Saturday 17 June 2017

Top 10 Terrible Accidents From The Early Days Of Film

Top 10 Terrible Accidents From The Early Days Of Film

The earliest days of film were a time for experimentation, education, and innovation. As this was an emerging art form, many of the laws and regulations governing modern films and television weren’t yet in place. These are some of the earliest and worst accidents to have occurred in the film industry before those laws were established.

10Across The Border




One of the earliest recorded examples of a terrible accident on a film set occurred with the 1914 film, Across the Border. Little is known about this silent Western except that it starred leading man Edmund Cobb and had one of the more tragic early deaths of Hollywood.
Filming was done on location in the Arkansas River in Colorado. Grace McHugh, 26, was the lead actress of the film and a local from Golden, Colorado. While reshooting a scene with her horse fording the river, McHugh was thrown into the current when the horse lost its footing.
Owen Carter, the cinematographer, immediately jumped in after her and pulled her to a sandbar. The crew initially thought they were saved. But it turned out to be quicksand, and the two quickly drowned.[1]
Filming had already been completed, so both McHugh’s and Carter’s work was shown in the final product.
9Such Men Are Dangerous

Such Men Are Dangerous was a 1930 drama based partly on the disappearance of Belgian financier Alfred Loewenstein over the English Channel. As a result, the plot of the film required extensive plane use over the water, which resulted in the deaths of 10 people.
The crew was filming a parachute jump scene off the coast of Southern California when the wingtips of two Stinson Detroiter aircraft collided. This caused the planes to swing together and crash, exploding and killing everyone aboard—including director Kenneth Hawks and two military pilots. Out of the 10 dead, five bodies were recovered.[2]
As with Across the Border, the accident didn’t impede production and the film was released on schedule. However, this event confirms a shocking statistic: The deaths of cameramen outnumber those of stunt people 4 to 1.
8The Warrens Of Virginia

The next tragedy occurred on the set of the 1924 adaptation of The Warrens of Virginia. The film was a period piece that took place during the US Civil War, a detail that resulted in the death of 24-year-old lead actress Martha Mansfield.
During a scene break, Mansfield was sitting in the back seat of her car when a lit match was tossed in her direction, easily igniting her ruffled hoopskirt. Most of her body was burned by the time actor Wilfred Lytell threw his overcoat on her.
The injuries were severe. Mansfield’s chauffeur was badly burned while tearing the dress from her body, and Mansfield herself succumbed less than 24 hours later in the hospital from severe burns and general toxemia.[3]
The actress had prior vaudeville experience and was fresh off the success of 1920’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
7The Valley Of The Giants

The unfortunate story of actor Wallace Reid is indicative of the lesser knowledge of set safety and drugs in early Hollywood. During the filming of the 1919 film The Valley of the Giants, Reid was injured in a train crash in Oregon. He cut his arm to the bone, injured his back, and eventually required six stitches for an 8-centimeter (3 in) laceration on the top of his head.
To keep up with the incessant demands of filming at the time, Reid was given increasing quantities of morphine for the pain. Gradually, he became addicted as movies became longer and shooting schedules more frequent.
Drug rehabilitation programs and drug addiction education was not prominent back then, so Reid eventually succumbed to his morphine addiction. He died in a sanitarium in 1923 at age 31.
Another case occurred in 1923 with the filming of Souls for Sale. Actress Barbara La Marr injured her ankle and was prescribed morphine and cocaine to cope. In addition to alcohol abuse, La Marr developed nephritis and tuberculosis. She died three years later.
6Haunted Spooks
The production of this 1920 comedy film was halted due to an accident involving lead actor and comedian Harold Lloyd. While taking publicity shots at the start of filming in August 1919, Lloyd, perhaps most famous for his film Safety Last, posed with what he believed to be a prop bomb with a lit fuse.
The bomb turned out to be real and exploded in his hand. It burned his face, temporarily blinding him, and resulted in the loss of the thumb and index finger of his right hand.
Lloyd, however, was a good sport about the accident. He said that “the pain was considerable, but trivial compared with my mental state” and resumed filming in January 1920.
He was fitted with a glove with artificial fingers and kept the accident unknown to the public. Lloyd didn’t do this for vanity but because he felt that people should genuinely want to watch his films. He didn’t want an audience who came out of pity or sympathy.
5The Charge Of The Light Brigade
Accidents in the early days of film didn’t happen exclusively to humans. Before regulations were adopted, many animals were treated poorly or died as a result of unsupervised filming practices.
The 1936 film The Charge of the Light Brigade engaged in unnecessary inhumane treatment of animal actors. It was filmed in Mexico to avoid some scrutiny from animal rights laws.
The final climactic scene of the film involved the use of a “running W” (a type of trip wire) to make several horses trip and fall. This caused numerous injuries—from broken legs to broken necks. Of the 125 horses that were tripped, at least 25 were killed or had to be put down afterward.[6]
This wasn’t an isolated incident, however. Three years later, a horse with blinders was filmed riding off a cliff in Jesse James. The climax of 1925’s Ben-Hur also resulted in an exorbitant loss of 100 horses.
Nonetheless, the deaths of these animals weren’t all in vain. Scenes like the one in The Charge of the Light Brigade prompted the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to ban the use of trip wires in films. It also paved the way for organizations like the American Humane Association to monitor animal treatment in films from then on.
Additionally, one extra in The Charge of the Light Brigade was killed when he fell on a prop sword bent upward that punctured his side.
4The Viking

The 1931 film The Viking had plenty of impressive footage of ships, was the first movie to record sound and dialogue on location, and shockingly didn’t even contain Vikings. However, it is likely better known for an accident that resulted in the largest loss of human life in film history.
Director Varick Frissell had noticed after a screening that the film needed more establishing shots from the Newfoundland Grand Banks, particularly the Labrador ice floes. Setting out with a small crew, he joined the SS Viking, a featured ship in the film, on their annual seal hunting expedition.
However, they got trapped in ice near the Horse Islands on March 15, 1931. Shortly after, an explosion in the rear of the ship ended with the deaths of at least 27 men. The survivors either trekked over ice to land or were rescued by other ships.
Again, the tragedy didn’t stop the film from being released. With the addition of an introduction with interviews and explanations, the finished film served as both a visual documentation of the Labrador area and a commemoration of those involved in the tragedy.
3Noah’s Ark
In addition to being one of the first epic attempts at a biblical story, the 1928 film Noah’s Ark involved a climactic scene that proved damaging to cast members.
Michael Curtiz’s grand-scale depiction of the Great Flood involved the liberal use of over 2.3 million liters (600,000 gal) of water. As one would expect, injuries and subsequent tragedy were similarly immense.
Three extras drowned in the ensuing chaos. One person injured his leg so badly that it had to be amputated, and 35 ambulances had to attend to the rest with broken limbs and other serious ailments.
As with The Charge of the Light Brigade, the accident with Noah’s Ark prompted the passage of some of film’s first safety laws.
2The General
Buster Keaton was no stranger to stunt work for his comedy films. With prior experience in vaudeville, Keaton was an expert in physical comedy, doing most of his own stunts with his signature deadpan expression. This earned him the nickname, “The Great Stone Face.”
In an iconic scene from Steamboat Bill, Jr., the 2-ton framework of a house topples forward on the actor, only for him to remain unscathed because of a tiny window opening. (A nail in the ground provided the mark on which he stood.) Another time when filming Sherlock Jr., the actor was knocked to the ground, only to find out 11 years later that he had fractured his neck.
But the most accidents in Keaton’s career occurred on the set of 1926’s The General. A surprisingly historically accurate movie, many scenes were filmed with real muskets and explosions. Some of them injured National Guardsmen who were hired as extras.
Keaton was knocked unconscious when standing too close to a live cannon, and assistant director Harry Barnes was shot in the face by a blank round (but thankfully not hurt).
However, the worst injury occurred when Fred A. Lowry, a train brakeman, had his foot run over by one of the car wheels. Lowry blamed the vehicle’s lack of safety features (the cars were altered to look like authentic Civil War cars) and sued Keaton for $2,900 for the accident
1The Wizard Of Oz
The 1939 film The Wizard of Oz was groundbreaking for many reasons: its beautiful use of Technicolor and special effects, its cultural impact on children and adults alike, and its lasting impact on the LGBT community. However, even a landmark film wasn’t free from the lightly regulated days of Hollywood accidents.
Buddy Ebsen was the actor initially signed to portray the Tin Man in the film. He had already recorded all his songs and begun filming when his accident occurred. Ebsen required hospitalization after complaining of lung cramps and labored breathing, which was caused by aluminum dust from his Tin Man makeup.
Despite going on to star in the hugely successful TV show The Beverly Hillbillies, Ebsen suffered from complications from the aluminum dust for the rest of his life. He attributed it to “that damned movie.”
The other serious accident befell Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West. While filming her pyrotechnic-filled escape from Munchkinland, her trapdoor exit was delayed. A real burst of fire shot up, causing her to sustain second-degree burns on her face and third-degree burns on her right hand. She needed six weeks to recover. But she refused to sue, returning only under the stipulation of “no more fire work!”
Hamilton’s stunt double, Betty Danko, was injured during the skywriting scene. Her smoking broomstick prop exploded, permanently scarring her legs. Then many of the flying monkey actors were injured when their wires snapped and they plummeted to the set. Even Terry, the dog actor for Toto, wasn’t safe. One of the witch’s guards stepped on his leg and broke it.[10]

Fortunately, we didn’t get the adaptation L. Frank Baum wrote initially. Then the movie would have involved more dismemberment, head stealing, and murder.

10 Mysterious Urban Legends Based on Video Footage

10 Mysterious Urban Legends Based on Video Footage
An urban legend is a term used to describe a tale that has been passed down over the years. It is usually presented as a true story and evolves over time. Urban legends follow modern trends and represent current anomalies, such as alien encounters, unexplained animals, botched medical producers, theft, murder, weird pictures, and bizarre videos. Urban legends usually present a cautionary tale and have a specific plot. They provide supporting material and will attempt to make the reader debate the legitimacy of the material. This article is going to examine ten urban legends that are based on video footage. Some of the entries include real clips, while others focus on videos that can’t be found online, but are said to have been created.
10
The Grifter

The Grifter is an urban legend that began to circulate on the Internet in 2009. The video is said to show horrifying images of people being tortured and killed. Viewers of the movie can experience nausea, trauma, night terrors, clinical depression, and even commit suicide. The content shows the human sacrifice of small babies and images of satanic ritual abuse. In some cases, people have attempted to make a copy of the film, but have failed.
It has been said that the video was recorded in the 1930s and portrays a collection of strange pictures and sounds. In one part of the movie, the words “Your race is the one that is dying” appears while a picture of a plant rotting is seen. The footage displays close up shots of corpses and people who have been possessed by demons. It has been described as the most disturbing video available on the Internet. However, many feel the tape is a hoax and nothing more than an urban legend. The story of The Grifter has spawned an Internet meme in which threads that discuss hoax videos are considered to be trolling for information on bizarre clips.
Scare yourself silly with this comprehensive collection of the world’s urban legends. Buy Urban Legend: The World’s Most Popular Urban Legends at Amazon.com!
9
Garden City Ghost Car
A few years back a video surfaced on the Internet of a police chase in Garden City, Georgia that has been dubbed the ghost car. In the video, officers can be seen attempting to pull over a white vehicle that is driving erratically. After following the car for a while, the driver swerves and makes a u-turn. The car moves off the highway, hits a dirt road, and comes to a dead end. It then moves to the left and disappears behind a chain-link fence.
The driver was never captured and it was revealed that the area beyond the fence was wooded with no roads. After examining the footage, many people have commented that the car travelled under the fence. However, this doesn’t explain what happened to the driver and why the police ended the pursuit. After the area was searched, the officers recovered the video and were shocked. The clip was featured on the television show Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files, in which a stunt driver recreated the footage by driving through a chain-link fence that was weakened at the base. The stunt showed that a car is capable of traveling through a fence without knocking it over. However, it wasn’t filmed on location. To date, the original Garden City surveillance video continues to baffle watchers.

8
Red Mist

SpongeBob Square Pants is a television show that is extremely popular around the world and has earned more than $8 billion in merchandising revenue for Nickelodeon. The cartoon features a wide variety of characters that live in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom. One of these characters is named Squid ward Tentacles. The show is made for kids, but in 2004 an urban legend emerged surrounding a lost episode of the show that is said to display Squidward’s Suicide.
As the story goes, a disgruntled Scottish animator named Andrew Skinner developed an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants in 2004 named Red Mist. He tried to pass the episode off as the official season 4 premiere and sent it to Hollywood for approval. In California, animators watched the tape and discovered a dark secret. The video starts with the picture of a salesman at Squidward’s house. He knocks on the door and says: “the red mist is coming,” in which Squidward is confused. The tape flashes to a picture of Squidward playing the clarinet in front of a large crowd and Spongebob can be seen violently booing the performance.
The body language of Squidward is depressed. He returns to his house and sits in a chair with a blank look on his face. The audio turns scratchy and trees can be heard in the background. Squidward starts to cry and the tape begins to flash. At this point a series of real pictures come to view. The images show the body of a dead boy with his face mangled and entrails exposed. The shadow of the photographer is visible and the tape shows pictures of a deceased girl. The song Amazing Grace is played and the video goes into a sequence of frames in which the boy is mutilated. The words “Do it” can be heard, while Squidward pulls out a shotgun and commits suicide.
The story suggests the tape was made by Andrew Skinner of Fife, Scotland and delivered to the animators at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, California in November of 2004. The event was so horrifying that three of the animators were hospitalized, including Barry O’Neill, Grant Kirkland, Jr. and Alyssa Simpson. One editor named Fernando de la Peña retired and an intern named Jackie McMullen committed suicide. It was reported that the tape was later tracked to Andrew Skinner who was arrested for nine counts of murder, including the two children seen in the video.
After viewing the tape, a copy of the footage was made by an intern at Paramount Studios and released to the Internet. However, it was quickly removed by police and only a screenshot of Squidward’s red eyes remains. Research on the story doesn’t bring many results. Except for one article from 2002 that briefly mentions a man from Fife, Scotland named Andrew Skinner that was arrested for attempted murder.
7
Chaplin Time Travel Video
The Circus is a silent film that was written and directed by Charlie Chaplin. The film was a box office success and raised $3.8 million in 1928. In 2004, a copy of the movie was released to DVD with bonus footage. The footage shows pictures of the public attending the film, including a premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. After looking over the material, an Irish filmmaker named George Clarke noticed something out of the ordinary in a clip of the public entering the premiere.
The footage shows a woman dressed in a heavy coat and hat holding what looks like a black object to her head. As she walks, it appears the woman is talking on a cell phone, which would be impossible in 1928. Toward the end of the footage, the woman can be seen stopping and chatting in a fashion similar to modern day cell phone users. She is wearing large shoes and has big hands.
After zooming in on the video, it is clear the woman is holding a black object to her head, which caused Clarke to post a video on YouTube questioning whether she might be a time traveler sent back in time to watch Chaplin’s performance. In response, the story made headlines all over the world. It has since been discovered that the woman could be using a pocket sized carbon microphone named the Siemens 1924 hearing aid. Others feel she is holding an ear trumpet. However, the explanation hasn’t addressed why she is talking.
6
Groupie
Marilyn Manson (Brian Warner) is a controversial rock star that has sold over 50 million albums worldwide. He gained mainstream attention in the 1990s after media reports surfaced that described his shocking behavior on and off-stage. Over the years, Manson has been the target of multiple attacks by the press who view his music as detrimental to children. Manson has produced some of the most disturbing videos on the Internet. In 2011, he collaborated with actor Shia LaBeouf to make a movie named Born Villain, which is said to contain shocking and violent images.
However, the most controversial video attributed to Marilyn Manson is named Groupie. The legend of the tape says that it was recorded by the band during their Antichrist Superstar Tour (1996-1998) and shows a fan being tortured by Marilyn and Twiggy (Jeordie White). According to the story, the footage was captured on a handheld camcorder and shows Manson ordering the groupie to perform acts. The film starts out with Marilyn informing his guests that the girl will be taped. When she arrives, the party takes a weird turn.
After a short while, the girl is ordered to do a series of acts, including drinking a glass of urine with keyboard player Stephen Bier. The tape then turns dark while Manson ties the woman up and taunts her. As the video progresses, the members of the party become uneasy as they are unclear if the events are staged or not. The video involves torture, weapons and bloodshed.
Officially, there are only three people who have viewed Groupie, which includes Manson, Tony Ciulla, and Andy Dick. However, evidence for the film can be found at the end of the bands Dead to the World video series where an obscured shot of a tied up woman can be viewed. During the scene, Marilyn is heard taunting the girl with the phrase “Jesus loves me because the Bible says so.” The footage might have come from Groupie.

5
Cuero, Texas Chupacabra
The Chupacabra (goat sucker) is a cryptid that has been identified in certain parts of the Americas. The creature is known for killing livestock and drinking the animal’s blood. The Chupacabra has a wide range of physical characteristics with some having identified them as being a lizard-type creature with long spines, while others say they are smaller animals that look like a bald coyote with sharp fangs, or a type of coyote, wolf, and dog hybrid.
Despite the discrepancy in the creature’s appearance, the Chupacabra is known to kill by inflicting a series of three small puncture wounds to the chest and neck of the victim. The puncture wounds resemble an upside-down triangle and the animal is then drained of blood and killed. The urban legend says the creature will strike its prey with stealth. The death is usually reported because of the bizarre circumstances. Currently, there are no large animals that practice hematophagy or the act of drinking blood for food.
A large number of Chupacabra sightings have been made in Mexico and Texas. In most cases, a coyote-type creature has been blamed for killing livestock. One such example was the Elmendorf Beast, which is a hairless animal that was killed in 2004 and thought to be a wolf-coyote cross. One of the features of the creature was a long snout, which has come to characterize the beast. On August 8, 2008, a police offer in DeWitt County, Texas named Brandon Riedel filmed a strange animal from his dash cam. In the video the creature can be seen running away from the car, and looks like a hairless coyote-type creature with a long snout and big ears. The snout of the creature has baffled many experts.
The footage was featured on the television show Fact or Fiction where experts attempted to recreate the tape with a miniature horse. As you would expect, the horse looked nothing like the creature in the video and the footage has helped grow the legend of the Chupacabra. Many have suggested the animal could be an unknown coyote or a government experiment gone horribly wrong. The legend was potentially developed around the real events of cattle mutilation.
Get your fill of chupacabra folklore in Tracking the ChupaCabra: The Vampire Beast in Fact, Fiction, and Folklore at Amazon.com!
4
Cervine Birth

The legend surrounding the Cervine Birth footage started in 2009 with the posting of a bizarre video. The story says the clip was put on YouTube by an unidentified amateur artist studying in the UK. After a short time online, the movie was removed because of the disturbing content. The video starts with the scene of a foggy meadow and zooms in on a sick looking albino deer lying on the ground. After the camera focuses on the deer’s eye, it pans away to a vanity mirror and shows the animals reflection flopping in an unnatural manner.
At this point a dark fluid is excreted from the horse’s tail, which indicates it might be giving birth. After several minutes, a stillborn humanoid infant is dropped from the horse’s body. The creature is covered with a dark tar-like substance, so it is difficult to identify. It has been claimed the artist put together a model of a human-animal hybrid to use in the film. The video then moves to a close-up blurry shot of the creatures face, and shows stock footage of an audience applauding in slow motion. In 2009, a collection of people claimed to have watched the Cervine Birth video. However, the footage has become extremely difficult to locate, which has spawned an urban legend that the video might show an actual humanoid stillborn birth.
3
Munchkin Suicide
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU32MewCung
One of the most talked about urban legends comes from the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz. The legend says that an actor can be seen hanging himself in the film. The controversial scene appears at the very end of the Tin Woodsman section of the movie when Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, and the Tinman start walking toward the Emerald City. In the sequence, an object can be seen for a brief second between two trees in the forest. The camera is not zoomed in, but it looks like a person swinging in the trees. For this reason, an urban legend was created that suggests a munchkin can be seen committing suicide.
In the 1980s, the suicidal munchkin legend became popular when people started to watch the sequence on VHS tapes. As the Internet expanded, some have taken to posting detailed examinations of the footage online, which includes zoomed in examples of what looks like a hanging human. This has caused workers from The Wizard of Oz to claim the object is a large bird. Apparently, the movie borrowed several birds from the Los Angeles Zoo to make the forest appear more realistic. One of these birds, thought to be an emu or large crane, was captured on film during the Tin Woodsman scene.
The explanation hasn’t stopped the urban legend from spreading and people have wondered why other birds are not visible in the movie. Some have suggested the original footage was edited on DVD to make it look more like a bird. The claim says that there are multiple different copies of the scene available online. The DVD version is widespread and shows the bird more clearly, which has been attributed to advancements in HD TV.
2
Satan’s Sphinx

Satan’s Sphinx is an urban legend video that is said to cause the viewer to experience suicidal tendencies, homicidal thoughts, hysteria, insanity, and self abuse. It was uploaded to the Internet in 2006 by government officials who were testing subliminal messaging and human reaction to violent images. Soon after the release of the clip, the experiment spiraled out of control and people complained that the video was making them depressed.
The urban legend says that the Satan’s Sphinx video contains a high pitched audio track that will irritate the viewer. It holds images of blood, death, and murder that are continually run over the screen. The pictures rotate so fast that it becomes impossible for people to individually identify them. At this point, incoherent whispering is heard and the screen begins to flash. People get dizzy, but don’t want to turn the movie off. The footage is said to last 3:49 and will cause the viewer to become depressed and sleepless. After the experiment, the clip was banned by the U.S. government with all traces removed from the Internet.
Some versions of the legend say the video is a satanic ritual with subliminal messaging that was used by the U.S. government to recruit members for mind control projects. Whatever the case, the underlining theme in the urban legend is that those who watch the video will commit suicide. It has been said that a screenshot from the video is available and shows a scared boy being held captive by two people in weird masks. The urban legend holds that if you find yourself watching the Satan’s Sphinx video, you were meant to.
1
The McPherson Tape
The McPherson Tape is a real movie that has spawned a collection of urban legends. Officially, the film is named UFO Abduction and was created by Dean Alioto in 1989 for $6,500. The movie is one of the first examples of a found footage film and follows the story of a Connecticut family named the Van Heeses who are abducted by extraterrestrials. The movie was made to look like a genuine home video recording that was taken in 1983 and recovered years later.
The film starts out with a birthday party of a 5-year-old child at the Van Heeses house. After a brief period of time, the group experiences a power outage and bright flash of red light is seen. The men go outside to explore the area and find a plane crash over the hill. At the crash site, they witness a collection of extraterrestrials. The aliens scare the group and the men run back to the house in disbelief. Along the way, they use profanity and it becomes clear the movie is not scripted, but rather improvised. In many scenes the actors can be heard yelling over each other.
For over an hour, the family attempts to fight off the creatures, but the movie ends abruptly with the aliens entering the house and abducting the Van Heeses. At one point in the film the men bring the body of one of the aliens into the house, but it soon disappears. Throughout the movie, the actors do a great job showing terror and fear. Some have suggested the appearance of the aliens is quite convincing as they have long and slender limbs. However, others have complained about the unrealistic clothing on the creatures.
It has become extremely hard to find a copy of UFO Abduction. Sections of the movie can be seen on the Internet, but the entire footage from start to end is not available. In 1998, a remake of the movie was created by Dean Alioto and aired on UPN. The footage is much less convincing and clearly scripted. Since its release, the footage has been labeled the McPherson Tape because it is said to show the actual abduction of the McPherson family. It has been added to a collection of videos that claim to show human contact with aliens. Another example is the 5 Hour Video, which shows military personnel from the United States and China fighting underground aliens. Very little information is available on the 5 Hour Video, which is one reason it has not been featured.



10 Movies That Got The Future Horribly Wrong


There were many great science-fiction movies of the twentieth century. These films brought the public’s hopes, dreams, and nightmares of the future to the big screen and showcased some amazing, but very often far-fetched theories of what could happen down the road. As time has passed since the release of these films, it has shown that some of them got things right. . . but many got things very wrong. Here are ten films that did just that. Spoilers ahead.

 10  Blade Runner


Blade Runner is a beloved 80s sci-fi flick which is, technically, just about to be proven wrong. Starring Harrison Ford as Officer Rick Deckard, the film is the story of a police officer known as a Blade Runner whose job is to identify rogue “replicants” which are robots almost indistinguishable from humans. The movie is set in 2019, so we are still a couple of years away, but we would likely all agree that flying cars, human-like robots, and off-world colonies are still years away.
A sequel has recently been announced and is set 30 years later, making some of these things more possible. However, it is still hard to imagine them being as normal as they are portrayed in the original film, even 30 years from now. Only time will tell if we are in a more Blade Runner appropriate society by 2049.

   9     2001: A Space Odyssey


2001: A Space Odyssey is widely regarded as one of the greatest science fiction films of all time. And it actually did accurately portray many pieces of technology that were futuristic at the time but would come into existence later. The reason this film made this list is the extent of the space travel for the timeline. We have yet to send humans to Mars, let alone Jupiter, and we for sure did not have computers as advanced as HAL 9000 back in 2001.
Stanley Kubrick and the crew did extensive research on the latest space technology, as the film was being produced at the same time NASA was racing to space,[2] and this led to great realism in the technical detail of the film. It also led to Kubrick and the crew needing to outpace the real-world scientists to make the futurism seem more valid. This meant some very interesting technology went into the film that echoes both current and past technology. For example, there is a briefcase with a phone which may trigger similarities with laptops and current phones. However, these were not around in 2001.
So, 2001 was a mixed bag of some things that were far more advanced than what we have, and others that are now old ideas. They got the future wrong with their timeline, but they were definitely on the right track.

  8      2012


This movie, released in 2009,[3] played off the ancient Mayan prediction that the world would end in 2012, according to their calendar. If you are reading this now, in 2017, we can agree that this prediction did not come to pass, thankfully. But in the movie, there is extreme destruction as a result of the earth’s core heating up and leading to dramatic shifts in the climate, springing earthquakes, plate shifts, tsunamis, and the super volcano under Yellowstone erupting. Some of these events could happen separately in some manner, at some point in time, but they are unlikely to do so in the near future on the scale portrayed in the movie.
In fact, all of the speculation surrounding the year 2012 and its world-ending implications, was completely thrown out by NASA the day after the supposed ending of the world according to the Mayans. The Mayans did not actually predict the world would end on December 21, 2012, at all. The Mayan calendar’s long-count period ended that day, but another one started like any regular calendar would do. The original myth behind this world-ending event was that a mysterious planet discovered by Sumerians would crash into the Earth, bringing about cataclysm in May 2003. After that date had passed, the doomsday date was moved to 2012.
This chain of events is different from the movie which blamed harsh solar activity for heating up the earth’s core. The film simply played off the fears of paranoid Internet users who read too much into those perpetuating the myth, and in real-life 2012, there was absolutely no threat to the planet.

7    Back to the Future II



Back to the Future II took viewers to the future time of 2015, almost thirty years away from the then current year of 1989. In the movie’s version of 2015, there were hoverboards, self-lacing Nikes, flying cars, and other crazy tech that is non-existent today (though there are limited edition self-lacing Nike Air Mags that were created in homage to the film). It seems that Marty had a more accurate experience going backward than he did going forward.
The movie showed its age with various references to current technology for the time being incorporated into the future technology portrayed in the film, such as mailboxes having fax machines, or fax machines just being relevant in homes at all. They did have video chatting which was one thing that was accurately predicted, though not usually done on large sized screens like in the film. We also do not have food rehydrators where we can put a little packet into a machine and get a full-on meal coming back out.[4] Even Spy Kids tried that years later and it was still silly.


 6    The Terminator



The Terminator series jumps around a fictional timeline, but it is said that the Terminator from the first film is sent from 2029.[5] A later installment, Terminator Salvation, pins the war against the advanced machines as being waged in 2018, but it was started long before. Following this timeline, we can know that Terminators and machines of that kind are definitely not in existence when the films say they would be. Artificial intelligence has long been a subject of debate over whether it is dangerous, or how impactful it can truly be, and in the Terminator series, it is surely at the worst end of the spectrum.
This theme, reminding us of HAL’s murdering self-awareness, is something we as humans must be cautious about when making progress with artificial intelligence. We do not have any advanced A.I. as would be viewed in the Terminator series, but we are well on the way. The question is, will it be fully aware of its existence and will it lead to violence on us, its creators? Hopefully, the proof remains that this series was not right about the rise of machines.

  5    Timecop



Jean-Claude Van Damme stars in this action-packed film about a cop who regulates time travel.[6] Set in 2004, the film was proven wrong about time travel over ten years ago. Even now, the thought of being able to travel through time is heavily science fiction. The film also had very advanced self-driving cars which were not realistic then, but are becoming more accessible now.
In the movie, the cars reacted to intricate voice commands. While we are not at that stage yet, voice command technology continuously grows more advanced, as do self-driving automobiles. Could the two eventually merge and lead to a fleet of cars in which you could simply speak where you want to go and you’ll be taken there?
 4   Rollerball


This film, set in 2018, made the odd prediction that a corporate-controlled society will feature a violent roller derby-esque game as the only form of entertainment.[7] While there is still one year for this to come about, the odds of this happening are slimmer than . . . well, just about anything. If anything, predicting that roller derby would be that popular was the biggest flaw.
The more interesting part of this is that the world is controlled by corporations, rather than being made up of nations. A corporation is defined as an independent legal entity owned by shareholders, meaning that the corporation itself is legally liable for its actions and debts, not the shareholders. So having a world made up of corporations means that the world would be broken up into separate business-centered entities with everyone owning small pieces of whatever corporation they are a part of. It is an interesting idea, to say the least, and very different than our world of countries, but could it ever happen? Highly unlikely.


  3     Escape from New York


This movie, set in 1997, offered the idea that Manhattan would be one large maximum security prison.[8] That was rather outlandish, but they still made a sequel called Escape from LA and used a similar trope, saying that Los Angeles was now an autonomous island of criminals in the year 2013. It didn’t work the first time, and it didn’t prove true the second time either. The thought of a prison existing on that scale is just ridiculous, especially in a world center like New York City.



  2      Mad Max



The post-apocalyptic setting of the Mad Max movie series is hard to pin down time-wise, but in an interview with George Miller from 1984, it was determined that the events of the original films would occur between the late 90s and 2018.[9] This is yet another example of a different picture of the world than what has come to pass.
In the movie series, between the first two films, the world has become a desolate wasteland ruled by gangs with supplies being rare for scavengers. It is unclear what brought about this apocalypse, but it had something to do with nuclear fallout and climate shifts. While we are not near to this type of world yet, it does not mean that the earth couldn’t suffer a similar fate to the one portrayed as the wasteland in the Mad Max series.


   1        Deathrace 2000


Similar to Rollerball in that the world focuses on a deadly sport for no good reason, Deathrace 2000 was released in 1975 and portrayed a society in which one of the only forms of entertainment was a violent long-distance car race in the year 2000.[10] This was to help control overpopulation, and the drivers gained points by running over innocent pedestrians in horrible ways. We’ll stick to boring old NASCAR for now (left turn!).
Overpopulation is a growing concern, but it was nothing to be worried about 17 years ago. As the conditions we live in become safer and more comfortable with the advancement of technology, the death rate decreases, life expectancies rise, and the world grows more crowded. It is an issue to keep an eye on, but not one that would trigger the need for trans-continental road rage.
Spencer Cowley is a college student who’s exploring the world of writing. He is a contributing editor for The Odyssey Online, and you can read his articles here.