ESL Reading: Movies about the Future!

What will the future be like? What will the world be like in 100 years? How about 1000 years? People spend a lot of time trying to predict what the future will be like. We can see these predictions in books, magazines, on T.V., and of course on the internet. One of the most common and interesting predictors of the future is cinema. Ever since movies were first made, a popular genre has been science fiction movies, in which stories occurred in our future. Here are some interesting examples you might not know about.

In the movie "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", our planet will be destroyed by an alien construction company to make a space highway. There will be many alien races and they will all be able to understand each other because everyone will put a small translation fish in their ears. The last two humans will travel around in space with the president of the galaxy and a robot that is always depressed.

A different future occurs in "Planet of the Apes". In this movie, humans will train apes to be our slaves. Then humans will have an atomic war and destroy themselves. Finally, the apes will be the masters of earth and humans will be their slaves!

"Water World" gives us another idea of the future. In this movie, global warming will melt all the ice and snow in the world and the earth will be covered in water. People will live on boats and catch fish for a living. Plants will be very expensive and vegetables will be luxury items. Most people will use natural energy sources and soccer won't be popular anymore.

All of these movies show futures in which humans or our planet have a big problem to overcome. Nobody can say for sure if these futures will become reality. Our future might be much better or just something completely different. In fact, we are now in the future predicted by some movies and it isn't very similar at all to what the movies predicted! Whatever the future holds, it is always fun to imagine if when we go to a movie theatre!

Comprehension Questions:

1. What are the ways in which people predict the future?
2. What will be the big problem in the future according to the three movies in the article?
3. Which future has the highest technology level of the three?
4. Which future is the most similar to our world now?

Discussion Questions:

1. Have you seen any of these movies? How were they?
2. What are some other movies you have seen about the future?
3. Which of these futures seems the most likely to come true?
4. Discuss a very positive future for humanity. What do we need to do to make it true?