"We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I will spend the rest of our lives." -- Criswell, "Plan 9 From Outer Space"

Truer words were never spoken, and though the movies have tried their best to show us what life in the future would look like, we can see now in 2009 that most have been way off. Here are ten films that tried to predict the world of tomorrow, but that don't look anything like the world of today.

Everett CollectionSOYLENT GREEN (1973)
According to this movie, the population of New York City in 2022 -- a mere thirteen years from now -- is somewhere around 40 million people, or three times the population of Mumbai. As of the 2000 census, the current population is around 8 million, so if this movie is going to approach anything close to reality, New Yorkers had better get busy.

Photo by Warner Bros. Pictures, Everett CollectionBLADE RUNNER (1982)
Ridley Scott's opus might be a masterpiece of filmmaking, but as a predictor of the future it falls flat. Ten years from now, when the movie is set, we won't have off-world colonies or sentient robots who look like Daryl Hannah -- as awesome as that might be. On the other hand, a company called Terrafugia just successfully completed its first test run of a flying car, so maybe we will be commuting through the air in a decade or so. One can hope.

THE ISLAND (2005)
2019, for whatever reason, seems to be a go-to year for cinematic dystopias. The same year that Ridley Scott had killer replicants run amok in Los Angeles, Michael Bay has fugitive clones run amok in Los Angeles. While some form of human cloning might happen in the future, it will be much longer than a decade before scientists are able to create Scarlett Johansson in a test tube.

Photo by Universal Pictures, Everett CollectionBACK TO THE FUTURE II (1989)
Here's what is not going to happen in 2015, when this movie is set: Jaws XII isn't going to come out unless the studios deem it necessary to make eight more movies in the next six years; we won't be able to control the weather (if anything it will be more unmanageable), and sadly those way cool hoverboards won't around either. On the other hand, "Back to the Future Part II" has gotten props for predicting the Florida Marlins winning the pennant in '97.

Photo by MGM, Everett Collection2010 (1984)
According to "2001: A Space Odyssey," we should have had manned trips to Jupiter and killer sentient computers for a year that actually saw the Mir satellite falling from the sky and Microsoft XP. "2010," the largely unnecessary sequel, has all the future mispredictions of the original plus another steaming layer of inaccuracy -- the Cold War. According to that movie, the Americans and Soviets will be at the brink of WWIII in a few months. So unless things between Putin and Obama go dramatically south, don't expect an old-school Yankee/Ruskie face-off by Christmas.

Photo by Buena Vista, Everett CollectionBICENTENNIAL MAN (1999)
By 2005, according to this movie, we should have had really creepy-looking robots to clean the house and fix the odd clogged drain. But in the actual year 2005, we got a Roomba with open source software and a slightly larger dust bin. Cool, perhaps, but don't expect your roving dust-buster to befriend cherubic moppets any time soon.

Everett CollectionDEATH RACE 2000 (1975)
In this flick, a fascistic United States turns to a gory transcontinental road race -- won not only on speed but also on the number of innocent bystanders killed -- as its primary form of entertainment. While there was a torturous presidential race in 2000, murderous motor smackdowns were relatively few and far between that year. Of course, America's woes in the movie were caused by a massive financial collapse. So, considering the performance of the economy in recent months, you might just see Death Race coming soon to a TV, and country road, near you.

Everett CollectionESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981)
In 1981, when John Carpenter made "Escape from New York," WWIII and/or spiraling crime rates seemed like a definite possibility. The Soviet Union just invaded Afghanistan, after all, and the national homicide rate peaked that year. Of course, in the intervening time the USSR went belly-up and the crime rate in New York City dropped 75%. If the president ever did get trapped in the city, it would more likely be because of gridlock in the Lincoln Tunnel than because he got kidnapped by thuggish bands of criminals.

Photo by MCA, Everett Collection12 MONKEYS (1995)
According this movie, most of the world's population was killed off by an insanely lethal virus in 1996. The actual year of 1996 was, in fact, much less dramatic, and the only thing that came close to a global outbreak was the release of The Spice Girls' insanely infectious single "Wannabe."

Photo by Atlantic Releasing, Everett Collection1984 (1984)
George Orwell envisioned a future dominated by a government organization called the Ministry of Love that intrusively monitors the actions of its citizens, political nonsense that spews forth from massive TVs, and songs that are written by computers. Instead we have the Department of Homeland Security, 24-hour cable news in high definition, and T-Pain. Thank God we dodged that bullet.