10 Futuristic Sci-Fi Movies That Now Take Place In The Past

Technology really hasn't advanced as far as the movies thought that it would have by 2020...

By Scott Campbell /

Sci-fi has always been one of cinema's most popular genres because not only does it give an easy route for audiences to suspend their disbelief, it also actively encourages the filmmakers to embrace their imagination when it comes to depicting their vision of a futuristic world.

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Sometimes sci-fi will stretch the boundaries of what's possible from both a visual and technological perspective by bringing distant planets and alien races to the screen that will never exist in our lifetime, while others play it much closer to home and offer alternate realities that take place just years or decades into the future.

Given the long history of the genre, there's plenty of movies that have depicted a timeline that's already come to pass, and unsurprisingly the track record for getting it right is more than a little spotty.

Perhaps we haven't advanced as much as the creative minds behind these projects thought we would have done by now, but it still remains interesting to look at a future that is now the past, and see how we've shaped up against it.

10. Reign Of Fire

This might be more of a personal opinion, but there really aren't enough movies made about giant angry dragons anymore. The mythical beasts tend to find themselves confined largely to the realms of the fantasy genre, which is a shame because they've always been good value for money when it comes to schlocky B-movies.

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Reign of Fire's prologue sets the stage for dragons to reclaim the planet, but the real meat of the story takes place in the post-apocalyptic wasteland that is the North East of England in early 2020. Things heat up as Matthew McConaughey attempts to devour as much scenery as the flying lizards themselves, and while it isn't a great movie by any means, it is nonetheless still remembered fondly by viewers of a certain disposition.

Based on how this year's been going so far, the prospect of dragons erupting from millions of years of hibernation to lay waste to us pesky humans as revenge for how we've ravaged our natural resources doesn't even seem outside the realms of possibility anymore.

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