Top 10 Overly Ambitious Movie Futures

Any movie that depicts time travel becoming a regular occurrence in the near future is an obvious candidate for this list. This ‘90s action classic stars Jean-Claude Van Damme as Time Enforcement Commission Agent Max Walker, one of many TEC agents responsible for venturing through the decades and apprehending time criminals. In the advanced world of this movie, the Time Enforcement Commission was established in 1994, but by the time 2004 rolled around, it was thriving with its monorail style time machines. Yup, you heard that right: 2004!

Apparently humanity has the incredible ability to rally together in times of crisis, and when we the result is giant robots! Well, in this movie anyway. After the Earth is devastated by monsters from another dimension, the nations of the world put their differences and political issues aside to fight this new enemy. They collaborate on a new project and build massive robots called kaijus that are controlled by two pilots joined mentally who together can operate the machine. Do you really think that, within a few years of an alien, we’d be able to build skyscraper-sized robots to fight back? Yeah right, nice try guys.

Even Michael Bay can be a little over-optimistic about the future. Set in 2019, “The Island” tells the story of an isolated compound that houses hundreds of identical clones built from the DNA of real world rich folk. Yes, not only has cloning been perfected; it is used by a massive corporation for organ donation, surrogate motherhood and more for superrich elites. Hey, cloning has come a long way, but this kind of mass production is even further away from realization than Mr. Bay’s “Transformers.”

Speaking of impossible cloning, how about fully recreating dinosaurs in the 1990s? While it’s not explicitly said when the events of “Jurassic Park” take place, it’s pretty safe to guess that nobody’s bringing dinosaurs back to life any time soon. As shown in the movie, these dinosaurs are produced by merging the cells of Jurassic beasts with amphibians to plant the seeds of this new futuristic attraction. But right now we’re more likely to see eighteen sequels to this 1993 hit than to ever see fully cloned dinosaurs. We’ll let you decide whether or not that’s a good thing…

We already considered the classic science fiction series a little too optimistic; this next generation movie pushes those boundaries to the extreme. After following The Borg back to the 21st century, the Enterprise arrives on Earth the day before humanity’s first encounter with alien life. We learn that on April 5th, 2063, Zefram Cochrane historically tests Earth’s first warp drive, leading to First Contact. However, we think it’ll take a few more space races before humanity can start testing warp drives and joining the rest of the universe as equals. Sorry, Vulcans: you’ll just have to wait.

This Ridley Scott classic depicts the dystopian and distant future of 2019 – so, memo to us: we’d better start developing androids pretty soon. In 1968, when Phillip K. Dick wrote the novel on which the movie is based, maybe so much progress didn’t seem unlikely; maybe the idea of humanoid andoirds called replicants seemed like a natural progression. But when the film was made in 1982, we’re thinking they should have known enough to push the date back a few decades. “Blade Runner” features a stunning array of scientific promises including androids, flying cars and huge, neo-noir buildings, but sadly none of these seems very likely any time in the near future.

Another Phillip K. Dick adaptation sees another incredibly optimistic future. Set in 2054, this thriller focuses on a specialized police outfit known as “PreCrime” that apprehends criminals before they can commit – and in some cases before they even think of committing – their evil deeds. Steven Spielberg consulted actual scientists during pre-production to best learn what technology might be readily available in 2054. But while touch screens have certainly become a reality, we aren’t much closer to realizing a system that can predetermine criminal actions.

Where do we begin with this one? Traveling to the year 2037, this film features another future filled with time travel and a massive bubbly utopia. Like many other entries on this list, “Meet the Robinsons” introduces a little genetic engineering but instead of dinosaurs or androids, we’re given singing frogs. Sure, there’s some evidence that time travel can really mess things up. But all in all, in this family comedy, the future of the 2037 is shown to be beyond ridiculous, but we’ll give it a free pass because – hey – it’s Disney.

Quite possibly the King of “getting it wrong” is this Stanley Kubrick mid-century masterpiece. Novelist Arthur C. Clarke wrote the screenplay alongside Kubrick, and together they told the tale of a vast voyage to Jupiter in search of the secrets of the universe. It doesn’t take the most observant or knowledgeable person in the world to see that this hasn’t quite come to be. And, as far as we not, we’re also not super close to developing freethinking (if slightly evil) computers to help us travel through space. With so much needed to make this star-crossing dream a reality, this moviemay need to wait another century to see its vision of the future fully realized.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions:
- Robo-Servants
“I, Robot” (2004)
- Big Brother to the Max
“Brazil” (1985)
- DNA Manipulation / Genetic Selection
“Gattaca” (1997)
- Time Traveling Androids Try to Save the World
“Tomorrowland” (2015)
- Hi-Tech Neo-Tokyo
“Akira” (1988)

Great Scott! Did this movie ever get our hopes up! For a few moments, Marty McFly is given a glimpse at the promising and futuristic land of 2015, and boy is the Hill Valley time traveler ever shocked. According to director Robert Zemeckis, he and his gang were striving to make their future a happy and bright place, rather than an accurate depiction of what 2015 might look like. And that’s good, considering our current lack of anything like flying cars, personal hover boards and self-lacing shoes. But hey, they’re great ideas, so maybe some savvy businesses will come out with them before too long. In the meantime, there’s one big question to answer: where’s “Jaws 19?”

Do you agree with our list? What’s your favorite overly optimistic movie future? For more predictive top 10 published every day, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.