education

TOMORROW'S WORLD TODAY

Discussion & Workshop

Filmmakers from Fritz Lang (Metropolis, 1926) to Ridley Scott (Blade Runner, 1982) and beyond have spent the last century speculating on celluloid on how the next one will look. Now, as we begin the new millennium that inspired these visions, this fun discussion will ask 'did the filmmakers get it right'? And how do we view the future now, from the early 21st century?

Metropolis, 1926

Robocop

Blade Runner, 1982

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Every film made about the future (or about the past, for that matter) subconsciously reveals the preoccupations of the era when the film was made. In this way, science fiction offers us a new way of seeing the present. Read the synopses of the following three films and, paying careful attention to when they were made, decide (a) whether the filmmaker has a positive or negative view of the future, and (b) what the theme of each film says about the concerns of society at the particular time it was made.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) Miles, a doctor from Santa Mira, arrives in San Francisco hysterically claiming that his community has been taken over by aliens. The aliens are taking over the bodies of his friends and loved ones and slowly and insidiously taking over the town, with the ultimate aim of taking over the world. Only Miles, and his former girlfriend Becky, can save the planet ...

Terminator (1984) It is 2029 and the world as we know it has been destroyed by nuclear war and is now run by machines. There is a human underground freedom movement, led by John Connor, who struggles to save what few humans there are left from annihilation. He must go back to the present (our present) to save his mother from being assassinated by a deadly Terminator sent back in time by the machines ...

12 Monkeys (1995)
It is the near future and a deadly virus has devastated the earth. A convict (Bruce Willis) is forced to travel back in time, to our present, to track the virus down before it spreads. But he finds out a lot more about himself instead ...

Below are three images from a classic science fiction film. Can you guess from the picture whether the film was made in the past about our present, or whether it was made recently and set at some stage in the future?

The film is Blade Runner, one of the most influential science fiction films of the last 20 years. It was made in 1982 and set in Los Angeles in 2019. Harrison Ford plays an android killer who must track down and kill a group renegade superior replicants. On the way, he falls for an icily cool android that thinks she's a human being. She works for the Tyrell Corporation, the manufacturer of the replicants. "Blade Runner is a film set 40 years hence, made in the style of forty years ago" (Ridley Scott)

What do you think the film is saying about the value of human life in the future? Are humans commodities, or valuable independent beings?

Can you think of any film that has a positive view of the future?

Why, do you think, these films mentioned above set the future almost entirely in an urban environment, where there seems to be no need for nature? Is there any example of a rural, nut urban, future on celluloid?

How do you imagine the future in 100 years' time?

You have invented a time machine which will take you to the town where you live, 100 years from now. Describe, in words or pictures, your vision of the future. How does it look? Has society changed? Is a better place than it is at present, or do you look back and think of the 'good old days' of the early21st century?

The following videos are available to purchase from www.blackstar.co.uk:
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (cert. PG) GBP £4.99
12 Monkeys (cert. 15) £5.99
Blade Runner (cert. 15) £5.59