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Fiction
2099. Strange era. At once the future but somehow... dated.
Rose: Why does he look so disco?
Doctor: Oi! Listen, in the year 5000, this was cutting edge!
Doctor: Oi! Listen, in the year 5000, this was cutting edge!
—On K-9, Doctor Who ("School Reunion")
We are living in the future. I'll tell you how I know
I read it in the paper fifteen years ago
We're all driving in rocket ships and talking with our minds
Wearing turquoise jewelry and standing in soup lines
I read it in the paper fifteen years ago
We're all driving in rocket ships and talking with our minds
Wearing turquoise jewelry and standing in soup lines
— John Prine, "Living In the Future"
Everything is chrome in the future!
— Spongetron, Spongebob Squarepants episode SB-129
The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called, 'Keep tomorrow dark,' and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) 'Cheat the Prophet.' The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. Then they go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.
Any Resemblance To Actual Future Is Purely Coincidental
— Futurama title caption, "Forty Percent Leadbelly"
You will BE AMAZED by the INCREDIBLE FUTURE OF 2009 with its jetpacks, flying cars, domed cities, alien monsters and vast electronic superbrains! Where rocketships TRAVEL TO THE STARS and alluring robot girls cater to YOUR EVERY DESIRE! You will GASP AT INCONCEIVABLE MARVELS like mobile telephones, interstate highways, automatic sliding doors, artificial satellites, and Weapons of Mass Destruction!
— Blurb for Plan 7 of 9 from Outer Space
Captain Janeway (discussing the Captain Proton holodeck adventures): This is how you've been spending your free time?
Tom Paris: Well, I've been studying how past generations viewed the future.
Captain Janeway: And?
Tom Paris: Well, it didn't work out quite as black and white as they imagined.
Tom Paris: Well, I've been studying how past generations viewed the future.
Captain Janeway: And?
Tom Paris: Well, it didn't work out quite as black and white as they imagined.
— Star Trek: Voyager: "Bride of Chaotica!"
"Look at all the great things mankind has achieved on Earth. War, crime, and lawyers have been abolished. Every housewife has an automatic dishwashing robot. Atomic power stations provide safe and efficient energy to billions. Computers are so powerful that only five are needed worldwide. Hunger and famine have been eliminated through the invention of Soylent Green. DDT has wiped out malaria-carrying mosquitoes and those pesky birds that used to crap all over everything. McDonald's franchises can be found everywhere from the Moon to the bottom of the ocean. Why, we were making our first leap into interstellar space by 1990!"
— Captain Proton and the Planet of Lesbians
Elements of the past and the future, combining to make something not quite as good as either.
— The Mighty Boosh, "Eels"
It is the distant future: the year 2000. We are robots. The world is very different ever since the robotic uprising of the late '90s.
— Flight of the Conchords, "Robots"
This outfit represents what the future used to look like.
Hunter: According to Cosmic Frontier, this is what the modern human man wears!
Vee: (checks the back of the book) This was written in the 90's about the year 2008...
Hunter: Yeah! Can't wait for that New Year's party.
Vee: (checks the back of the book) This was written in the 90's about the year 2008...
Hunter: Yeah! Can't wait for that New Year's party.
— The Owl House, "Thanks to Them"
"Forget about your Chrysler! In the future, everyone will have their own helicopter! Even the poor!"
Peanut: You guys from Florida?
George Jetson: No, we're from the future.
Elroy Jetson: Yeah, the 21st century!
George Jetson: The magnificent, far-off year of 2002!
(Harvey looks at his calendar – it's 2004)
Harvey: Really?
—Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, "Back to the Present"
Real Life
”The future looks and sounds so much like the 80's.”
Peter Davison: Look at this! I've invented the iPod! How many years before its time! C'mon, that looks like an iPod, does it not?
Janet Fielding: It looks like a Walkman. Sorry.
Davison: I think there might be a lawsuit pending.
Fielding: (I know where they should've put that sonic screwdriver, I tell you now.)
Janet Fielding: It looks like a Walkman. Sorry.
Davison: I think there might be a lawsuit pending.
Fielding: (I know where they should've put that sonic screwdriver, I tell you now.)
—Doctor Who, "Snakedance" audio commentary
His machines looked like the machines of his time, not the machines of our time. I have no doubt my machines will cause the same hilarity five hundred years from now.
—Frank Herbert in a radio interview, speaking of Jules Verne
Futurology is advertising pretending to be thought.
—Dale Carrico, Amor Mundi.
The future ain't what it used to be.
— Yogi Berra, Meat Loaf, and others
You can tell when a Hollywood historical film was made by looking at the eye makeup of their leading ladies, and you can tell the date of an old science fiction novel by every word on the page. Nothing dates harder and faster and more strangely than the future.
Comic books and space films share the concept that the future will look like the Bauhaus gone berserk, all straight lines and no color.
Cpt. Webb: Log entry: March 16th, 1980...
Crow: Oh, our old future.
Crow: Oh, our old future.
— Mystery Science Theater 3000, "The Phantom Planet"
We live in the most technologically-advanced, prosperous point of human existence thus far. To give you an idea of just how far we've come from previous peak of human potential—which we all know is "I Begin to Wonder"
by Danni Minogue—it's that a 2003 video that at the time was praised for his futuristic vibe looks like an ad for the Lighting Effects Expo of 1989.
by Danni Minogue—it's that a 2003 video that at the time was praised for his futuristic vibe looks like an ad for the Lighting Effects Expo of 1989.Mike: Diahann Carroll sings something.
Jay: And the, um, elderly Wookie is getting off to it.
Mike: In the Virtual Reality Helmet, which is basically a 1960's hair dryer.
Rich: With a blast shield.
Mike: "With the blast shield down, I can't see anything."
Rich: "How am I supposed to jerk off?"
Jay: And the, um, elderly Wookie is getting off to it.
Mike: In the Virtual Reality Helmet, which is basically a 1960's hair dryer.
Rich: With a blast shield.
Mike: "With the blast shield down, I can't see anything."
Rich: "How am I supposed to jerk off?"
It even has rabbit ear antennae coming out of it. I hope SPECTRE is prepared for 2009, when sharks transition to digital.
Back to the wedding scene. Now, I'll tell you what really bothers me: It's them GREEN, PLASTIC DRUM CYMBALS!! Why do they have to have space cymbals? Is it to remind us that we're in The Future? Look, the cymbal goes back to prehistoric times, and you're askin' me to believe that all the way from then up to the last coupla' years they started makin' drum cymbals in transparent green plastic?!
—Harry S. Plinkett reviews Star Trek: Nemesis
What the hell is all this shit? There's metallic sea sponges everywhere, there's titanium rocket jockstraps, headless parrots with bottle caps, floating eyeballs entrapped in glass lids! How is this all happening?
Oh, of course! It's the year 2010!
Oh, of course! It's the year 2010!
— The Angry Video Game Nerd, Street Fighter 2010 review
Nothing says 'yesterday' like something that said 'tomorrow!'
— James Lileks, Interior Desecrators
That's me; both hands on the keyboard, one foot in the Swing Age. If I could afford it, I'd drive a car with tail fins.
— Ben "Gryphon" Hutchins, Gods Willing II: We'll Always Have Boston
