Twenty Minutes Into The Future Discussion - Television Tropes & Idioms

A Carlsson: Also, Time Cop (I think that was the title), a movie that predicted cars would change more in the next ten years than they have in the previous 100. I think we're already past the "future" shown in that movie.

Morgan Wick: I happened to see an episode of Harvey Birdman recently where George Jetson proclaims that he and The Jetsons come from "the far off world of 2002!" Cue Harvey looking down at his calendar, which reads... 2004. Not sure where on the page it belongs, though; I think The Jetsons was always set out-and-out in The Future (though now I see that, according to our page for it, it was allegedly set in the 21st century).

Red Shoe: There is, I think, a distinction which we have failed to really make between "The writers intentionally set this in the near-future" and "The writers set this in the far future, but to them, "The year 2000" seemed like the impossibly far-off future". The Jetsons seems to definitely be the latter, as do, say, the Second Doctor Doctor Who stories set in the 21st century, whereas Max Headroom and the like are very much the former.

arromdee: Wikipedia claims the Jetsons was supposed to be set in 2062 (exactly 100 years in the future), but this was never established on screen, so Harvey Birdman was free to use 2002 instead for the sake of a joke. Of course, 2002 and 2062 are both in the 21st century.

(Incidentally I've been watching the Second Doctor's adventures right now and am almost finished—of course most of these don't exist and I have to use reconstructions. The only weird date I noticed, aside from the UNIT introduction, was the mention in the Mind Robber that Zoe knows of the Karkus, a cartoon character from the year 2000. I already put this in the page. What were the other ones?)

Tanto: The second one is touched on in Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale, but it might be worthy of its own trope. God knows it wouldn't be the first unique trope split off that page.

The fifth season of Desperate Housewives. No Seriously.

Ophicius: How much use is an entirely spoiler tagged example supposed to be?

Johnny E: Especially given that, IIRC, they were advertising that season as being time-shifted well before it started... in the UK at least, it may have been a twist on original broadcast.

fleb: Switching out the song lyrics quote for a Robo Cop review quote.

In the year 2006, we discovered magic tricks
Which we used for waging war against the odds
In the year 2007, they invited us to Heaven
And we plundered the Casino of the Gods
-Lemon Demon, "Behold the Future" (written in 2003)

sickishfish: I thought Max Headroom should at least get some credit for naming the trope so I added some information. Removed parentheses in the original example blurb to avoid redundancy.

Ununnilum: Natter Roundup:

Based on the current economic paranoia (September 2008) — $50 for a Pepsi might be too low.
- Actually, severe economic depression generally leads to deflation, not inflation. Perhaps the Pepsi should cost 20¢.
- Hmm, well, in the novelization, anyway, the Pepsi "only" cost $45. Marty got $5 back in change.
Godzilla ... continuity? Those two words don't go together!
Hummer with sat-nav then?
Let's wait until this mortgage/credit crisis settles down before we start ridiculing.
- Thinly veiled? More like barely veiled at all, if you ask me. Or Alan Moore.
The Cyberdyne company in Japan recently announced its 5th prototype of their HAL powered armor, subverting it even further.
- They're taking orders now. Lease a powered (un)armor for only 150,000-200,000Y/month, plus maintenance fees.

Also:

The Island has industrial-scale human cloning and flying motorbikes, but the standard police car seems to be the Chrysler 300.

There's already an Island example.

The shows of the Grissom Verse have been set in the same week as their US broadcast.

Then that's Next Sunday AD.

The (stated) setting of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Next Sunday, AD.

...which would be Next Sunday AD, but isn't even that.

Kind of averted in The Historian where while the narrator's present is around 2020 and a major terrorist attack on FBI headquarters is mentioned. However, most of the book is set in Cold War Europe.

"Kind of averted" is a phrase with no meaning.

The Whateley Universe is nominally Twenty Minutes Into The Future (even if it currently is in fall of 2006) because of all the gadgets and devises built by the mutant inventors.

Again, this is Next Sunday AD that fell into the past.

However, this does not count as the original "Command And Conquer" storyline was an alternate timeine created by Albert Einstein.

Is it? I've heard it both ways ("Red Alert is totally what happens in C&C's past!" "Feh, impossible!").

Persona 3 takes place during the 2009-2010 school year, and there are battle robots and guns that force out a physical manifestation of your soul when you shoot yourself in the head with them. Of course, most people don't know about this, making it look superficially more like Next Sunday AD.

Time period makes it Next Sunday AD.

In Venus Ascending, the characters apparently entered the space academy right after graduating their modern high school, and by their graduation, the space program has reached Wagon Train To The Stars levels.

Pretty sure these aren't supposed to be the futures of the Venus Envy cast; rather, it's their counterparts in The Future.

Johnny E: Here's some Fridge Logic for ya: Twenty Minutes Into The Future is (more or less) later than Next Sunday AD. Apparently, in TV Tropes Land, it is permanently Five Minutes To Midnight on a Saturday...

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