Schwarzenegger even drops his iconic “Terminator” catchphrase, “I’ll be back.” Despite its silliness, “The Running Man” is also a very angry movie, and predicted a lot about how the entertainment industry would operate.
While the book took place in 2025, the movie made it a neat 30 years by making 2017 its setting. It imagines a world where the United States government has become a police state, and they partner with entertainment mega-companies to pacify the masses through insipid television programs that pit the people against each other. Ben Richards (Schwarzenegger), signs up for a show called “The Running Man.” If he can outwit and outrun the killers sent to murder him, his family will be rich.
In other words, “The Running Man” is all about reality television, made more than a decade before “Survivor,” “Big Brother,” and other social-strategy games became big hits. Richards even must mail videos of himself back to the network, which get edited together to narrate his side of the story — prefiguring the “confessional” interviews common on reality TV. Like “The Running Man,” competing on “Survivor” has become a career path all its own, a way for people to lift their families out of bad situations.
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
As its title suggests, “Back to the Future” ends with Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) successfully leaving the past and getting back to his present. In the final moments, however, Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) tells Marty to hop back into the DeLorean, because this time they’re going to their future, more specifically 2015.
It’s fun to rewatch “Back to the Future Part II” and see what it correctly predicted. Some of it wasn’t quite right; in real life, we stopped after the third “Jaws” sequel, but the movie imagines that by 2015, we’d be on “Jaws 19.” We have something called a hoverboard, but it’s not quite the toy from the film.
Still, from handheld computers to video-calling, “Back to the Future Part II” eerily predicted the present in a number of ways. The movie also makes canny commentary on the future’s embrace of nostalgia. Because the 1985 film was full of nostalgia for 1955, they imagined that in 2015, we’d be nostalgic for 1985 … and they weren’t wrong. From the music to the fashion to the resurrection of brands like New Coke and creation of shows like “Stranger Things,” the future did indeed bring us back to the past, just as “Back to the Future Part II” predicted.
The Matrix (1999)
In 1999, looking ahead to a new millennium, the Wachowskis crafted “The Matrix,” a sci-fi movie everyone needs to watch at least once. It’s about Neo (Keanu Reeves), a corporate guy by day and hacker by night. He receives a visit from Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), who wakes him up to the reality that everything he thought he knew is a computer program called The Matrix, and humanity is nothing but a field of batteries, plugged into the system to keep the machines running.
As far as we’ve been able to confirm, that hasn’t happened yet. However, as AI has taken off in the past few years — suggesting an all-powerful computer system is not far away — people have started to wonder whether we might be headed for a Matrix-like dystopia.
“The Matrix” did get one thing exactly right, and it might be one of the most unsettling concepts in the whole film. Cypher (Joe Pantoliano) betrays his friends, choosing to be reprogrammed back into the unreal embrace of The Matrix, where at least he knows he’ll be safe. We are living increasingly online, choosing to wall ourselves off from in-person, human connection, believing that real community can be found elsewhere. From online role-playing games to the way some structure their lives around social media, more and more are choosing unreality every day.
Minority Report (2002)
In the summer of 2001, Steven Spielberg shot “Minority Report,” and although it differs from the book, it’s based on a Philip K. Dick story from the 1950s. In other words, while it was in production, “Minority Report” was not a direct response to 9/11 and the USA PATRIOT Act. By the time the movie was released in 2002, however, it sure felt like it. “Minority Report” is set in Washington, D.C. during the 2050s, imagined as a future where people don’t have to commit crimes to be arrested for them. The government has assembled people with precognitive abilities, known as “pre-cogs.” They have visions of crimes people will commit and arrest them for pre-crime.
As far as we know, no one’s developed precognition. Still, “Minority Report” accurately envisioned a surveillance state that takes in massive amounts of data, looks for patterns, and tries to predict illegal activity.
This is already a reality. The Flock Safety camera system is operational across the country, a private company using tens of thousands of security cameras to capture billions of data points a month. Their AI systems proactively crawl all of that data, identifying what they consider suspicious patterns and alerting law enforcement in advance. The ACLU warned, ” All these are variants on the same theme: using the camera network not just to investigate based on suspicion, but to generate suspicion itself.”
Her (2013)
Warner Bros.
In 2009, Tina Brown coined the term “the gig economy” in The Daily Beast. In the wake of the financial crisis, she anticipated that many wouldn’t have jobs with salaries; they’d have freelance gigs. When the Spike Jonze film “Her” was released in December 2013, Uber had only begun offering rideshare services a few months earlier.
“Her” is about Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix), who works for a company that employs humans to hand-write letters. In this vision of the future, people have become increasingly isolated due to technology; Theodore is paid online to help people pretend they did something human. Theodore is also madly in love with Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), the operating system on his phone, which knows his entire life and shows him affection anyway. “Her” predicted a world where people ignore human connection in favor of telling an artificial intelligence their deepest thoughts, and now we live in a world where The New York Times is writing about older women in love with ChatGPT.
In 2024, Johansson was angry with ChatGPT when OpenAI, the company behind the chatbot, evidently cloned her voice for one of their services, turning its chatbot into one that even more closely resembled the AI in “Her.” Science fiction predicted the future, and the science of the future, now our present, tried to make it sound more like science fiction of the past. As Samantha tells Theodore, “The past is just a story we tell ourselves.”
