History Main / FailedFutureForecast

* [[Series/TheColbertReport Stephen Colbert]] insists the Cold War is ''still going on'', and has periodic Cold War Updates whenever anything newsworthy happens in Russia.

* ''Film/TheManWhoSawTomorrow'', a 1981 SpeculativeDocumentary about UsefulNotes/{{Nostradamus}}, has become an amusing example of this trope. [[BlatantLies Apparently, we're in the late stages of World War III right now, New York City is a radioactive crater, Ted Kennedy was the Democratic presidential candidate a while back,]] and [[MissedHimByThatMuch Loma Prieta's Quake of '89 happened in '88.]] {{This Is the Part Where}} we explain that Nostradamus typically made his predictions so vague as to be interpretable six ways from Sunday in a successful bid to stay off the ChurchPolice's radar.

This is a particularly OmnipresentTrope in [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture near-future]] SpeculativeFiction, since the readers (and author) are usually still around when the prediction fails. If the creator is still alive they may even offer an official explanation. The fact that the prediction isn't true may be HilariousInHindsight or HarsherInHindsight. See also TimeMarchesOn, which tends more towards reactions of current audiences (e.g. a work becomes unreadable due to ValuesDissonance).

** In one that crosses with HarsherInHindsight, "Queen Diana visits Washington". Not only did Princess Diana leave the royal family through a divorce and then die tragically long before, in 1997, but UsefulNotes/ElizabethII was still reigning in 2015 and all the way until her own death in 2022. [[EpilepticTrees Maybe the two swapped fates?]] On October 21, 2015, the real-life ''USA Today'' [[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/10/22/back-to-the-future-newspaper-success/74418826/ issued a special edition]] replicating the front page from the movie, but omitting the Queen Diana headline.
** As shown above, the newspaper that mentions "Queen Diana" also suggests a female president. If it's referring to the President of the United States, that still hasn't happened (as of the 2020 election).[[note]]A female ''Vice'' President of the United States has happened though.[[/note]]

** Played straight with the book's central premise, though. As of 2014, the Dodgers are still in Los Angeles.

** Zig-zagged during [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS11E17BartToTheFuture "Bart to the Future"]], a glimpse into Lisa Simpson's adulthood set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, Lenny offhandedly references the idea of Chaz Bono taking up a career in politics like his father, Music/SonnyBono, when in reality, he ended up becoming an actor. The episode also refers to the younger Bono by his deadname, as he didn't come out as a trans man until nine years after its premiere. Also, there's an infamous line about a UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump presidency in the distant future. At the time, Trump was seeking the Reform Party's candidacy for president during the 2000 presidential election, but by the time the episode aired, Trump already ended his campaign. However, he ended up winning the 2016 presidential election as the Republican Party's candidate.

*** The beginning of "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E12TheRoyale The Royale]]" has Picard musing about UsefulNotes/FermatsLastTheorem, pointing to humanity's continued failure to solve the problem despite being centuries more technologically advanced than its creator as a lesson in humility. He must have missed that it had actually been solved as early as 1995. This would eventually get referenced in the ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E25Facets Facets]]", when Dax says one of her previous hosts had the best approach to proving it since Andrew Wiles, presumably one relying only on techniques made before Fermat stated the theorem.[[note]]Fermat's Last Theorem was first stated as a note in the margin of a book he owned, which also stated he had developed a proof but would be unable to fit it on the page. Wiles's proof relied on mathematical techniques developed after Fermat's death, meaning it's not the one Fermat would have been talking about. As of 2024, Fermat's own proof, if it was correct, remains unknown.[[/note]]

*** The beginning of "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E12TheRoyale The Royale]]" has Picard musing about UsefulNotes/FermatsLastTheorem, pointing to humanity's continued failure to solve the problem despite being centuries more technologically advanced than its creator as a lesson in humility. He must have missed that it had actually been solved as early as 1995. This would eventually get referenced in the ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS03E25Facets Facets]]", when Dax says one of her previous hosts had the best approach to proving it since Andrew Wiles.

* Zig-zagged on ''WesternAnimation/{{Freakazoid}}'': When Freakazoid goes back in time and averts World War II, he returns to the present [[ButterflyOfDoom and sees things have changed]]: Creator/SharonStone can act, Radio/RushLimbaugh is a bleeding-heart liberal, and thumbing through a newspaper: "Cold fusion works... Euro Disney packed... No more Creator/ChevyChase movies!" There’s just one catch to all of this: Now [[WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain The Brain]] is President.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Zig-zagged during [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS11E17BartToTheFuture "Bart to the Future"]], a glimpse into Lisa Simpson's adulthood set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, Lenny offhandedly references the idea of Chaz Bono taking up a career in politics like his father, Music/SonnyBono, when in reality, he ended up becoming an actor. The episode also refers to the younger Bono by his deadname, as he didn't come out as a trans man until nine years after its premiere. Also, there's an infamous line about a UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump presidency in the distant future. At the time, Trump was seeking the Reform Party's candidacy for president during the 2000 presidential election, but by the time the episode aired, Trump already ended his campaign. However, he ended up winning the 2016 presidential election as the Republican Party's candidate.

* A major plot point in ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney'' is the StatuteOfLimitations on an old murder case being almost up. Despite what most players would assume, at the time of the game's original release, Japan [[AluminumChristmasTrees really did have a Statute of Limitations on murder]]. However, [[http://www.loc.gov/law/foreign-news/article/japan-statute-of-limitations-for-murder-abolished/ it would be abolished in 2010]], with the abolition applying to all murders that were still active under the prior Statute. As such, since the game takes place in 2016, the entire idea that those who plotted against Edgeworth were "running out of time to get revenge" no longer makes sense.