Meek New World
I miss the future that we were supposed to have. In the twenty
first century, among other fabulous promises, we were all going
to fly around in hover cars while wearing silver jump suits with
big shoulders. The last time I looked in my garage my car had
four wheels and never left the ground (well, not on purpose) and
in my closet there is not one shiny silver outfit.
When I was a kid there was a show on called The Twenty First
Century which was sort of a science fiction type genre with
predictions about what the future of the next generation would
look like. I don't recall too much about it, but I remember one
episode where they talked about how everyone would have
computers and how useful they would be - and I just didn't see
it.
I have a lot of fun watching old Science Fiction movies. The one
that I just watched that inspired me to write today was ... one
of the Planet of the Apes movies. I think it was Return to the
Planet of the Apes. The movie opens up with a futuristic
cityscape, like about 1980, with chained monkeys in orange
cover-alls being led by sadistic, fascist overseers (with
whips). They show you a little bit of this, then underneath they
put up the words: "Los Angeles. 1991." Beautiful! Does everybody
remember just fourteen years ago when we had monkey slaves in
California? Whatever happened to them?
Among other things that were supposed to happen in the 1990s, we
had the launch of the Robinson family in Lost in Space, the
launch of Khan's renegade ship after the Third World War (the
Eugenics War), and the moon being launched out of orbit in Space
1999. Also, Atlantis was finally supposed to rise from the sea
and the Antichrist was supposed to come to power and launch
Armageddon. And the world was scheduled to end by any other
number of doom-sayers.
An earlier and better example of the future that never wasn't is
the novel1984. It's pretty dated now, but the novel was written
by George Orwell in 1948 and was about a dystopian future under
a totalitarian system much like we believed Communism was at the
time. When the year 1984 did come, all the news magazines and TV
shows went nuts with articles and shows about how close we
really were to 1984. Not really. There were some handy
comparisons between the technology that Orwell speculated about
and emerging technology for keeping track of other humans. But
that was about it. In America. Elsewhere in the world in more
totalitarian countries the comparisons were closer.
When I was a kid I used to love Star Trek, the original Star
Trek. God, when I watch it now, though, I almost want to cringe.
For one thing, the special effects are so dated. It was cutting
edge back then, I know, but these days even crappy Sci Fi can do
so much better. And then its almost hilarious how little they
imagined for the future. I keep thinking about their picture
phones, each with a huge cathode ray tube in back.
Perhaps my favorite episode for silliness is Spock's Brain,
which is a rather infamous one with fans - they don't like it -
but I find it hilarious. In Spock's Brain, Spock's Brain is
stolen, and the crew of the Enterprise (their space ship) track
it down to a planet where women rule everything. These women
dress in mini-skirts, go-go boots, bouffant hair-dos and long
fake eye-lashes.
Yes. If women could run their own planet this is exactly how
they would dress.
Now, I started out originally with Planet of the Apes and I'm a
fan. Not of the sequels but of the original. Charlton Heston
really did some ofhis finest acting in that movie and I still
have some lines memorized word for word. ie, "Take your stinking
paws off of me, you damned, dirty ape!""It's a madhouse! A
madhouse!" and "You maniacs! You finally did it. You blew it up.
You blew it all up. Ahhh, damn you! Damn you all to Hell!" That
last line is delivered in the shadow of the ruins of the
statueof Liberty and sent a chill up my spine when I first saw
it, but it's still there as is most of the world which was
supposed to have ended already.