WE'RE STILL WAITING FOR...
Feature

Well I've been mulling this one over for a while, I should have written it quite a while ago actually, but a whole crop of gigs came up which I had to review and still haven't finished yet either.

I think I first came up with the idea when I was walking home from town one day. It was a beautiful sunny but cold day in Brighton and all in all it was a fairly pleasant walk, but in this age of instant everything, I couldn't help but wish I had a Jet-Pac to whisk me home in seconds. Yep, that's how lazy I've become; even though I was a mere 10 minutes walk away from home I wanted to get there sooner. So I started thinking what else we were missing that we've been promised by science fiction writers for years.

This little article is going to deal with all those inventions that we've become somewhat accustomed to in sci-fi TV and Movies. They always appear, and if they don't then we become highly suspicious of the writers knowledge and skill. But even though we readily accept these miraculous life-changing items, does it really look like they will ever be made at all? And if so would we really want them?

Well I'm going to give a run down of the things I've thought of and then probably answer "yes of course we want them" for the main reason that it would be cool.

These aren't going to appear in any particular order, mostly because it's too difficult to rate them; everyone has their own taste after all.

Flying Cars
Ok, not the most universal of sci-fi methods of transportation, but bearing in mind the traffic congestion and parking problems lately, you'd think they'd have a crack at it by now instead of re-inventing the bubble-car.

My personal references are from Back To The Future 2, Blade Runner and Fifth Element, and nowhere have I seen flying cars to be a bad thing. Ok, so it looks a little hectic and it'll no doubt be a nightmare for low flying aircraft, but other than that what's the problem?

I would just really like to know if some engineer or other out there has put any though to it yet, or even tried to make one. And what were the results? I can only imagine the cost of fuel would be ridiculously high though, and with the amount of people whinging about fuel prices at the moment, flying cars aren't going to sit too well in society. I'd still want one anyway; even if I never got to fly the thing it would still be pretty cool.


Jet Packs
Well if you've read the opening paragraphs you will already know that I still want a Jet Pack. Now I thought they were sort of already available, not mass market, but I was aware that they existed. I saw the '84 Super Bowl and Olympics. But it wasn't until recently that I found out they weren't real Jet Packs; I mean you can't actually fly with them, all they're good for is a sort of super jump with a cushioned landing. What good is that? Apart from being able to escape from prisons or emitting the bendy stick from pole-vaulting what use are they?

No, we want proper Jet Packs thank-you, something not dissimilar to what the Rocketeer got to wear. And it would be funny to see drunks coming out of the clubs at 2am trying to get home on these things, especially here in Brighton. No doubt we'll see a few of them end up in the sea. Good, be a great way to weed some of the bastards out of society I say.

But you know they'll catch on and all it'll take is a few fat businessmen in pin stripes to make them the cheesiest invention ever. Of course the only big problem with Jet Packs and Flying Cars would be putting public transportation systems out of business…did I say problem? I meant advantage, sorry.


Matter Transporters
I'm not a sci-fi geek. Sure I like some films, but I'm not claiming to know about the history of sci-fi or anything. The earliest matter transporters I can recollect were probably in Star Trek; although I'm sure someone out there would gladly inform me of some obscure Twilight Zone episode or other where the concept first cropped up.

I'm not going to make any particular film reference here, but I just think they'd save a lot of time. I guess pods would do, but the ultimate matter transporters would be strapped to your belt and whiz you off to anywhere you wanted to go with just the press of a button.

It's pretty scary that my laziness is getting to the point where I need to keep a long stick next to the sofa to change the TV channel, just in case the remote control manages to slip more than an arms reach away. Sure there's the possibility that you may get a 'Fly' incident when transporting and merge with some insect or other, but if it's a choice between that or public transportation, I'll take my chances with the genetic crossover thank you.


Cyborgs
Cyborgs are evil, everyone knows it, and we've seen it a few times in cinema. So why are they in this list? Because you know damn well that they'll end up inventing the things. Come on, those old people that have metal hip replacements? Just one step away from the Terminator, I'm telling you. In a couple of year's time they'll be incorporating rocket launchers into the things as a precautionary measure against handbag snatchers.


Laser Guns
Now this is what we're waiting for. No more of this 'powerful enough to project a dot of light on the surface of the moon' rubbish; we want 'powerful enough to blow holes through mountains'!

So this Star Wars project is one thing, but unless the lasers are going to go "beyoooo" then I'm not really interested. Maybe they won't be as satisfying to fire as real guns though. The most satisfying sci-fi movie guns so far haven't been lasers have they? Robocop's gun, Pulse Rifles from Aliens…didn't use lasers.

But if we're talking about weaponry, let's try light sabres for instance. Now there was an effective and inventive use of a laser, and all the more reason to hurry up and invent them. "Thummmmmmm", beautiful!

david twomey

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