Answer: Mostly accurate
Explanation:
There are a few missteps. The filmmakers imagined that functions like home shopping, personal finance, and education would take place across multiple single-function large machines, instead of the sleek multi-functional devices we have now (and had, at least in the form of the home computer, by the actual year 1999.) Home energy and utilities still aren’t as efficient as those in the movie, either.
I ranked how other predictions from the film stack up, on a scale from one rocket (not yet a reality) to five rockets (the future is here!).
Predictions:
-the Speed of the future
The future, the narrator explains, is a time in which “dreams travel faster than light.” Future rating:
-Home design
The narrator tells us that homes in 1999 will be built of “hexagon modules” that will expand as a family grows. Future rating:
-Home computing
The movie introduces us to Michael, a 45-year-old husband, father, and astrophysicist—an occupation filmmakers may have imagined would be more in demand in the dazzling future. Future rating:
-Information organization
In the world of the film, “all pertinent information about this family—its records, its tastes and reference material—is stored in these memory banks, available instantly to every member of the family.” Future rating:
-Education
The family’s only child, an eight-year-old boy, goes to school two mornings a week. The rest of his education happens alone on various devices and screens in the home. Future rating:
-Gender relations
The film moves to the kitchen, where Karen, 43—a wife, mother, and “part-time homemaker”—is seated before a screen displaying images of her son and husband, both of whom complain that they’re hungry. The filmmakers were able to imagine a world in which families could videoconference, but not one in which men were responsible for getting their own sandwiches.
Future rating:
-Hygiene
Karen orders James to wash his hands, which he appears to do (the shot is very confusing) at a sink that automatically dispenses water, soap, and hot air.
Future rating:
more includes
Meal prep, Home shopping, Personal finance, Clothing, Utilities, The sea, Health, Communications, Women, Games, Entertainment
