The Twenty-First Century's Yesterday

Comic book author Warren Ellis pointed out something interesting. He's looking forward to next year, because it was the year when the original Blade Runner took place. No, it's not because he's saving up for one of those cool florescent light umbrellas. He points out that it is the last thing in science-fiction. We all lived through 2001 without any monoliths, and went right through 2015 without hoverboards. But next year will be our last future year. I would point out that it's not just Blade Runner: Akira also took place that year. That will be -20 geek points, Mr. Ellis.

Of course, it's not really the last sci-fi future: Buck Rogers is still waiting for us in the twenty-fifth century. And all of Star Trek has yet to happen, even Khan conquering a quarter of the world. That was supposed to happen in the 1990's, and he's really taking his time about it. The point is, when it comes to near-future science-fiction stories, the predictions run out after the first couple of decades of the twenty-first century.

That's not too surprising. Back in the twentieth century, 2000 was pretty much what people thought of when they thought of the future. There wasn't much need for a sci-fi author to set a story any further into the future. That would be like saying that the story took place the day after the future. So now those of us who lived in the twentieth century have to get used to the idea that we're living beyond what was once our future.

(As an aside: I referenced the light-up umbrellas in Blade Runner above, even though I was pretty sure that I remembered seeing that someone was actually selling them. So I looked it up, and found that they were available, but are no longer being sold. So that seals the argument that we are now ahead of the future.)

Ellis thinks that this development will be liberating, because there are no longer any expectations handed to society by our fiction. That's good, because it's always been disappointing when we cross one of these future anniversaries. Above, I referred to how 2015 didn't measure up to the future depicted in Back To The Future II. And to me, the big symbol of disappointment in the future was 2001, which represented incredible discovery as a movie, while the real-life year will always be associated with a shocking act of terror that represented humanity at its worst.

So I'll also look forward to not having it occasionally shoved in my face that the world's future is not as good as I was promised. I'll miss the invitations to nostalgia, but in today's world, that's hardly a problem.