What the original 'Blade Runner' got right — and wrong — about 2019
- The original "Blade Runner" was released 37 years ago, but the film's events take place in Los Angeles during November 2019.
- While the movie correctly predicted some things about the future, some of the tech featured in the film is still only the stuff of sci-fi movies.
- Giant digital billboards are a common sight in Times Square — but off-world colonies aren't in our grasp just yet.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
"Blade Runner" begins with a black title card: "Los Angeles. November 2019" — a time that, in 1982, sounded almost fantastical.
But here we are, 37 years later. While director Ridley Scott got some things right about life in 2019, we're still woefully behind in other ways.
Keep scrolling to learn more about what "Blade Runner" correctly predicted, and what we're still working on.
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Taking a stroll through Times Square proves the electronic billboards of "Blade Runner" have come to fruition.
In "Blade Runner," giant electronic billboards dot the Los Angeles skyline, showing everything from ads for Coke to moving photos of geishas smoking cigarettes or taking pills.
Look no further than the electronic billboards that have completely taken over Manhattan's Times Square to see that this prediction about the future has come true.
"Times Square is the only place where the ultimate attraction is the advertisements itself," ad executive Scott Alessandro told the New York Daily News.
While we're making headway on artificial intelligence with robots like Sophia, we're not exactly at replicant level yet.
The central conflict of "Blade Runner" focuses on Rick Deckard's mission to take out replicants, hyper-realistic androids that are meant to pose a threat to humanity. They look just like humans but can be detected with a special test.
In 2019, our robots are still easy to identify as just that. One of the most famous AI robots is Sophia, which Business Insider has "interviewed" before. Sophia, while pretty realistic, is firmly still a robot, who can't exactly carry a full conversation that makes sense.
So, while we're on track, our tech isn't up to "Blade Runner" standards just yet.
We're also not all driving around in flying cars yet, though there are prototypes.
In "Blade Runner," we see many characters hop into their flying cars to navigate the city. Flying cars are a pretty standard trope for movies and TV shows set in the future (see: "The Jetsons" and "The Fifth Element"), and "Blade Runner" is no different.
In 2017, Business Insider reported that at least five companies were attempting to build flying cars, including Uber. Two years later, Boeing reported that its protoype completed a successful test flight, though all it can do is take off vertically, hover, and land — horizontal flight hasn't been achieved yet.
The verdict? We're getting there, but not at the same level as 2019 in "Blade Runner."
However, voice-activated technology is common. Just ask Siri, Alexa, or Google.
Throughout the film, Deckard talks to technology, including when he tells his computer to zoom in on a photo.
This, "Blade Runner" got exactly right. Everyone's walking around with their own personal computers (cell phones), and you can essentially talk to it and ask it to do anything. Digital home assistants can do everything from turn off the lights to tell you jokes.
The weather of 2019 Los Angeles in "Blade Runner" is bleak, and it's almost constantly raining. Climate change is a growing concern today, but instead of constant rain, wildfires are the biggest issue in California.
The climate of Los Angeles in "Blade Runner" can only be described as bleak. Throughout the film, it's raining almost the entire time, except for a few scenes in which it's completely overcast.
In the real 2019, climate change is still a big problem, and for some places, flooding is an issue. But in California, the overwhelming problem is actually heat and wildfires.
We're not colonizing other planets yet, but it's not for lack of trying.
Signs pepper the background of "Blade Runner" advising people to head to "off-world colonies." This idea is never fully explained, but it's an interesting detail that makes the world of the movie seem fully-formed.
We still have yet to colonize any planets besides our own, and have only set foot on the Moon. Space travel is still a subject of fascination and we are making strides — but nowhere as close as the film suggested we'd be. The closest thing is a proposed space hotel designed by the Gateway Foundation that's reportedly going to open in 2025.
We've actually surpassed video phone booths — and phone booths in general.
In a rare instance of surpassing the technology of "Blade Runner," we've almost completely phased out payphones and telephone booths.
In the film, Deckard heads into a booth and video chats with his replicant companion, Rachael. Once the call is over, his balance shows up, and he pays with a credit card.
Interestingly, there are no cell phones in "Blade Runner." Today, almost everyone has a phone capable of video chatting, making phone booths a thing of the past.
Both Atari and Pan Am have bitten the dust, but Coca-Cola still reigns supreme.
Two of the most prominent brands featured in "Blade Runner" are the airline Pan Am and the video game manufacturer, Atari. Neither of these are in existence anymore. In fact, there's something called the "'Blade Runner' curse," that suggests that brands featured in the film were cursed to fail.
While Coke is still around, shortly after the movie the soda company debuted "New Coke," which became one of the biggest rebranding disasters of all time.
Interestingly enough, in the 2017 sequel, "Blade Runner 2049," Atari still exists and was shown prominently in the trailer.
Cigarettes are ubiquitous in "Blade Runner" — but today people have switched to e-cigarettes and vapes.
Besides the fact that e-cigarettes and vaping products are a more popular choice, smoking has been outlawed in almost any public space, like offices, restaurants, planes — really, anywhere that's not your own home, especially in California.
In "Blade Runner," everyone is smoking everywhere. Thankfully, this is something that the film got wrong about today.