The start of a new year can be a tad bittersweet. While there’s the promise of hopeful resolutions and much-needed change, there’s also the unavoidable realization that we’re all edging closer to the grave. Given that we’re coming off the back of a year that saw more celebrity deaths than the first act of This Is the End, it feels like more of a relief to be done with 2016, our own mortality be damned.
With all eyes now on 2017 and what might lie ahead, what clues can we find in the films that were set in the year that we’re now in? Here’s a look back at the films that were looking forward:
Barb Wire
Given that the entire marketing campaign felt like it originated from a room of old men staring at Pamela Anderson’s cleavage for an hour straight, you’d be forgiven for not having the faintest idea of what Barb Wire is actually about. Yes it’s centered around a heroine in a revealing leather costume but, wait for it, it’s also about the after-effects of a second American civil war! Yes, really! Like many Americans, our protagonist is forced to work two jobs (nightclub owner and bounty hunter – standard) and, in what seems like a pretty legit touch, payment in 2017 is preferable in the far more robust Canadian dollar. Also, Barb is something of a feminist, with her catchphrase – “don’t call me babe!” – doubling as a handy Twitter comeback to patronizing men’s rights activists.
The Running Man
The unstoppable nastiness of reality television seemed to reach its nadir in 2016 with the announcement of a new Russian show where contestants are “allowed” to rape and murder one another. Before The Hunger Games made the fictional idea palatable for a teenage audience, this adaptation of a Stephen King novel gave audiences a similar future ripped apart by global economic meltdown and with its inhabitants entertained by watching people forced to kill for ratings. In 2017, all other cultural activity has been censored, which, given our next president’s increasing and vocal hatred of Saturday Night Live and the celebrities who shun him, might not be far off. The fact that it’s then replaced by a vicious reality show – well, let’s just say that in this future, Mark Burnett would be gainfully employed.
Cherry 2000
Sorry, but dating in 2017 is a total bureaucratic nightmare. Thanks to women! According to this nutso 1987 film, the increase in female agency will lead to sex becoming a drawn-out legal negotiation, with men painted as horny devils and women as difficult shrews. The solution? Get yourself a passive, pretty robot who will ensure that dinner is on the table right before offering up unlimited sex on a nightly basis. Like an Amazon Echo with an orifice. A strange film that was understandably buried at the time, the initial message of misogyny eventually leading to something less grotesque as our male protagonist ultimately chooses a real, strong-willed woman over a mindless sex bot. There’s hope for us all.
Fortress
The past year has seen a revitalized debate over whether privatized prisons should still exist alongside state-owned facilities, with the justice department announcing a plan to reduce and ultimately end them in the next few years. As an extreme cautionary tale, this schlocky 1992 action film works quite successfully with its dour view of how inmates are treated within a conglomerate-controlled system. In the year 2017, overpopulation has led to a strict one-child rule and even after our hero’s first baby dies, he is forced to travel across the border with his wife in order to become a parent again. After being caught, he’s sent to a brutal underground prison where he’s the victim of invasive mind control and other nefarious methods of making him compliant. While the insertion of “intestinators” – devices to induce severe pain on will – is probably not happening yet, a recent report showing the decreased safety in private prisons suggests that the vision on display here is somewhat on point.
Click
Probably the most terrifying prediction on the list is that Adam Sandler will still be a thing in 2017. In this, one of his more “serious” comedies, by which I mean that there are slightly fewer fart jokes, he zips back and forth through time with a magic remote control. One of the stops is 2017, a year that sees people suffering from severe obesity. It’s also a time in which Michael Jackson is still alive and Britney Spears is still married to Kevin Federline. What can we learn from this? Reassuringly, Adam Sandler knows nothing.
