7 August 2013

Birthdays
Cirroc Lofton b. 1978 (Deep Space Nine)
Charlize Theron b. 1975 (Hancock, Aeon Flux, Prometheus)
Michael Shannon b. 1974 (Man of Steel)
Harold Perrineau b. 1963 (Lost)
David Duchovny b. 1960 (The X-Files)
Paul Dini b. 1957 (writer, Justice League)
Wayne Knight b. 1955 (Jurassic Park)

A whole lotta birthdays today. If anyone has complaints about my choice of who gets the Picture Slot, I have set up a suggestion box on the far side of the moon.

Movie released
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra released, 2009  

In the year 2000!

Prediction: The new age will be a clean age. A lady of the year 2000 who could be miraculously transported back to London at the present moment would probably faint (they will not have ceased fainting) at the intolerable disgustingness of what is, I suppose, now one of the cleanest cities in the world…

Predictor: T. Baron Russell, A Hundred Years Hence (The Expectations of an Optimist), published 1905

Reality: Here's another hit from our new pal from a century ago. Looking online, the estimates of horses in 1900 in the two major English speaking cities were 300,000 in London and 200,000 in New York City. Checking several online estimates of the amount of manure and urine the average horse produces, that would mean thousands of tons of manure and a half million gallons of urine on the streets.

Produced every day.

If Russell gets docked any points, we should note that women don't faint like they used to. That tendency had much more to do with the popularity of corsets than it did with the innate weakness of the gender that gives birth.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

While H.G. Wells was around at the turn of the 20th Century, most of the predictions used here, including the one we will see tomorrow, are from his 1933 book The Shape of Things to Come.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

6 August 2013

Birthdays
Vera Farmiga b. 1973 (Source Code, The Conjuring)
Paolo Bacigalupi b. 1972 (won 2010 Hugo and Nebula for The Windup Girl)
M Night Shyamalan b. 1970 (The Sixth Sense, Signs, The Village, Unbreakable, etc.)
Catherine Hicks b. 1951 (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)

Using the Cute Girl = Picture Slot formula again today, though both Ms. Farmiga and Ms. Hicks have successful careers that are better known for their work outside of sci-fi and fantasy. I chose Ms. Hicks over Ms. Farmiga because Star Trek IV is my favorite film in the series.

Many happy returns of the day to all concerned.

 

Prediction: First orbital passenger vessel is launched in 2011

Predictor: World of Ptavvs, Larry Niven, published 1966

Reality: Yet again, a prediction about the future of space travel from the era just before the first moon landing, the most optimistic time for sci-fi writers keen on manned missions.

Space tourism is still a long time off. If you've read about life in the space station, months without gravity is not the happy romp we all had hoped for. Several sci-fi writers realized zero gravity toilets would be a serious difficulty and likewise vomiting when in a space suit, but I can't recall any who thought about how bad dead skin cells would be.

 Blogger's note: This is the last Larry Niven for a while. I had done some research in his works for dates within the scope of this blog and found a few, but his gleeful prediction about the destruction of Mecca before 2025 has put him firmly in the "scumbag" category and I'd rather not see his face anymore.  There are still a bunch of Heinlein predictions and he'll be back next Tuesday.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

We hear for the second time from our new Turn of the Century guy (19th to 20th, that is), T. Baron Russell.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

5 August 2013

Birthdays
Alan Howard b. 1937
Mars Curiosity landed 2012

Mr. Howard has had a long career on stage and screen in Britain, and his one important role in a sci-fi or fantasy film is as the voice of the One Ring in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I've always loved trivia like this, such as Clive Revill being the voice of the emperor in The Empire Strikes Back before the role was taken over by Ian McDiarmid.

Many happy returns of the day to Mr. Howard.

Regular readers will know I make fun of sci-fi at least as often as I commend it, but it was one year ago today that Curiosity landed on Mars and began to send back data. This is a lot of amazing technical achievements rolled into one small package and I inaugurate a new label "real science fiction". Congratulations to all the people who made this happen. This is what the future was supposed to look like.
  

Movie released
Rise of the Planet of the Apes released 2011

Prediction: "Still far from practical realization, the apparatus combines a portable television transmitter with a push button telephone. When the receiver is lifted, the image of the person making the call flashes on the screen. Fantastic as it may appear today, engineers believe that television telephones may become commonplace with a generation."

Predictor: Popular Mechanics in 1940, one of the many from the book The Future That Never Was, available on Amazon.

Reality: As you can see in the picture, they count this prediction as true because by 1960, TV phone technology worked, though they admit TV phones cannot be called commonplace even today.

Modern readers will also note two other unrealistic details. The woman is holding a receiver and she isn't naked.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

We get the last prediction from Larry Niven. It's about space, it's wrong and it's more than a little boring, one of the main reasons he is being given the heave ho.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!  

4 August 2013

Birthdays
Andy Hallett b. 1975 died 29 March 2009 (Angel)
Daniel Dae Kim b. 1968 (Lost, Star Trek, Angel, Spider-Man 2, Hulk, Crusade (Babylon 5 spinoff))

Mr. Kim's career has a lot of work in genre TV and film, but I gave Andy Hallett the Picture Slot because I liked the character of Lorne better and I was very sad when he died four years ago.

Many happy returns to Mr. Kim.

Movies released
Terminator 2, 1991

Prediction: On August 4,1997 Skynet is launched.

Predictor: Terminator 2, released 1991

Reality: This is not the first film to predict everything would go to hell exactly six years after the movie's release date. We will get another such prediction later this month from a movie made in the 1960s.

As I look at science fiction from the past, whether it's on the page or on the screen, the predictions about computers are clumsy. Before 1973 and the development of the the microprocessor, very few writers get the idea of how small computers will be or how useful in everyday life. Though I mock him mercilessly, Heinlein deserves a lot of credit for his 1950 prediction for small portable phones by 2000. He didn't know the guts of the things would be computers, but I won't quibble about that. Arthur C. Clarke predicted HAL in the late 1960s, but HAL was still an enormous object. After 1973, a lot of the predictions about computers are clumsy in the other direction, assuming artificial intelligence or virtual reality would happen a lot sooner than they have.

Blogger's note: The date from the original Terminator of the year the solider and the cyborg are being sent back is 2029, so that date is a little too far in the future for the purposes of this blog. 2020 is my forward limit, 2025 maybe if the prediction is really good.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Another prediction from the pages of Popular Mechanics.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
 

3 August 2013

 Birthdays
Evangeline Lilly b. 1979 (Lost)
Martin Sheen b. 1940 (Amazing Spider-Man, Babylon 5, Spawn, The Dead Zone)
Clifford D. Simak b. 1904 died 4/25/1988 (won 1964 Hugo for Here Gather the Stars)

I got into Lost late and I left early. I watched several seasons on DVD courtesy of Netflix and gave up when I got the distinct impression it was being made up on the fly. (Score one for me.) But for all that, Evangeline Lilly is really cute and I would have to be an idiot to give the picture slot to anyone else. Martin Sheen has been in genre films and TV shows, but the best known work in his long successful career is in non sci-fi.

Movies released
Total Recall (remake) released, 2012

Songs of the Future!

Prediction:
 Look to the summer of seventy-five 
All the world is gonna come alive

Predictor: Ride the Tiger by Jefferson Starship, 1974

Reality: The lyrics are heavy handed racial stereotypes with a prediction of Asian domination because of their more spiritual outlook. Looking backward, it's clear that Asia has a much more important role in world affairs than it did when the song was written, but nothing magical happened in the Summer of 1975 to cause this. The success of Asia has more to do with manufacturing the plastic shit Americans love to buy than in any more enlightened world view.

Special thanks to my old buddy Michael Dresbach, a.k.a. El Doctor Padre Mickey, for remembering this particular song.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

An exact date for the start of the robot controlled future.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
 

Never to be Forgotten:Michael Ansara 1922-2013

Michael Ansara, whose career spanned from 1944 to 2001, died on Wednesday at the age of 91 after a long illness. About the only 1960s sci-fi TV show he missed was The Twilight Zone. He starred in an Outer Limits episode written by Harlan Ellison, he was on all four Irwin Allen sci-fi shows (Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Land of the Giants, The Time Tunnel) and played Commander Kang in the first Star Trek episode to feature Klingons. He also played a character named Elric on an episode of Babylon 5.

Born in Syria, much of his career away from sci-fi was in roles as Native Americans or Arabs. He was married to Barbara Eden from 1958 to 1974. He appeared on I Dream Of Jeannie as The Blue Djinn, among other roles.

Ansara and Eden had a son Matthew Ansara, who died of a heroin overdose in 2001.

On the original series, the Klingons were overshadowed as villains by the Romulans. The Klingons were sometimes portrayed as comic foils, most notably in The Trouble With Tribbles, while the Romulans were always ruthless and worthy opponents. None of this can be blamed on Michael Ansara. His portrayal of Kang was completely bad ass, and he returned on later Star Trek series as a Klingon several times, including a character named Kang.

Best wishes to the family and friends of Michael Ansara, from a fan. He is never to be forgotten.

2 August 2013

Birthdays
Sam Worthington b. 1976 (Clash of the Titans, Terminator Salvation, Avatar)
Edward Furlong b. 1977 (Terminator 2)
Kevin Smith b. 1970 (Dogma)
Wes Craven b.1939 (Nightmare on Elm Street, Twilight Zone (reboot TV series))

The actors belong on the list more than the directors do, but Smith is obviously a big fan of the genre - especially comic books - and Craven's slasher movies almost always have some fantasy element and he directed several segments on the 1980s version of Twilight Zone.

Movies released
Signs released, 2002

Let me start by saying I liked The Sixth Sense. Has any other director's reputation fallen as quickly or as far as M. Night Shyamalan's? What was his last good movie? Consensus agrees it can't be The Last Airbender or After Earth.

 

In the Year 2000!

Prediction: Entire city blocks will be loaded on platforms and moved by train.

Predictor: postcards distributed by Hildebrand's German Chocolate in 1900

Reality: This is pretty darned impractical. It looks like smoke is coming out if the chimneys on the last two buildings, so people are likely inside. That has to be a violation of code.

The other reality is that there are only twelve German Chocolate postcards, so this is the last. There are still plenty of French postcards, so we will still see several of them in the weeks ahead.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Songs from the future gets a visit from the most disappointing band from San Francisco's Summer of Love.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!