Days of Future Past: Has Science Fiction become Science Fact?

If by some miracle a prophet could describe the future exactly as it was going to take place, his predictions would sound so absurd, so far-fetched that everyone would laugh him to scorn. The only thing we can be sure of about the future, is that it will be absolutely fantastic" 

      - Arthur C. Clarke, World's Fair, New York, 1964

It all started with one simple question: “Why don’t we have hoverboards yet?”
It was January 2015 and film journalists were already preparing their articles ahead of the 5th October 2015. The date that Marty McFly and Doc Brown travel to the future in 1988’s Back To The Future Part II.
Science Fiction films were previously the work of fantasy. Writers and filmmakers creating a vision of the future that they imagined *could* potentially come true but never really thought they would be held accountable for.

"Science fiction was an expression of 20th century man's hopes, dreams and aspirations. A heavy percentage of science fiction is merely rubbish. Big eyed monsters, space battles or something of that nature. However science fiction has one thing in its favour, that even a story that from a literary standpoint is complete trash may prove very prophetic"

While the science fiction films of the past have earned their place in history, the clock has kept ticking and time has begun to catch up with these works of fiction, whether they are novels, television shows or films.

Outside of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Terminator 2 Judgement Day, Back To The Future Part II was the first science fiction film to have a set date that people could finally analyse and compare fact to science fiction.
It presented a vision of the future that featured flying cars, self-tying laces and the release of Jaws 19. To be fair, they got the resurgence of 3D correct. They were also a year out with the Chicago Cubs World Series Win but we’ll let them off because they weirdly kindly of predicted the rise of Trump.

The year is now 2019 and we have reached a time when science fiction is becoming a reality.
The science fiction films of our past are becoming the present. The year 2019 is the setting for films such as Daybreakers, The Road, The Island, Akira and one of the most influential films of all-time, Blade Runner.

What, if anything, did they get right about the future? And what can they teach us about technology, science, health and politics?
Arthur C. Clarke said "One mark of a first rate scientist is an interest in science fiction and conversely, the mark of a second rate scientist is a lack of interest in science fiction."
Where films got their predictions correct, was it because scientists were inspired by the technology seen in the movies? A sort of self-fulfilling prophecy so to speak?

Over the course of 2019, I will examine in detail a series of science fiction films to determine how prophetic they actually were.

The criteria for selection was they had to be set in a specific time period in history or the near future i.e. 2001, 2019, 2032, etc.

Also the films must have been released at least ten years prior to their setting to allow for a reasonable period of time for their predictions to take effect (sorry Geostorm, set in 2019 but released in 2017).

The films that will be analysed are as follows (in chronological order of setting):

1. 1984
2. Escape From New York
3. Death Race 2000
4. 2001 A Space Odyssey
5. Timecop
6. Back To The Future Part II
7. Barb Wire
8. V For Vendetta
9. Rollerball
10. Akira
11. Daybreakers
12. The Island
13. The Road
14. The Running Man
15. Blade Runner
16. Johnny Mnemonic
17. The Purge
18. Soylent Green
19. Her
20. Metropolis
21. Children of Men
22. Snowpiercer
23. Moon
24. Demolition Man
25. Twelve Monkeys

Secret Cinema : Blade Runner The Final Cut

"It's too bad she won't live. But then again who does?"

This past weekend I had the opportunity to truly discover what it was like to live within my all-time favourite film Blade Runner: The Final Cut thanks to Secret Cinema.

For those in on the secret, Secret Cinema have been THE company when it comes to Event Cinema, providing immersive, interactive experiences relating to a film that is screened at the end of the night. When it first began in 2007, it really was a secret in that the audience did not know what they were going to see until they got to the event.

It has grown and grown over the years to the point now where the film selections and productions have become so big that the "secret" is out in order to guarantee ticket sales and buy-in from the customers e.g. Back To The Future and The Empire Strikes Back.

But with an inflated price tag of £45-£115, equivalent to a concert or West End show, come inflated expectations.

Having signed up for a new life that was awaiting me on the off-world colony of Utopia, I, Henry Carradine, arrived at World Terminus with a group of my scavenger/dreamer friends to begin our journey. Albeit scavengers who had scavenged costumes off people who looked suspiciously like Rick Deckard and a cosmic Katy Perry.
Sadly the LAPD deemed us not worthy of travel and revoked our identity papers and placed us in a holding pen to watch the rich and powerful breeze by to their new lives.
It was within this pen that we learned of the resistance, a group sick of this world and the injustices they endured. But no longer. For tonight, they would execute Operation Blackout which would reset the clock and level the playing field for everyone.
If the blackout sounds familiar, the writers of Secret Cinema have cleverly tied in to the events that lead into Blade Runner 2049 with a blackout that erased all digital records allowing replicants to disappear without a trace and remove barriers of wealth and class to the rest.
I won't go into the plot too much further but once we were smuggled inside we were given missions and had the opportunity to interact with characters that many would recognise from the original film.
Other guests with different character types (detectives, entertainment models, replicants, etc) all had different mini-missions and there was the immediate temptation to return to try another story thread.
But don't worry if getting into character isn't really your thing or you reach a dead end because you are unable to locate Zhora within The Snake Pit and are refused entry to the dressing room area even when you claim to be from the Committee of Moral Abuses!
For there is so much to see and explore that you won't even care. You will be too busy trying to reattach your dropped jaw to the roof of your mouth.
The level of detail in the recreation of 2019 Los Angeles is simply astonishing. I spent the first twenty minutes just trying to take it all in. There is the noodle bar; check out the digital ad screens for Coca-Cola and Pan-Am; woah, was that Rachel that just walked past?; I wonder if I could buy an artificial owl from Abdul Ben Hassan?
The organisers (L.A.P.D. officers) make you seal your phone in a bag prior to entering the world so you are unable to take photos and share/spoil the experience for others. Part of you will wish that you could capture the memories forever (like Leon and his precious photos) but there is something refreshing about not being on your phone the whole time and being able to absorb and savour every little detail.
I had previously attended the Star Wars event but the quality of the acting and commitment to the characters from all the actors (and guests) was out of this world for Blade Runner and added to the whole experience.
Having gotten a tip from a Replicant singer, we made our way to The Snake Pit where the storyline reached its climax in a thrilling way which was completely in keeping with the universe.
Following that, there was just enough time to order some noodles before taking our seats for the main feature.
With so much energy and focus put into creating this interactive world, it is always a risk that the projection of the film may not be up to the same level. Especially as you are watching it in a converted warehouse and not a cinema auditorium.
However the projection is excellent both in terms of picture and audio. The only problem is that due to audiences enjoying the bars and food stalls for two hours previously, many of them need to visit the bathroom so there is a lot of movement but nothing that will ruin one's enjoyment.
I mentioned previously that Blade Runner is my favourite film of all-time and one of the reasons I love it so much is that I seem to notice something knew every time I see it.
This time it was just how childlike Roy Batty is at some moments, in keeping with the fact that his mind is really only four years old and testament to Hauer's performance.
The other reason is that every time I genuinely change my opinion on the central question of the film; Is Deckard a Replicant?
This time? I would say that he is human. My reasoning this time? Replicants are unable to empathise. This is the reason that they fail the Voight-Kampff test. In the film, Deckard gets very emotional every time that he "retires" a replicant. This leads me to think that he is human and Roy saves him at the end to save his humanity which he has rediscovered through Rachel.
Am I right? Ah, we will never know and part of me loves that mystery. Sorry Ridley.
Without a doubt, this is the greatest and most immersive event that Secret Cinema have put on and I applaud them for that. "You've done a man's job sir". It will be hard for them to top it but I look forward to seeing them try.
Philip K. Dick asked the question, "Do androids dream of electric sheep?". I don't know about androids but I know I will dream of my night in Los Angeles 2019 and unicorns for many a night to come.
So to sum up and paraphrase Batty's final speech...
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. I've watched a sea of people dancing under umbrellas in the Los Angeles acid rain. I watched Roy Batty take down a squad of Blade Runners without breaking a sweat. Without being able to take photos at Secret Cinema, all these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain..."

5 stars

Secret Cinema presents Blade Runner The Final Cut runs till 8th July and you can get tickets here.

Top 5 Tips

1) Bring your umbrella - You will get wet!
2) Take old photographs - Old memories are essential for bartering for information or entrance to secret areas
3) Don't bring cash - all bars and food stalls take contactless payment. Even if that means you will end up spending more than you planned!
4) Do dress up according to your character - Don't come straight from work in your normal outifit. You will get picked on by the actors as my friend discovered.
5) Once the film is over, make your way to The Snake Pit where you can dance the night away with replicants and blade runners side-by-side. Even if the music selection is not in keeping with the 2019 setting i.e. Beyonce, Outhere Brothers, etc.

Mute (Netflix Originals) - review

When Duncan Jones finally announced that Mute would arrive on Netflix in February, it ended the wait for his spiritual follow up to his debut Moon, one that began back in 2009 and at one point could have become a graphic novel until Netflix came along to allow Jones the opportunity to make the film he had always wanted to make, in the way he wanted to make it.
With the announcement, Jones debuted a poster he had commissioned for himself (above) that evokes the style of a '40s style pulp fiction novel or Warner Bros film noir.
Film Noir is a genre synonymous with men in sharp suits and fedoras, femme fatales, murder, betrayal, mystery and lots and lots of drinking. It might conjure images of black and white but the characters are anything but. Living in a world of more than fifty shades of grey.
But the hard boiled genre that has been transported successfully into other genres throughout the years including high school (Brick), stoner comedy (The Big Lebowski) and science fiction (Blade Runner).
Wearing its admiration for Ridley Scott's seminal film on its sleeve, writer-director Duncan Jones has created a futuristic Berlin that aesthetically feels like it could live in the same universe. Albeit one where Lunar Industries had taken over the Tyrell Corporation instead of Wallace Industries.
The greater influence is that of Casablanca. Just like the classic film, the city exists as a holding pen for the lost and. Those waiting and looking for a way out.

One such soul is Leo (Alexander Sarsgaard), a bartender who is mute due to a childhood accident which went without treatment due to his Amish upbringing. Leo's potential escape takes the form of cocktail waitress Naadirah, a woman who seems to love him for who he is but she has secrets. As all great femme fatale do.

The catalyst for the story is her disappearance which forces Leo to interact with a technological world that he does not understand in order to try and discover her whereabouts and reason for her absence. His inability to interact with technology hampers his search and unable to simply "turn it off and on again", he must resort to blunt (and brutal) force to get answers the old fashioned way.

This ultimately sets him on a collision course with two mysterious characters called Cactus Bill and Duck (played by Paul Rudd and Justin Theroux), a couple of Americans working in the city as doctors and surgeons for the criminal underworld; styled after "Hawkeye" and "Trapper John" in M*A*S*H.
At first, it seems that they are two very different cases. Leo is searching for a girl. Cactus Bill for a couple of permits so he can return to the US with his daughter (just like Viktor and Isla in Casablanca). But as with all great film noirs, the two plot lines eventually converge into a shocking final act.
Mute is like a blend of two Harrison Ford films as Witness meets Blade Runner.
Blade Runner was the film that coined the term Tech Noir, a futuristic blend of the new and old technologies and styles. While it is admirable that Jones has given his character the technological adverseness of an Amish upbringing, to provide more obstacles for our hero there is not enough made of this in the first act to justify his reluctance later on down the line.
In the opening prologue, he has the opportunity to have surgery to fix his vocal cords by this is refused by his Amish parents. Skip forward twenty years and he is living alone in Berlin, surrounded by technology but still remains strict Amish. Why did he move to the city and away from his family but keep his beliefs?
This leads to a situation where the more interesting characters are Cactus Bill & Duck and anytime they are not on screen, you find yourself wanting to go back to them.
One wonders that with a couple of tweaks, the film could have featured Bill as the lead character trying to find a way home for himself and his daughter only to find his plans upended by a vengeful mute bartender.
It could have worked as the prickly customer Cactus Bill is a tour-de-force performance from Paul Rudd, showcasing a side to him that has never been on screen before... along with some epic moustache work.
Rudd has great chemistry with his partner-in-crime Theroux and they spark off each other brilliantly, calling each other "babe" which leaves it open to the audience as to whether they are just two friends and comrades who have served together in war, or if it does hint at something more beneath the surface.
Both actors cope admirably as some startling facts about their pasts are revealed, shocking each other and the audience in equal measure, proving these are not mere carbon copy noir stereotypes.
Speaking of carbon copies, Mute does deliver on Duncan Jones's promise that it would provide some answers to the resolution of Sam Bell's character in Moon. In this Berlin, Lunar Industries is still a major corporation in the world, providing energy, fuel and food products for society. It also seems, if the brief TV news footage is to be believed, is that is tied up in court proceedings as multiple Sam Bells fight for their freedom and rights. There are also "Free the 158" posters dotted around the city adding to the wonderful production design of the film that manages to subtly blend the old and new together with some nice touches such as the Flymeal system that uses drones to deliver takeaway meals to your phone's location.
Unlike a Flymeal that would be delivered in 15-30 minutes, the wait for Mute for both director and audience has been much longer and therefore expectations were incredibly high.
Jones himself has said prior to release that this would be his Marmite film, producing a number of "love it" or "hate it" reactions.
This has certainly been the case since it's debut on Netflix on Friday. Critics reviews have been so savage, this reviewer can't remember this many people lining up to tear something down since the fall of the Berlin wall!
Surely a film that inspires extreme reactions, be that intense acclaim or loathing, is better for cinema than a mediocre film that barely produces a "meh" response.
Mute is far from perfect but Jones wears his heart and references on his sleeve (including an inspired appearance of Chesney Hawkes's The One And Only).
While it doesn't completely work, there is still a lot to admire including a Rudd-y marvellous performance, Clint Mansell's score and some gorgeous production design.

Unlike Leo, one can shout about the positives and as for the negatives, as Ronan Keating would put it "you say it best, when you say nothing at all".

4 stars