Beyond the Screen - HNC Media (Clydebank) students

Discussion Page 2
Do Films Predict
the Future?
With modern technology expanding at such a rapid pace, are films
and television responsible for encouraging inventors to make fantasy
a reality?
By Garry Bennett
We have a habit of taking
our current lives for granted.
This extends to modern
technology. But what we
take for granted was once
considered fantasy, a fable
of a far future that no-one
expected to see. In some
cases, however, people do
see. I’m talking about TV
and film predicting the
future.
Of course, some things
that were predicted haven’t
happened; I’m still
anticipating the arrival of
the ‘back to the future’
hoverboard any day, but
TV and film have had an
undeniable impact on present
technology. One series
from the 1960s predicted
many future technological
leaps; that program was
‘Star Trek’.
One man who lived during
the run of the original
series of ‘Star Trek’ was
Eric Spence. He said: “I
recently watch one of the
original Star Trek episodes.
It was a standard episode
of the space opera but I
realised how accurately the
technology in that universe
predicted what we would
eventually have. The most
obvious is the handheld
communicator which became
the modern day mobile
phone.” The show also
went on to predict tablets
and even video calls.