FUTURE IMPERFECT

"From now on it’ll be all science fiction," announced Beat poet Allen Ginsberg back in the ‘Sixties. He didn’t know half of it. Look at what have happened to us in the movies by now:

An extraterrestrial plague wiped out the entire cat and dog population. People began to use apes as household pets, unaware that the same virus had somehow genetically advanced them (Conquest of the Planet of the Apes).

Britain is still under a brutal Stalinist totalitarian regime where freedom of thought and action have utterly disappeared (1984).

In San Francisco a group of time travellers revealed the secret of creating "transparent aluminium" and also saved the whales from extinction by taking a few with them (Star Trek IV – The Voyage Home).

Manhattan is transformed into a huge maximum security prison (Escape from New York).

Humanity’s newly-evolved ape pets comes under the leadership of a talking chimp named Caesar and rise up in rebellion (Conquest of the Planet of the Apes).

The American government starts a secret government project to create "UniSols"—android fighting machines. They do this by reanimating dead soldiers who died in Vietnam. The process involves "hypercharging their bodies to turn dead flesh into living tissue" (Universal Soldier).

The surface of the earth has been reclaimed once again by animals, after the death of five billion people in a plague in October 1996 (12 Monkeys).

The island prison of Manhattan is by now ruled by prowling gangs who have their own sources of power, food, and clout. After terrorists hijack Air Force One and crash it into Manhattan Island, the president escapes inside an armored crash pod. He is then held hostage, along with a cassette tape that contains the means of preventing World War III.

The police commissioner sends a convicted criminal into New York to bring the president back alive. The criminal is a Special Forces veteran (he fought at Leningrad and in Siberia). If he gets the president out within twenty-four hours, he gets a pardon. If he doesn't, tiny time bombs rupture his major arteries (Escape from New York).

Gunfire rules the streets of Los Angeles and cops shoot it out with drug dealers while an alien stalks the streets of LA who hunts humans for the heck of it (Predator 2).

On 29 August, Skynet, the computer in charge of America’s nuclear arsenal achieves self-awareness and decides to start full-scale nuclear war (Terminator 2 – Judgment Day).

There are massive street riots in LA as New Year’s Eve approaches (Strange Days).

An unknown artifact of alien manufacture is found on the moon (2001: A Space Odyssey).

A joint U.S./Soviet mission seeks to discover what happened to an earlier (so-called Discovery) mission to Jupiter (2010).

The Island of LA is a penal colony for America's undesirables (Escape from L.A.).

Special police officers kill "replicants" - powerful humanoids manufactured by genetic engineers if they rebel against their drudgery in the space colonies and show up on Earth. By the way, this is called "retirement" (Blade Runner).

Did I miss any important dates? Get any wrong? Any that should be added? Then contact me and let me know . . .

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