Portraying Our Future

I watched Looper last night and I was intrigued by it. Sure the plot was great and the characters were well developed and I am in love with Joseph Gordon-Levitt so I am biased towards everything he is in, but that is not why I am still thinking about the movie a day later (and will probably be thinking about it for more days to come). The thing that got to me about Looper was how the movie portrayed the future.

The movie takes place 30 years in the future and shows scenes of 30 years in the future from that point when, supposedly, time travel has been invented. Unlike most movies that take place in the future, it did not glamorize the future. All of our modern problems were not suddenly solved and there was not any super ridiculous technology, except for the time traveling. And even with the time traveling, the technology was outlawed and only used by criminal organizations, which when you see how the criminals use time travel, you see why it would be outlawed. 

The future is not an oppressive dystopia either, which is the other popular way to portray the future. The future is very similar to our present. To me, that seems very realistic. Perhaps that seems like a pessimistic way to view the future, but it really isn't. I am not saying that people should not be hopeful for the future because I do not think that there is any other way to think of the future. The problem is when people think that just getting to the future will solve all of their problems. That is not the case. It is not the changes of the future that will solve the problems of humanity, it is the changes within us. And I really felt that was shown in Looper. There were technological changes and new things that were discovered, but there was still crime, there were still children growing up without parents, there were problems that came with it being the future. 

The decisions we make as individuals to help those around us and to stop the never ending cycle of the horrible things that happen to our fellow man is what will solve our problems, not super cures and flying cars.