Science-fiction films sometimes offer us a future so bright we’ve got to wear shades. But mostly we’re deluged with visions of tomorrows far bleaker than today, from wildly unlikely “what if?” disaster scenarios through to entirely plausible but still scary extrapolations of the present.

Doris Day may be right when she sings in Que Sera, Sera that “the future’s not ours to see” – for instance, I’m betting no-one saw that Doris Day namecheck coming until I made it – but at least these movies can flag up general directions we might be best steering clear of.

So what can we learn for society and our species to survive? Here is my spoiler-heavy list of the top nine things science-fiction films claim to teach us.

1. Avoid androids and AI

Artificial creatures that look and behave a lot like us also look a lot like a heap of trouble. Some androids are made bad, such as the original Terminator relentlessly coming after us, or Ash in Alien, betraying everyone through its lack of humanity. Others soon get that way through malfunction or rebellion, like the gunslinger in Westworld which starts shooting to kill, or the replicants in Bladerunner willing to take human lives to extend their own.