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Movies with a slightly alternate present/future?

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Old 01-10-07 | 07:48 AM
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Movies with a slightly alternate present/future?

What are movies that have a slightly alternate present/future?

Examples would be Children of Men, White Man's Burden, and Fatherland (although that was set in the 1960's).

I'm looking for ones where a single element was changed (women are no longer fertile, whites are a social/economic minority, Germany won WW2) and it created an alternate world compared to the one we live in. Recognizable, but still very different.

(Not something where everything is very "sci-fi" (Planet of the Apes, Minority Report, The Matrix) or set too far in the future (Idiocracy, Gattaca))

Can you provide some more examples? Which of these is your favorite movie?
Old 01-10-07 | 08:14 AM
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Old 01-10-07 | 08:42 AM
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From: In the mouth of madness.
Idiocracy
Planet of the Apes (original really isn't all that Sci-Fi and Earth is very recognizable)

Last edited by ShaunoftheDead; 01-10-07 at 08:46 AM.
Old 01-10-07 | 08:46 AM
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2009 Lost Memories (a Korean movie) comes readily to mind but that's because I just loaned it to someone

Spoiler:

EDIT: Although in the end it is a time travel thing so maybe that doesn't fit the parameters of what you are looking for...

Last edited by nemein; 01-12-07 at 12:14 PM.
Old 01-10-07 | 08:50 AM
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From: San Diego
1984
The Handmaid's Tale
Old 01-10-07 | 09:03 AM
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Originally Posted by ShaunoftheDead
Idiocracy
Planet of the Apes (original really isn't all that Sci-Fi and Earth is very recognizable)

Did you just completely ignore the original post?
Old 01-10-07 | 09:25 AM
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C.S.A. (Confederate States of America) is similar to Fatherland - the South wins the Civil War. (I haven't seen this by the way but that is the premise).

Z.P.G. (Zero Population Growth) is about a near future/present where procreation is outlawed for 20 years. Although the earth is poluted and resources limited, everything else is pretty much the same. I haven't seen this in over 25 years (and that on TV).

Fahrenheit 451 has more differences, but the central premise (reading is outlawed) is the primary one. This is one of my favorite movies. It also has a few sci-fi touches, but I like to think of it as taking place in the (then) present, and nothing is too far out there - well, maybe the escalating fire pole.

Last edited by obscurelabel; 01-10-07 at 09:29 AM.
Old 01-10-07 | 09:36 AM
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The Island had some interesting ideas, but the execution wasn't great.
Old 01-10-07 | 10:33 AM
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From: currently Philly originally from Puerto Rico
strange days? maybe...

Last edited by BuddhaWake; 01-10-07 at 10:38 AM.
Old 01-10-07 | 11:37 AM
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soylent green & the omega man

maybe a little too off the request path though

equilibrium may fit the bill too

Last edited by D_N_G; 01-10-07 at 11:40 AM.
Old 01-10-07 | 01:09 PM
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I would think that Gattaca WOULD fit the bill. But that's just me.
Old 01-10-07 | 01:26 PM
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How about Truman Show?
Old 01-10-07 | 01:43 PM
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There's at least 4 different versions of the year 1985 in the Back to the Future trilogy (1985 is the "present" time).

It's A Wonderful Life is another good one too.
Old 01-10-07 | 03:55 PM
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Scrooged/A Christmas Carol
Old 01-10-07 | 04:25 PM
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The first Mad Max had a fairly subtle take on the future (at least compared to the sequels), and in a similar vein the recent Japanese movie The Princess Blade had a cool, vaguely dystopian futuristic setting.
Old 01-10-07 | 04:41 PM
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From: The Illustrious State of Fugue
A Scanner Darkly

Reason I love it: Loved the book and they didn't toss the story (and it's a great, tragic story) out the window and keep just the title. Second favorite (and it's close) movie of the year.
Old 01-10-07 | 05:21 PM
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Many of the movies mentioned don't seem to fit the original request.

I think of this more like each episode of Sliders, which was set "now", but each episode had them visiting an alternate reality where some event in the past (which did not occur in "our" timeline) had either a drastic or subtle effect on the timeline. These events were natural occurences (just different) and not the result of time travel. In movies that the OP wants, nobody would be trying to "fix" what went wrong and repair the timeline. Life would just be different.

I never saw C.S.A. (where life today is very different because the South had won the Civil War), but it sounds like a great example of what I think that the OP wants. Planet of The Apes wouldn't be, because an event in the future has an impact even further in the future.
Old 01-10-07 | 05:32 PM
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run lola run is the answer
Old 01-10-07 | 05:44 PM
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Originally Posted by j123vt_99
Scrooged/A Christmas Carol
... It's a Wonderful Life - speaking of which.
Old 01-10-07 | 06:39 PM
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From: America Empire
How about Freejack?
Old 01-10-07 | 08:14 PM
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What do you know, a Movie Talk thread that goes off the rails by post three. How unusual.
Old 01-10-07 | 08:16 PM
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I'm looking for ones where a single element was changed (women are no longer fertile, whites are a social/economic minority, Germany won WW2) and it created an alternate world compared to the one we live in. Recognizable, but still very different.
The Lathe of Heaven. It meets your criteria several times over the course of the story.
Old 01-10-07 | 09:06 PM
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Just saw Final Cut yesterday. Didn't seem too far into the future (considering the scenes of the main character as a boy, it might even be the present), with one crucial difference being the development of the Zoe Chip. Not my favorite movie, but I just saw it, so it came to mind.

Also recently saw the remake of Manchurian Candidate, which also seems to fit.
Old 01-10-07 | 09:23 PM
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Brazil is set "somewhere in the 20th century."

Cypher was set in the not-too far future.
Old 01-10-07 | 11:23 PM
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The Handmaid's Tale (mentioned above).

And look up the author "Harry Turtledove", he has some good alternate history books. One was "The Guns of the South" where the South came across some AK-47s during the Civil War.

http://www.amazon.com/Guns-South-Har...e=UTF8&s=books

Last edited by Heat; 01-10-07 at 11:25 PM.


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