No-one believes the plague-ridden future of 12 Monkeys could actually happen, and then…

My forthcoming book discusses the dominance of dystopian visions of the future, which is hardly surprising given the multiple, overlapping environmental, economic, and political crises we face. In the book, I use nine classic sci-fi movies to discuss various aspects of the coming dystopia. One of them is 12 Monkeys (1995).

With 12 Monkeys, Terry Gilliam directed one of the definitive dystopias of the 1990s, after he did the same with Brazil in the 1980s. The film’s ‘recycled future’ production design echoes the film’s story – how the future is made up of the past, rather than being shiny brand new. If the Back To The Future series (which I also discuss in the book), at least at first appears to offer the possibility of changing the future through the past, 12 Monkeys suggests that this is doomed – that we are prisoners of time.

In a similar way, because we’ve all seen so many (often dark) depictions of the future (and because we already know what might happen), like the main character in 12 Monkeys mentally we’re also effectively living both in our time and the future. Maybe we didn’t believe ourselves, didn’t believe they could become real. And then, of course, they did…

That’s what recurring depictions of dystopia really are, nightmare-memories that have haunted us for a long time. Contrary to techno-optimists then, the dark future is not a self-fulfilling prophecy we could avoid if only we were more positive; it’s a future reality we’ve already foreseen.

As for what exactly we’ve all foreseen, well, for that you’ll have to read the book.

Come With Me If You Want To Live: The Future as Foretold in Classic Sci-Fi Films, is out in November from Lexington Books. You can read more about it here.