Science fiction has always been one of the most inventive and creative genres of filmmaking there is. For the most part, creative teams have pulled out of thin air what some of the stuff on the page looks like. From every single starship ever seen on celluloid to every robot assistant; most if not all of the technology shown in any sci-fi movie doesn’t exist in the real world.
Or at the time didn’t exist, and now it does. There are plenty of movies that have come out and nowadays, science fiction is sometimes science fact. Here are 5 Sci-Fi Movie Gadgets That Are Scientifically Accurate (& 5 That Aren't).
Accurate - Touch Screens (Minority Report)
In development since the mid-sixties, touch screen technology as we know it to be didn’t show up until the LG Prada phone debuted in 2007.
But fans of Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report had already seen this kind of tech, and various others five years earlier when the film debuted. Spielberg shot Tom Cruise’s manipulating touch screens as if his character, John Anderton was conducting a symphony, which he kind of was in order to find out who was going to commit a crime.
Aren’t - Matrix Rigs (The Matrix)
One of the most terrifying visions seen in The Matrix are the fields of humans being harvested for battery life. As more humans woke up, they were able to plug back into the Matrix with a giant plug that got slammed right into the node on your brain.
This is obviously not real, nor will be real ever. Humans don’t output that kind of energy, so the entirety of the Machines’ symbiotic relationship with us wouldn’t rely on us for energy, that and there’s no such thing as The Matrix...is there?
Accurate - Self-Driving Cars (Demolition Man)
1993’s Demolition Man might have started out a serious picture, but might go down as one of the funniest science fiction films ever made.
Also the movie has become one of the most prophetic. From Taco Bell beginning a dominant force in fast food to Arnold Schwarzenegger entering politics and a lot of our new PC culture all started in this movie. Plenty of technology was shown in the movie that exists today - including self-driving cars. Thanks to Tesla and Elon Musk, this has become a reality.
Aren’t - Universal Translator (Men In Black)
On this planet alone, there are approximately 6500 known speaking languages and dialects. Imagine being onboard a space fairing vessel whose mission is to seek out new life forms and boldly go where no one has gone before. Star Trek has featured a ton of then-lofty and ambitious technology.
Some of which has been realized in the last fifty years. But the Universal Translator that was onboard the USS Enterprise (so far) doesn’t exist in the real world. As far as the movies go, Agent K explains in Men In Black that the MIB have one, but aren’t allowed to because “human thought is so primitive.”
Accurate - Designer Babies (Gattaca)
Gattaca is one of those types of sci-fi films that doesn’t catch on right away. But as more and more facets of the movie move from science fiction to fact, it becomes a cult classic. In the not so distant future, humans use selective eugenics to help create “valid” children.
The children born through more traditional means are “in-valids.” Jeffrey Steinberg, a director for the Fertility Institutes stated in a 2013 interview with Scientific American that “A lot of U.S. clinics offer non-medical sex selection... We do it every single day. We did three this morning.”
Aren’t - Lightsabers (Star Wars)
We all want one, every single one of us has been at an age where you pick up some sort of stick and start spinning it around making all sorts of lightsaber sound effects. Heck, even some of us as fully-functioning adults did that yesterday.
But alas, the technology to create fully functioning lightsabers from Star Wars does not exist, and if it can exist is still a long ways away from being realized. So anyone dreaming of carving their Thanksgiving turkey with a Jedi’s weapon (ala Marshall on How I Met Your Mother), don’t get your hopes up.
Accurate - Smart Homes (Smart House)
Everything we own has gotten smarter. Thanks to all sorts of advancements in technology there are smart cars, smartphones, smart vacuums, name the item and there’s probably a smart version of it.
There are even Smart Homes or at least several different bits of tech to link together to make a smart home. Just don’t give it Katey Sagal’s voice and demeanor, she might become a little too possessive of the people who live in your home like she did in Disney’s Smart House.
Aren’t - Memory Manipulation (Eternal Sunshine, Inception)
In both Inception and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind memories are being played with and manipulated by teams of people. One film is to add an idea and the other is to remove every memory of a former loved one.
While there are plenty of ways to help out with a person’s memory, there is currently no way to “enter” a person's mind and start fiddling around with it.
Accurate – FaceTime (Star Trek, The Jetsons)
One of the coolest parts of the future being here is the ability to not just call loved ones from far away, but to be able to see them too! FaceTime is one of the simplest but greatest inventions that used to only exist in the movies like Star Trek and The Jetsons’ old Visaphone.
The technology also was a big part of the greatest Trek adventure ever - The Wrath Of Khan, Kirk and Khan never actually share a scene together and only interact with View Screen.
Aren’t - Cloning Humans (The 6th Day, The Island)
In the late-nineties, scientists were able to clone a sheep. More recently a 3-D printer was able to clone a functioning organ. But cloning a human being is still not a proven concept, it was barely a proven concept in movies like The 6th Day or The Island, movies where clones grow consciousness and want to rebel against their companies and original persons.
The human body is still the most complex “machine” on this planet, cloning it perfectly would take decades.