10) Flying cars
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| Is this the future of travel? Source: Wikicommons |
Film (s): Back To The Future: Part 2, Blade Runner, The Fifth Element
Why we're sick of waiting:
Because flying cars rule, that's why. If Marty McFly taught us anything, it's that a flying automobile is the only way to go in 2015. Unfortunately, as we draw closer to that mythical movie date, we're still no closer to achieving personal flight transportation without having to turn up to an airport and take off our shoes.
Is science any closer to making this dream a reality?
The main problem with flying automobiles is that most of us all have varying opinions about how these vehicles should look. In truth, flying vehicles have actually been around for several years, although they don't look anything like the utopian versions you'll see in Blade Runner or Back To The Future.
However, the promise of a personal flying machine has been with us since the earliest times in recorded history. In literature, Syrian manuscripts from 800AD speak of a 'flying carpet' in the Arabic folk tale, One Thousand And One Nights. So, the idea isn't exactly new.
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| The flying carpet. Source: Wikicommons |
Bonus Trivia: Waldo Waterman built the first flying car in 1937. Yep, we bet you didn't know the flying car in one form or another has been around since the 30s! The Waterman flying car looked more like a box with hulking wings. It had a wingspan of 11m and measured 6.25m long, making it unsuited for major highway use.
Even Henry Ford had a go at it during the twenties, before he later abandoned the project after his test pilot died in a crash. In the 1950's, the Ford motor company conducted a massive feasibility study and concluded that sky cars were ready for mass production in America, but the US government failed to see it that way due to safety concerns and put a kibosh on the whole idea.
Currently, there are dozens of flying vehicle prototypes in development, but most of these require a pilot's license for use, which is hardly convenient as a personal road transportation alternative.
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| The Moller Skycar. Source: Wikicommons |
We'll just have to settle for: The Moller Skycar.
The Moller is more Jetsons than Back to the Future, but it's the best of the prototypes 'floating around' out there. Unfortunately, demonstrations have not conclusively shown to fly without being tethered by a crane. There are six models in total, with the current M400 model expected sometime this century.
Moller is currently taking deposits if you're gutsy enough to part ways with your money for a ride into the future. However, speculation has risen that the Moller doesn't really work. In 2003, the US Securities and Exchange Commission sued Moller for securities fraud, citing over forty years of failed development.
We predict it will be available in the year....
2035, at the earliest. So much needs to happen before we get there, including
a overhaul of the current flight traffic control system and one heck of a learn-to -drive school for first time buyers.
Could you image the idiot drivers we currently have on the roads, suddenly drifting over your home in a drunken daze? That shudder you just felt is half the reason why this technology hasn't taken off.
Some have mentioned that all future flying cars would be driverless and driven by a central computer connected to a 'grid'. We agree. But for now, the world can't even manage a true driverless grid on the ground, much less one operating in the skies.
9) Real-time digital effects (instant CGI)
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| Big Arnie battles big special effects. Source: IMDB |
Film: Running Man
Why we're sick of waiting:
The Running man is ripe for all kinds of future technology spotting. The obvious ones are the onset of Big Brother security surveillance and the growth of reality television; dual themes that 1980's audiences may of have easily shrugged off at the time.
However, there's one technology in Running Man that is often easily overlooked: instant special effects. Virtual landscapes and humans are instantly added to existing news footage, to make it look like big Arnie has committed a series of violent crimes.
Part of the film is devoted to big Arnie getting himself tangled up in this evil double cross by ICS Studios, who use the effects wizardry to frame their running players.
The crux of the double cross revolves around a group of digital imaging experts who can render fake crowds and people in a scene to make it look like it really happened on the nightly news.
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S1m0ne sizzles as a CGI actress. Source: IMDB
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Is science any closer to making this dream a reality?
Actually, it's not so far off what we're already seeing with today's CGI technology, except that none of what we saw in the Running Man can currently be done in real-time. That would require one heck of a supercomputer with oodles of processing power and memory.
A technology like this could change the way we play games and watch films. Fake news casts have the potential to scare and terrify, in much the same way that Orson Welles pulled the same trick during his infamous War Of The Worlds broadcast in 1938.
The closet thing we have to ICS Studios (the TV network from the film) today are the Hollywood special effects gurus over at ILM and WETA studios. Though, we're still no closer to real time rendering of perfectly sculpted human beings. And not the way they looked in Running Man. That's been the Holy Grail of CGI for a while now - to create digital actors that will blend in with the lung breathing kind and not ask for breaks for bigger pay checks.
Problem is though, most of the all-CGI creations in films so far, have looked fairly....bad. Al Pacino tried the gag in S1m0ne using a combination of the real and surreal, while Gollum got scary in Lord of the Rings. However, none of those creations took a few seconds to add to the screen. They all took months of painstaking rendering to complete.
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| RIP: Jar Jar. Source: Star Wars.com |
We'll just have to settle for: Jar Jar Binks.
Perhaps the worst CGI creation of all time. Jar Jar drove audiences crazy in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
We predict it will be available in the year....
2030. Long after the date that the Running Man film was set in (2019).
For now, we're all just going to have to wait the usual 9 months for a film to get it perfectly right in post- production. Don't believe us? Just ask James Cameron how difficult it is to create virtual worlds and characters from scratch in his current cinematic opus, Avatar.
8) Advanced regenerative medicine
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| Luke Skywalker undegoes the Bactic tank for rapid healing. Source: Star Wars.com |
Film (s): Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back, Terminator 2.
Why we're sick of waiting:
This could revolutionise the way we bounce back from injury. Bullet wounds? No problem. Instant cell regeneration could change the amount of time we spend in hospitals and the way we bounce back from body trauma.
Remember how the terminator took all those bullets in the first and second films, but its skin would magically grow back without surgery? A form of advanced cell regeneration would be necessary for our organs and skin to heal so rapidly. And it could provide a huge benefit for burns patients and victims of war.
Is science any closer to making this dream a reality?
A system like the 'Bacta tank' from Star Wars could be our best bet for future treatment. During a scene from the The Empire Strikes Back, Luke is seen receiving treatment inside a Bacta tank.
The Bacta tank contains rejuvenating 'bacta fluid' that helps to rapidly
heal wounds in much the same way we use compression chambers to heal breathing illnesses resulting from undewater diving.
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| Bullet wounds are no problem when you can rapidly grow back damaged cells. Source: IMDB |
According to Star Wars.com, the "...translucent red fluid nurtures the growth of a bacterial medium that seeks out traumatized tissue and promotes regeneration and growth to rapidly heal wounds with minimal or no scarring." That sounds like exactly the type of thing modern medicine could do with.
Need to know: Advanced regenerative medicine relies heavily on the need for embryonic stem cell research for much of its development. And up until the Obama administration's recent moves to support this important medical work, stem cell research was a big no-no under the previous Bush administration.
The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is a group of biotech companies, non profit organisations and research universities that are setting out to make this form of medicine a reality with over $3b in grants to spent.
We'll just have to settle for: Something closer to home. Monash University and the Austrlalian Regenerative Medical institute
Monash and ARMI are aiming to become one of the biggest regenerative medical centres in the world. Some of the disorders that it could possibly treat includes: Neurodegenerative disorders, diabetes, arthritis, musculo-skeletal and cardiovascular diseases.
Perhaps one day this will help us create a stronger, more agile human. That gives way to all kinds of Bionic Man/ X-Men possibilities.
We predict it will be available in the year....
2017. Even earlier breakthroughs are expected in this field, particularly with advanced tissue healing.
(7) Replicants /Androids
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| Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Source: Wikicommons |
Film(s): Blade Runner, Terminator, Aliens, Metropolis, Stepford Wives
Why we're sick of waiting:
Ok, who wouldn't want a robot butler that looks like Alfred from The Dark Knight. Android girlfriend anyone? And we're not talking about the blow-up kind either.
Since the earliest years of the twentieth century, the public have been clambering for the production of androgynous beings. Most of our fascination with these robotic beings can be traced back to Fritz Lang's Metropolis on screen. In fact, you can go all the way back to the Jewish fable of the Golem to get an early glimpse of our fascination with Androids.
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| Fancy an android wife? Source: The Stepford Wives/Paramount. |
It's imagined that these machines would peacefully co-exist in our society as working, helpful machines, ala the Stepford Wives. Sure, the odd one could go crazy and be sent back through time to do terrible things, but we like to focus on the positives. Like replicants who look like Daryl Hannah in 80's leather for instance.
Is science any closer to making this dream a reality?
In Japan and South Korea, the move towards creating robots that look like people has become something of a space race among the two nations. Both countries are facing a future crisis with a rapidly aging population and it's hoped that androids or replicants could be built to care for their owners as they grow older.
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| DER 01, coming an adult shop near you. Source: DER 01 file shot |
While robots such as the Roomba are handy for vacuuming your house, they suck with people - if you pardon our bad pun. Androids are highly sought for creating a more honest emotional connection than a boxy R2D2 ever could.
Bonus Trivia: There are already a bunch of amazing Japanese androids in existence today. For example, DER 01 looks just like a regular sized Japanese woman (165cm tall) and has 47 mobile points that give her improved smoother movements over previous models. The smoother the movements the harder it becomes to tell these machines apart from real people.
In Korea, the android of choice is the all-singing EverR-2. It features 29 individual motors for enhanced expression. Her entire body is covered with an artificial silicon jelly skin solution that makes her look more human and we all know what Skynet did when they figured that out that little tactical advantage.
We'll just to have to settle for: Repliee Q1/Q2
Japanese Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro is something of a Doc Brown in android circles. His
Repliee Q1 is seen as the golden seal in android/cyborg design. Repliee Q2 is a more advanced model known for her movie star good looks and human realism.
His earlier works include Q1Expo. Q1Expo is a model of a five year old girl that still garners praise from cyborg developers all over the world for human realism.
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| Repliee Q1 in 2005 with her programmer creator Hiroshi Ishiguro |
We predict it will be available in the year....
2024. The technology is quickly becoming more available each day. We're probably a good 15 years away from a believable human companion. But whether they will think for themselves or be pre-programmed to give you a back scrub leads us to another technology worth discussing...Artificial Intelligence.
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| Is there an android in the building? Bishop takes a hit in Aliens. Source: Aliens DVD shot |
Continued on next page : Movie technologies 6 - 4: A.I, Death Ray, Cloning