But a fun, and perhaps more generous way to revisit a "near future" sci-fi movie is to view it alongside another movie that was released in the actual year the first movie was set. The best of the genre is more interested in allegory than accuracy, anyway, so why not gauge a film's prescience by how it compares one actually released in the "not-too-distant future"?

Nothing dates a movie more than the words "in the not-too-distant future," especially if that future happens to fall within our lifetimes. Because when time catches up to the date predicted in the movie, we can't help but obsess over what it got right, and what it got hilariously wrong.

We call this silly cinematic exercise DOUBLE FUTURE, and for our first matchup, we'll look at one movie set in the then-future-year 1997, and another released that actual year.

_Escape from New York** (1981)_**

Set in dystopian 1997, John Carpenter's super chill action classic Escape From New York follows war hero turned criminal Snake "Don't Call Me Plissken" Plissken (peak Kurt Russell) as he's sent into Manhattan, now a lawless maximum security prison, to save the kidnapped President. Carpenter first wrote Escape in 1976, following the Watergate scandal, when, as he puts it, "the whole feeling of the nation was one of real cynicism about the President." Suffice it to say, _Escape'_s allegorical themes hold up big time.

The tech, however, is decidedly retro, with just some sophisticated tracking devices, a digital countdown watch, and a bunch of good ol' fashioned walls with those random blinking lights. Carpenter's low budget didn't allow for much technological premonition, but Escape is a B-movie less interested in future tech than it is with future tensions. And in that regard—with a walled-in city, a veteran hero betrayed by his country, and a cocky, simpering President—Escape's vision of the future is so of-the-moment now as to feel almost heavy-handed.

A remake has been in the works for a couple of years, and naturally fans of the original—including Russell—are less than thrilled. But re-watching it today, it seems like Escape might be the one 80's movie that demands a reboot. Until then, enjoy Carpenter's initial vision of the near future. And instead of watching the kinda-fun-but-mainly-dumb sequel Escape From L.A., follow it up with another cult classic about an ex-Marine reluctantly chosen to save the world…

_The Fifth Element** (1997)_**