Exploring the Most Mind-bending Movies Featuring Future Technology

by Kevin Faber

The science fiction genre has a rich history of presenting audiences with technologies that won't exist in reality until many years after the stories themselves were created. It's easy to imagine something like the sick sticks that the police use in Minority Report or retina scanners in shopping malls that create custom advertising holograms that are unique to the owner of the eyes.

From the mobile phones and instant translators of Star Trek to Luke's bionic limb in Star Wars, the ultra-cool imagined technologies seem to be seeds that then grow through the minds of the future inventors, bringing make-believe technology into the physical world. 

Just like filmmakers use their films to project universal fears and hopes for the future, they also project new tools by which that future can happen and that will exist in that future. Even if there was no low code software in the floating motorcycles that were ridden in Return of the Jedi, by 2017, Aero-X hover bikes were realized and by 2035, they might be more common than cars.

Hollywood wants people to fall into escapism by showing future scenarios that are full of unheard-of  gadgets and contrivances. Check out these mind-bending movies that cast their cinematic crystal balls on the future of technology.

Minority Report

This movie is set in the year 2054, in a bleak and high-tech future. The technology is such a focus of this film that it might as well be another character. Every scene seems to boast things that viewers have never seen before and those things seem to be the perfect tools for the given situation.

The movie centers around the concept of crime prediction software, which serves to stop crimes before they are committed. This Orwellian conundrum really puts the question of government overreach versus the greater good into focus. It asks viewers to choose: do you want to be safe or do you want your privacy? In reality, there can be little doubt that covert government agencies are currently working on incorporating such ideas into police work. 

The sick sticks that the police use are notable for their sleek and powerful abilities. Any viewer that's seen stories of police brutality or considers how dangerous it must be to be part of the blue wall can look at sick sticks, which are batons that make a person vomit immediately upon contact, and speculate on the effects that such an efficient and non-lethal weapon could have in the field.

Iron Man

In the Iron Man franchise, Tony Stark is the genius inventor whose creatively brilliant mind is seemingly boundless. Among all of the gadgets at play in the movies (consider an Iron Man suit that is able to put itself on the wearer, even if the wearer is moving), J.A.R.V.I.S. stands out. 

J.A.R.V.I.S. is Stark's computing system and personal assistant. It must have AI and machine-learning capabilities because it can access its massive data collection to answer any question in seconds. Its user interface and holographic peripherals dominate the room and can be manipulated by touch.

This virtual workspace reacts to Stark's voice the way that Siri and Alexa react to folks here in reality. Elon Musk has tried to replicate Iron Man's J.A.R.V.I.S., using things like a Leap Motion controller, Oculus Rift and a projector. He and other inventors are trying to make computer screens non-existent, replaced by a portal that you can reach into to manipulate digital objects. 

Hollywood will continue to make movies that show versions of the future. These visions will include physical manifestations of ideas that haven't yet been created but that possibly will in the future. Indeed, the mind-bending science fiction scenarios of the big screen often pave the way for inventors to invent the tools of tomorrow.