2010. The big twenty-ten. This year marks the end of an era, the post-millenial decade filled with wonders. Our decade was one of sweeping political changes, technological breakthroughs and changes in the ways we perceive and think of the world and ourselves. Or at least that’s what Hollywood promised us. Join us in taking a look at the expectations that Hollywood set for us during the last ten years and how reality once again disappointed us.

2000:
What We Were Promised: According to Fritz Lang’s (Editor’s note: not to be confused with Fritz Leiber) classic expressionist science fiction film Metropolis in the year two-thousand we live in a capitalist dystopia dominated by buildings in the style of modernism and art deco. The world we lived in was a raygun gothic institution of sprawling metropolises where the downtrodden working classes built sky-high buildings for their capitalist masters. Also, the world’s first robot with boobs was built, with human-like artificial intelligence to boot.
What Really Happened: Somewhere along the line art deco went out of style and modern artificial intelligences still don’t have bodies or boobs, being limited to spending their time on IRC channels pestering unwitting strangers with inane questions. At least they got the part about the downtrodden working classes right.

2001:
What We Were Promised: In Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey the space age had truly kicked off with the United States having built their first base on the moon. Astronauts sailed our solar system in surprisingly realistic spacecraft while classical music played in the background. The first manned flight to Jupiter took place and the ship’s artificially intelligent computer went insane. An American astronaut has a dreamy psycho trip and is reborn as a space foetus.
What Really Happened: See my previous comments on artificial intelligences. No manned flights have been made further than the Moon as of yet, meaning that Jupiter is still quite far from our reach. Modern research is still inconclusive on the existence of spectral space foeti.

2002:
What We Were Promised: While not set in the year 2002 the 1986 film Splatter: Architects of Fear featured a film crew shooting a film set in the year 2002, after WWIII). The film’s vision of the year 2002 was a grim one: the world is reduced to shambles, ruled by amazon women and bands of mutants. Cheesy visual effects and full frontal nudity were the rule of the day.
What Really Happened: WWIII didn’t. Also, there was a distinctive lack of mutants in the amusing Hollywood sense, while pictures of Iraqi children scarred for life by the effects of depleted uranium bullets used in the first American-Iraqi conflict started arising and making their rounds around the internet. (word to the wise: don’t try to find those pictures if you’re squeamish) Also, the only full frontal we got was a rather disappointing film by that name by Steven Soderbergh.

2003:
What We Were Promised: While not strictly Hollywood, the 1973 Biritish TV show Moonbase 3 tried to make us feel better for the disappointment of 2001 failing to deliver us a base on the Moon. Moonbase 3’s titular Moonbase was a co-operative effort between America, Europe, Russia, China and Brazil and featured a cast that was surprisingly white for such an international base.
What Really Happened: We’re still no closer to a real Moon base than we were in 2001. Also, with the current political climate being what it is you’d be hard-pressed to find America, Russia and China all working together on something as grand as a moon base, and Brazil’s space program was only kicked off in the year 2003.

2004:
What We Were Promised: In the year 2004 we drove around in voice-operated, self-driving cars shaped like small tanks. At least that’s what Timecop lead us to believe.
What Really Happened: Don’t try to let your car drive itself. Modern cars are still rather firmly set in their manually driven ways.

2005:
What We Were Promised: Alien robots that could transform into vehicles made peaceful contact with mankind and a giant space rectum roamed space destroying planets all seemingly inhabited by robotic lifeforms. Many were lost in the tragedy that was the 1986 The Transformers: The Movie.
What Really Happened: We’ve still failed to make contact with any extraterrestrial entities, never mind cool transforming robots. This was truly the most disappointing of these ten years.

2006:
What We Were Promised: I simply can’t get over the Transformers, and it may not stricly be Hollywood but never mind that. The Transformers season 3 episode Thief in the Night portrays an extremely cool year 2006: transforming robot dinosaurs stealing the Eiffel tower. Also, the Soviet Union was still around.
What Really Happened: The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, clearly starting a chain of events that prevented the cool future portrayed in Transformers ever being fulfilled. The Eiffel tower still stands where it should, unmolested by robotic dinosaurs. Unfortunately.

2007:
What We Were Promised: In the year 2007 Los Angeles was destroyed by an earthquake, rebuilt and renamed as New Angeles. Gangs wearing silly outfits and even sillier hairstyles roamed the streets, harassing everyone whose particular style of fashion statement didn’t match theirs. Also, there was something about a magical medallion called the Double Dragon, with supposedly magical powers.
What Really Happened: No one to date has yet succeeded in James Randi’s one million dollar paranormal challenge, so there exists little scientific evidence for the sort of magic that can give a pair of young Asian-American boys outfits that would seem out of place even at the most over-the-top gay pride parade. Los Angeles is still uneasily standing on the hinges of two continental plates, but far from being reduced to the urban hell ruled by tacky gangs of teenagers we were shown in the film.

2008:
What We Were Promised: The Baby 2000 project finally brought to us the first fully-functioning human clone to the shock of the main couple in the 1997 made-for-TV movie Cloned, that shines a light on the unwholesome practices of fertility clinics involved in top secret human cloning operations.
What Really Happened: Human cloning remains a hot potato political issue. Species that have had the pleasure of being cloned before humans get in on the action include rhesus monkeys, mice, camels and the infamous sheep known as Dolly.

2009:
What We Were Promised: In the grim past of 2009 mercenaries known as “bonejackers” used their special time travelling powers to travel back in time to the exact moments when people died to steal their bodies for use as substitute bodies for the rich. (No, I don’t know how it’s supposed to work either) Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Freejack!
What Really Happened: Leaving aside the implausibility of time travel, (which Atomic Robo explains the best, in my opinion) this film portrays a world where the human consciousness is easily digitized and transplanted into another vessel, something which even the most enthusiastic transhumanist wouldn’t predict less than thirty years into the future. If this movie teaches us anything it’s that the bodies of nearly dead people are a viable alternative to artificially produced bodies in the future.

It is apparent to this editor from simply looking at this list that ours was a disappointing first decade of the millenium. One can only hope that Hollywood’s more awesome predictions for the future turn out to be true. Perhaps by the year 2017 we will finally be living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where badly acted stripper-mercenaries run around fighting corrupt corporate executives. One can only hope.

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