Current Events > It is funny how optimistic old sci-fi is about space travel.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Just started Event Horizon from 1997.

2015 - Got a colony on the moon

2032 - We be mining Mars.

Makes you wonder if the experts lead them astray or they just throwing darts at a board.

Well it's scifi...of course it's going to be liberal about the limits of science

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Funny you should bring this up. Was watching Captain Harlock last night and its set in the 2970s. Better way to do it since even if it doesnt happen none of us will be here to say otherwise.

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Setting it in the year 3000 probably feels too foreign. So they tend to go for near future settings.

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electricbugs2 posted...

Funny you should bring this up. Was watching Captain Harlock last night and its set in the 2970s. Better way to do it since even if it doesnt happen none of us will be here to say otherwise.

Correct.

Lol they be using CD-ROMs

That was always something I noticed about that movie especially... We'll have gravitational jump drives off Neptune by like 2030-2035. We'll be lucky to reach mars by then at this rate.

The other thing I disliked was how much was meddled with and cut due to the studio and test screenings. Still absolutely love the premise and ship design.

PrideOfLion posted...

I grew up watching Star Trek and that always bothered me. Telling us there was a war between genetically engineered individuals and the rest of us in the 2000s, even when VOY retconned it to being underground fighting behind-the-scenes it still seemed dumb

At least they don't use CD-ROMs and have advanced 3D printers and stuff.

Darmik posted...

Setting it in the year 3000 probably feels too foreign. So they tend to go for near future settings.

Futurama would like a word with you

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Lmao, the guy who directed this is going to direct Monster Hunter adaptation and he made the Resident Evil movies.

Then there's Forbidden Planet, which drastically underestimated our space travel potential. A movie made in 1956 stated that we wouldn't land on the moon until the "final decade of the 21st century," which means roughly 2090.

Though, they were more progressive than one might expect, because in Forbidden Planet lore, men and women went to the moon together.

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darkphoenix181 posted...

Lmao, the guy who directed this is going to direct Monster Hunter adaptation and he made the Resident Evil movies.

In his defense they had to alter the ending and some other bits because people wanted a more happy result... ya know, because a ship that essentially passed into a hell demension should be happy. They also had to heavily cut the spooky bits down, think it had like 20-30 mins of terror removed iirc.

What happens when the studio and small audience samples muck with the director's vision. It's still got flaws, but I'd have rather seen the proper one compared to the slightly cornier one we got.

darkphoenix181 posted...

Just started Event Horizon from 1997.

2015 - Got a colony on the moon

2032 - We be mining Mars.

Makes you wonder if the experts lead them astray or they just throwing darts at a board.

tbh, he could be doing both of those if we didnt fight two stupid wars and spend most of our money on defense
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Purple_Cheetah posted...

In his defense they had to alter the ending and some other bits because people wanted a more happy result... ya know, because a ship that essentially passed into a hell demension should be happy. They also had to heavily cut the spooky bits down, think it had like 20-30 mins of terror removed iirc.

What happens when the studio and small audience samples muck with the director's vision. It's still got flaws, but I'd have rather seen the proper one compared to the slightly cornier one we got.

How you know all this?
Big fan of this movie?

That's your example?
There are 50s movies that insisted we'd be on Mars by 1980

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darkphoenix181 posted...

How you know all this?
Big fan of this movie?

I dug into it a time or two. There was so much more of the 'hell' footage, but it was removed for being too graphic/scary and instead had to be reduced heavily. It also can't be restored because the film was stored in salt mines and got too damaged. They also changed the ending once or twice and lots of the scary bits, because audiences couldn't take scary or not so happy ends. It basically had a botched development because too many people wanted to change it around, which resulted in a still spooky movie that's mediocre. But hey, it's all bout the money and happier end.

Little shop of horrors from 1986 also got its ending completely flipped because of test audiences for a similiar reason.

So yeah, there was a time I sorta delved into Event Horizon, mostly due to the premise and what we did get. Makes me sad it could have been more, instead it got mucked with.

Mr Hangman posted...

Almost all sci-fi is guilty of this. Dune is one of the rare exceptions, set ~24,000 years out.

humorously, it's mostly the "realistic" sci-fi that uses the near future settings...

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TVtropes calls this "Next Sunday AD", a reference to the MST3K theme

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Oh but sure let's set today's galactic- scale scifi like 120 years into the future lol

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