In 1988, the same year as the “Back to the Future Part II” release, Japan had a GDP growth rate close to 7%, and if it had continued under that rate, would have surpassed America as the leading world superpower sometime close to the turn of the millenia. Of course, history shows that they did not. Japan suffered a stagnant economy in the ’90s after the bubble broke, and meanwhile the U.S. had a giant growth spurt with tech companies taking hold, thus never giving us the predicted McFly timeline. “Blade Runner,” the better films of the ’80s, had the same hypothesis. The opening shot through the smokestacks of 2019 Los Angeles reveals a Japanese lady as the face of Coca-Cola.
Movies’ attempts to predict the future are always peaches-and-cream to examine, especially in retrospect knowing whether they failed or not. The reasoning behind it being so fun is that one has to try and understand the context or knowledge the writer had when making the prediction. Sometimes, they score: Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” (my beloved) predicted video-calling, though not by much. Douglas Engelbart premiered video-calling at Stanford later that same year, but who outside of those interested in computer science knows about The Mother of All Demos?
The Mayans sure didn’t score. Dec. 21, 2012 came and went, but the end of their calendar gave us “2012,” a bombastic, over-run film, guilty of over-acting — which is surprising considering that it’s depicting the end of the world. While one cannot confirm if the Mayans meant the end of the world would mean an oil tanker would fly into the White House, this may be the case. Why not? It plays into fears of the time, and with the recession going, I’m sure it wasn’t a moment too soon. Fun fact about “2012”: If you look up the movie on Google, the “People Also Ask” top question is “Is 2012 based on a true story?” Apparently, it isn’t.
Though I was young at the time, I still recall many people actually being shaken up about the end of the world coming in 2012. Playing into these little anxieties is a way of boosting the box office, while also depicting contemporary worries people had. And what genre does that better than horror? In their own way, horror movies try to capture the things people predict are going to result in catastrophe, always more than one usually should. “Afraid” (2024) is like if Amazon Alexa could kill you, but one could argue Disney did it first with “Smart House” (1999). If anyone is scared that their Alexa will kill them, or of bad movies, then avoid “Afraid” and watch “Smart House” instead. And if you think AI models are going to become SkyNet, then maybe you should stop overloading your washing machines.
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