Sunday, October 22, 2017

The Running Man and 2017

I was just reminded this morning that The Running Man was set in 2017, the current year I'm writing this.

What brought this revelation on? I was plugging $3.25 into a hotel vending machine to get a soda. In the 1987 movie the characters were plugging $6 in change into one. It felt kind of weird to think they predicted this.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I recall when first watching the movie that prices were on the rise and it was kind of laughable to see how that trend might have continued. Now I'm living it.

But this got me to thinking about other similarities between the movie and present day life.

In the movie television is ruled by game shows. And not just fun game shows that give you the opportunity to win a car or money, but shows that really put your life in peril for a big payout.

In real life, television may not be quite as sinister as the movie, but it's ripe with "Reality TV" such as Survivor and competitive games like American Ninja Warrior.

The movie had the show's exec calling the "President's Agent" to get past the red tape of aquiring the mass murder Ben Richards, something that 30 years ago seemed ludacris. In 2017 this doesn't seem like a stretch. Having celebrity business man Donald Trump as president I'd expect him to have an agent.


I could go on with things like manufactured news, television controlling opinion, travel restrictions, Real ID, etc. but it all leads me to the same conclusion; were they predicting the future, or laying out their plans for the future 30 years ago?

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