It’s always peculiar to rewatch old sci-fi movies to see how they once envisioned our future. Usually, these types of films would visualize a totally unrecognizable future – some sort of strange metallic city landscape featuring flying cars and humanoids which, much to our disappointment, are still unfortunately unavailable.
However, whether they were in a sci-fi epic like 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, or a family-friendly time-traveler like 1985’s Back to the Future, there are now lots of futuristic movie gadgets that you can actually buy TODAY in real life form. Crazy huh?
Let’s take a look at some of the futuristic gadgets from old-school movies that you can buy right now.
Hoverboards (From Back to the Future)
Okay so this one technically isn’t a ‘hoverboard’ – no you can’t float in mid-air – but handleless segways are so incredibly close to what Back to the Future once visualized. They glide smoothly and swiftly over the ground, steered by slight movements of the body like some sort of futuristic skateboard. Although these segways are quite expensive for home buys, there’s plenty of hire activities where you can ride them.
Smart home devices (From Smart House)
The computerized house in Disney’s 1999 Smart House was a home we all dreamed of having as youngsters – a voice-controlled robot-house that can perform a whole host of things like control house settings, call people and they could even converse with you. Sounds familiar right? Well, nowadays we have lots of different voice-control home devices (Alexa, Amazon Echo) that can do just that!
Virtual-Reality (From The Matrix)
When The Matrix was released in 1999, its imagination of virtual reality was so impressive it seemed VR was never truly going to become a realization. 20 years later and there are a plethora of VR headsets you can purchase to link up to your own online spaces. The HTC Vive and Sony PlayStation VR are two of the most popular headsets, both providing you with mind-blowing graphics and spectacularly immersive experiences of some of your favorite games.
Tablets (From 2001: A Space Odyssey)
Although released way back in 1968, Stanley Kubrick’s revolutionary film 2001: A space odyssey aesthetically predicted a lot of what the top-specs of technology look like today. In one scene, the spaceship’s crew members can be seen watching the news from earth on a touch-screen gadget that looks strangely similar to what iPads do. Totally spooky.
Smartwatches (From Star Trek Series)
The Star Trek series was always pretty good at predicting future technologies, and one of the most accurate predictions was their wrist-worn communications that resembled a watch phone very much seen today. Now in 2019, Apple smartwatches are becoming increasingly popular, with more and more companies developing and designing their own type of multi-functional smartwatches just like those in Star Trek.
These cool gadgets mentioned barely touch the surface on the things old movies predicted for our consumerist techno-world. Makes you wonder – does this then mean in 30 years the crazy gadgets, devices, and technologies we see in current movies will eventually be available? Let’s hope!
