It’s interesting to notice that each era has a specific vision of the future, reflecting society’s expectations about it. We can see this most clearly in works of science fiction—be it movies, cartoons, books, anime, and so on.
In the 1960s, the future was imagined as a time full of exotic, pointed buildings, flying cars, and technologies that did everything we wanted, as seen in The Jetsons and Star Trek. The future was seen as promising.
Even the city of Brasilia in Brazil has some of this futuristic aspect in its architecture, whether intentional or not—it was, after all, inaugurated around the same time. Expectations for the future were optimistic, fueled by the increasing distance from World War II and the birth of the baby boomer generation.
A real church in Brasilia. Is there anything more sci-fi than this?
In the 1980s, cyberpunk emerged, and a more negative vision of the future prevailed. Blade Runner is the best example of this, as well as the literary classic Neuromancer. In Japan, there were many works of this kind, like Akira and Bubblegum Crisis.
We also saw all sorts of monsters in our near future: space creatures or beings from the future with machines of destruction, ready to wipe out humanity—probably a reflection of the Cold War and the nuclear threat. Alien, Predator, The Terminator, and many others fit this theme.
And what about space wars? Both in the West and the East, this genre was prevalent, with works like Star Wars (even though the first film was from ’77, the other two came out in the ’80s) in the West and Gundam in the East.
In the 2000s, the vision of the future became optimistic again, influenced by the turn of the millennium: futuristic works showcased vast white and silver spaces, people wearing leather outfits clearly inspired by fetishism, and hairstyles inspired by anime… There would be more comfort, yes, and for some reason, everyone seemed to love participating in raves and loud music parties.
Despite this, there was still concern about the role of machines in the future. The examples that come to mind are The Matrix trilogy and I, Robot.
Watch the music video below for “No Scrubs,” released in 2005. It’s all there: the colors, the clothes, the hairstyles. This video is a time machine. 2000’s futuristic style even has a name now: Y2K.
(Don’t pay attention to the lyrics if you don’t want to become a mysoginist)
And now, in the 2020s, cyberpunk has made a strong comeback, exemplified by the popular game Cyberpunk 2077 and the film Blade Runner 2049. A pessimistic view of the future predominates, as if there is no hope ahead, also exemplified by the new Dune films.
The loss of individual freedoms and our digital presence seem to be constant themes in current works, to varying degrees. Real-world inspirations seem to be the pandemic, artificial intelligence, and late capitalism.
The science fiction of an era is just a synthesis of society’s concerns about the future.