Sunday, January 12, 2014

A View of the Future

Futurama shows a future where the dreams of the scientists that started centuries ago finally came true. There were anti-gravity cars, portable tubes that transport people from one place to another, a live robot, a time machine, floating live heads in jars, and a lot of other things. The show also showed how Earth has welcomed alien species into humanity, like Leela, the one-eyed career counselor.  
Futurama is set in New New York at the coming of the 31st century. It was built over the “Old New York,” which has become a city of underground ruins. Technology has advanced way beyond what it is now. Its development was used for the convenience of every living thing on the planet; for transportation, for food, for shelter, and for social life. Although, it can be seen that it was also abused. For instance, the suicide booth was invented. Indeed, even death became more convenient. As technology elevated in the 31st century, it seems that the global problems we have today have also escalated. The Earth was literally covered by a vulnerable sheet of atmosphere that when damaged can suck everything inside the Earth out. Basically, global warming became even more extreme, along with poor government and substance abuse. Apart from these it seems that technology has completely taken over humanity, even the career of the people. In the pilot series, the story almost revolves around how Fry tries to escape from Leela and her desire to insert a career chip in him. It seems that with the new technology, your destiny can already be written.

The two common ways of executing time travel are through teleportation and cryonics. In the series, Fry came to the future through the latter method. During Fry’s cryonic sleep, the outside of the window shows an invasion of flying spaceships that neutralize the city of New York. As a new civilization emerges, the same things that destroyed New York came to destroy it a second time, finally giving birth to New New York. While Fry was in his cryogenic sleep in the time capsule, he was of going forward to the future without aging at all. I believe this is the effect of the freezing of cryogenetics. Maybe if he wasn’t frozen, he would have aged in the progression in time.
The setting in Futurama could actually be a glimpse of our future. In fact, I am 70% sure that with our growing technology, New New York would actually be real, giving rise to a new Earth ruled by technology. 

by Nicole Tesoro
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