The future is finally here.
It’s certainly awesome, but there’s so much going on, it can be hard to
keep track of it all sometimes. So, for
your reading pleasure, I will break down the most anticipated movies, sports,
political events, and scientific milestones set to take place between now and
the end of the decade. Some of these are
events already set to occur, while others are predictions by yours truly.
May 25th, 2012 - Men in Black 3
Will Smith returns this weekend for a third MiB movie. I saw this on opening night, and it was
awesome!! You could make the argument
that it’s better than the original. Basically,
Agent J (Will Smith) is sent back in time to 1969. There he battles an evil alien alongside the
younger version of Tommy Lee Jones’ Agent K. I love Will Smith and this easily ranks among
his best work. Make sure you check it
out in 3D, it was definitely worth the extra $5.
June 1st, 2012 - Prometheus
Ridley Scott directs an Alien prequel that takes place in
the year 2085. In the future, archaeologists
find several copies of the same map carved in stone in different locations around
the world. They determine they were left
by aliens thousands of years ago, and go on to explore the darkest corners of
the universe. Eventually, they land on a
distant planet and awaken a long dormant alien species. The previews look pretty intense and this will
also be in 3D/IMAX.
July 20th, 2012 - Dark Knight Rises
Expectations are as high as they can get for the follow up
to The Dark Knight. Plot details are
scarce, but we know that Batman comes out of retirement ten years later to
battle a terrorist named Bane (played by Tom Hardy). Bane wants to kill all of Gotham’s rich
citizens, and starts by destroying an entire football stadium. According to the trailer, this will be the
final movie of the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy. This should easily be the top box office draw
of 2012.
July 12th, 2012 – The Summer Olympics
Everyone knows the Summer Olympics is better than the crappy
Winter version. This year should be
great, I’m looking forward to Michael Phelps, Women’s Soccer and Men’s
Basketball all dominating the competition for the U.S.
August 3rd, 2012 - Total Recall
Colin Farrell stars in a remake of ‘Total Recall’ – one of
the best sci-fi movies of all time. I
was worried they might fuck it up, but judging from the previews – this should
be awesome. Along with Colin Farrell
playing the lead role, they have Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) playing
Cohaagen, the main villain. It looks
similar to the original in terms of plot, just with major upgrades as far as
special effects.
August 5th, 2012 - Probe Lands of Mars
NASA’s probe ‘Curiosity’ is set to land on Mars on August 5th
to do research on the planet’s surface. It
has four main objectives: To determine
whether Mars is or has ever been able to support life, to collect data for a
human mission, to study geology and to study the climate. I’m hoping they discover something crazy,
like a T-Rex skull, forcing scientists to rethink everything they “know” about
dinosaurs.
September 28th, 2012 - Looper
All you need to know is that Bruce Willis time travels to
2042. Based on that alone, this should
be awesome. The plot is pretty complex,
but this is my best understanding of it:
In the year 2042, criminals are going back in time and the government is
sending assassins back in time to kill them.
The assassins are known as ‘Loopers’ because they are to be killed
themselves once they complete their mission.
This is to prevent the paradox of them running into their other “self”. This is turn results in an infinite “loop” of
assassins killing other assassins every time the government tries to change
history. Bruce Willis recently told
Esquire that this was the best movie he’s ever done (even though he says that a
lot).
December 14th, 2012 - The Hobbit
The Hobbit is kind of for nerds, but I have to admit – the ‘Lord
of the Rings’ movies were way better than I ever thought they would be. Peter Jackson will be producing and will have
a bigger budget and better special effects to work with than he did for LOTR.
December 21st, 2012 – One Shot
This movie is based on a novel by Lee Child and Tom Cruise
plays an assassin named Jack Reacher. Fans
of the book are reportedly upset as the original version has Reacher billed at
6’5”, 250 pounds while Tom Cruise is only 5’7”.
Even though Cruise is short and almost 50 years old, he can still kick a
ton of ass. He is coming off the most
successful movie of his career (MI:4 grossed $603 million worldwide), and is
now as popular as he was during his ‘Top Gun’ heyday. I’m sure the action sequences will get a
little ridiculous, but this should be awesome. Hopefully, this will help reestablish Tom
Cruise as Hollywood’s top action star.
February 14th, 2013 - A Good Day to Die Hard
Bruce Willis returns on Valentine’s Day for a fifth Die Hard
movie. This installment will be a
father/son story, in which John McClane’s son is captured and held hostage in
Russia by Hans Gruber – the terrorist McClane battled in Die Hard 3. This should be awesome just like all of the ‘Die
Hard’ movies and Bruce Willis has been saying that this will be as good as the
original (even though he says shit like that all the time).
March 16th, 2013 - Star Trek 2
Even if you think Star Trek is for nerds, you have to admit
the most recent movie was amazing. The
sequel began shooting in January of 2012, and is tentatively set for release
next Spring. It still doesn’t have a title,
but it has nearly everyone returning from 2009’s effort including J.J Abrams, Chris
Pine and Zachary Quinto.
April 23rd, 2013 - Wolves first MN team to make
playoffs in almost four years
Certainly not much of a bold prediction, but after some key
offseason trades and the return of Ricky Rubio, the Wolves will become the
first Mn sports team to make the playoffs since the 2009 Vikings. Pretty pathetic when you consider that half
the teams make the postseason in the NBA and NHL. If we have Rubio and Love healthy, we should
be able to get out of the first round and do some real damage.
June 7th, 2013 – After Earth
M. Night Shyamalan returns to the sci-fi genre he does
best. Will Smith and his son crash land
on Earth 1,000 years after humans have abandoned the planet. Not much else is known about the plot at this
time, but there should be a big swerve at the end like all other Shyamalan movies.
June 21st, 2013 - World War Z
Brad Pitt stars as Gerry Lane, a U.N. employee that is
racing around the world trying to stop the outbreak of a deadly zombie
pandemic. It’s based on a book, and as
usual – people are upset the movie is differentiating from the original story. As long as it has Brad Pitt killing a bunch of
zombies, I’ll be seeing it for sure.
July 7th, 2013 – Robocop
In 2010, Sony secured the rights to the Robocop franchise and the reboot
is set to start filming in the Summer of ’12.
All we know so far is that Joel Kinnamon will star as Robocop and that
it will be directed by up and comer Jose Padiha. It will also have a somewhat limited budget
of $80 million. If this is even half as
good as the original, I’ll be stoked. Unfortunately,
Robocop 2 and 3 (flying Robocop? Are you
fucking kidding?) were awful, so it’s tough to predict how good this one will be.
November 1st, 2013 – Ender’s Game
Harrison Ford returns to a promising sci-fi script and is hoping
to redeem himself after 2011’s disappointing ‘Cowboys & Aliens’. The movie is based on a 1985 novel about an
unusually gifted child sent to an advanced military school to prepare for an
alien invasion. In this future reality,
aliens have already invaded Earth twice, and have nearly wiped out mankind each
time. The aliens are expected to return
and therefore the brightest children get sent away to prepare for the impending
battle.
December 25th, 2013 - Ninja Turtles
Look at what all of us 80’s children will be getting for
Christmas next year – a new Ninja Turtles movie!!! This looks to be a complete reboot and the
producers have dropped the “Teenage Mutant” part from the title. This will be completely live action, similar
to the original Turtles movies. Now, if
I can only convince my family to go see this after we open presents…
April 4th, 2014 – The Neverending Story
I used to love ‘The Neverending Story’ movies when I was a
kid. If you’ve never seen them,
basically a young boy gets lost in a book about a warrior named Bastien. He rides around on a flying dog named Falkor while
trying to outrun the Nothing. It’s
pretty trippy and it’s done with a lot of puppets Jim Henson style. However, ‘The Neverending Story’ has not aged
well. I dare you to try and watch it
now. I watched half of it a few months
ago, and it was so painfully cheesy I had to turn it off. With the reboot being made for 2014,
hopefully the studios can invest enough money to make it seem cool for a new
generation of kids.
June 16th, 2014 - Bill and Ted 3
This is only happening because Keanu doesn’t have much else
going on, but who cares - I’ve always wanted to see another Bill and Ted movie. Can you imagine how psyched Alex Wright (Bill)
was when he got the call from Keanu? “Hey
bro, what are you doing?” “Uh, not much
dude, just sitting here in my apartment eating Teddy Grahams” “Wanna like, make ‘Bill and Ted 3’, dude?” “Whoooaaaahhh!! Fuck yeah dude! Can we like start tomorrow? I’m behind on my rent”. Anyways, it’s been 21 years since the last
time we saw Bill and Ted in ‘Bogus Journey’ – where they cheated death and
wrote a song to save the world. The
script is supposed to be like the original, but instead of rounding up
historical figures, they are traveling through time and collecting rock stars
from different eras. I vote for Jimi
Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Michael Jackson to get swooped up by the
time traveling phone booth.
July 6th, 2014 – MLB All Star Game Target Field
This is going to be great.
When was the last time we had something like this in Minneapolis? The 1992 Super Bowl at the Metrodome? Anyways, this will be the hottest ticket in
town – especially when you consider how few playoff games there will be in Mn
over the next decade.
August 12th, 2014 – Anchorman 2
The return of Ron Burgundy was recently announced on an
episode on ‘Conan’. I consider this Will
Farrell’s best role and after a series of slight disappointments, this should
give his career a boost. It will be deece
funny, but like Hangover 2, there will be a lot of recycled material from the
first go round.
December 16th, 2014 - Super Mario 4
After several years of disappointment from the Wii, Nintendo
will launch a new console system for Christmas 2014. It’s rumored that the system will launch with
a true sequel to everyone’s favorite childhood game, Super Mario 3. Yes ladies and gentleman, Raccoon Mario is
set to return.
December 25th, 2014 - New Hope in 3D
After the dreadfully slow release of the prequel movies in
3D, George Lucas will finally give us what we want. We’ll get ‘New Hope’ for Christmas 2014,
‘Empire’ for Summer of ’15 and ‘Jedi’ for Summer of ’16.
Dec 27th, 2014 – Google Eyeball
Eye sensor technology is currently in development by Google that
would blow your mind. They are working
on a hands free way to surf the internet through a special set of glasses or
contacts. It works similar to standard
motion sensor technology, except it is controlled by the motion of your pupil. You will be able to install apps on a set of
glasses or contacts that you could access in the upper right corner of your
field of vision (Imagine a Google search bar every time you looked up and to
the right). So, if your friend is being
a dick and insisting that Ozzie Smith was the 1986 NL MVP, you can say “No he
wasn’t! Google eyeball…search
Wikipedia…NL MVP…1986…boom Mike Schmidt!!
Fuck you I told you it was Mike Schmidt, you idiot” – all by using
simple eye movements.
March 7th, 2015 – End of Moore’s Law
Moore’s Law states that the number of transistors that can
be placed on an integrated circuit will double every two years. This has held true for decades and basically
equates to computing power doubling with the increase in transistors. We are currently at a point where scientists
can create transistors in a lab setting as thin as six atoms wide. If we can do that now, there is very, very
little room left for improvement. In
2015, we will reach a point where many aspects of computing will be maxed
out. Circuits and memory chips will be
as efficient as possible and few improvements will be left to make. Engineers will ask themselves “now
what?” And the answer is outer space.
After the tech-lull of 2015, companies like Apple and Google
will begin a new ‘Space Race’ by using their private technology to explore our
solar system. While finding other life
forms may be a stretch, it’s very likely that there are other valuable resources
in our solar system. Eventually, new
types of energy sources will be found and mined in outer space including more
efficient forms of rocket fuel. Over
time, the new “Moore’s Law” will measure increases in the speed of space travel. For example, every 2-3 years the amount of
time it takes to fly to Saturn may be cut in half. Someday, we will be able to go faster than the
speed of light – disproving Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.
August 12th, 2015 - Jurassic Park IV
Although this isn’t 100% confirmed yet, it’s pretty damn
close. Steven Spielberg told reporters
that he would be making ‘Jurassic Park 4’ “in the next two or three years” at
Comic-Con 2011. I watched some of part 3
the other day, and it was pretty forgettable.
If they do a fourth movie, they have to reinvent the franchise somehow
so it’s different than 2 and 3. As long
as they find a new angle, this could be among the biggest movies of ’15.
February 16th, 2016 – Rocky VII
Yes, this is going to happen. After Stallone finishes filming Expendables
II, he’s slated to work on Rambo V (yes, I’m totally serious) during late
’12. Once he finishes Rambo, he plans on
making Rocky VII. It sounds ridiculous,
but I’ll be psyched to see this for sure.
Rocky 1-4 are some of my favorite all time movies, and Stallone’s most
recent effort, ‘Rocky Balboa’ (Rocky 6) was great as well. Stallone is now 65 and I know you’re thinking
“that’s insane”, but that’s the same age as Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan – and
they’re still active wrestlers. Stallone
is in way better shape than either of them and is also a better actor. While I don’t care a ton about ‘Expendables
II’ or ‘Rambo V’, I will happily pay to see ‘Rocky 7’ in the theater – even if
it gets shit reviews. Just in case
Stallone is reading my column, I’ll give him a million dollar script for
free: Rocky vs Mike Tyson. It would just be so perfect. Iron Mike needs money and wants to get into
acting, and Rocky needs someone credible to fight within twenty years of his
age (Tyson is 45). Make it happen
Stallone!!!
March 12th, 2016 – MLS Mn Team’s Inaugural Season
As part of the Vikings stadium deal, Zygi Wilf has a five
year exclusive bid on an MLS franchise for Mn.
He will be granted an expansion team in 2014 and the team will debut for
the 2016 season. For a team name I
suggest the “MN Madness’ – because it sounds cool and is also a tribute to the
late Macho Man Randy Savage.
May 25th, 2016 - Death of Books
Yeah, I can’t believe they still make them now either. But by May of 2016, companies will officially
cease making physical copies of books. Someday,
my kids will ask “What’s a book?” and I’ll say, “It’s kind of like an article
but a really long one wrote down on a bunch of pieces of paper. Except there’s no holograms or music or
anything except words”. And they’ll say “dad,
that sounds boring”. And I’ll be like, “It
was, it really was”.
June 7th, 2016 – Terminator 5
After filming ‘Twins 2’ with Danny DeVito and Eddie Murphy,
Arnold will return to his most famous role.
After the very disappointing ‘Terminator Salvation’, the producers
realized it just wasn’t the same without Arnold. Schwarzenegger will receive the biggest
payday of his career and this will be hailed as the second best Terminator
movie behind T2.
August 15th, 2016 – Jupiter landing
After a five your journey from Earth, NASAs space probe
‘Juno’ will reach Jupiter in August of 2016.
It is set to orbit Jupiter 33 times while taking pictures and other
observations. This should be awesome
because we really don’t know anything about Jupiter, other than it’s mostly
made up of gas. Scientists hope that studying
Jupiter will give us clues as to how our solar system was formed.
October 30th, 2016 – Ghostbusters 3
Dan Akroyd, Harold Ramis and Jason Segel will resurrect the
Ghostbusters franchise for Halloween ’16.
There will be a small cameo shot with Bill Murray, but he will been
upset with the final cut and refuse to do any promotion for the film. The movie itself will be great; but it will
feel completely different than the first two movies.
November 5th, 2016 - Death of the Penny
Fuck you pennies!!
Once upon a time, pennies were invented when it was practical to buy
things for one cent. But that was like
three hundred years ago. Nowadays, 99%
of all items cost at least a dollar. If
you could travel back in time to the 1800’s, and explain that in 2012 one
hundred copper coins would be sufficient to trade to for a small bottle of
water – they’d think you’re crazy.
Anyways, pennies will be banned as part of the 2016 election and
everything will be priced in five cent increments from then on.
November 5th, 2016 – Marijuana legal in
California
After their economy continues to struggle, California will
become the first state to tax and legalize the sale of marijuana resulting in
an additional $5 billion in annual tax revenues. Unfortunately, productivity and other tax
revenues will decrease due to everyone being high all the time.
March 3rd, 2017 – Auto Drive Technology Legalized
Google has been perfecting its auto drive technology for
years, and it will finally get the go ahead from legislators in 2017. Instead of having to worry about getting home
after a long night of drinking, you just hop in your car and tell it where to
go. This will be awesome news for
alcoholics, and terrible news for cab drivers.
November 15th, 2017 – Space Travel Vacations
Virgin Galactic is set to launch their maiden space flight
in late 2017 with a cost of $200,000/person.
While that seems like a ton of money, the price will come down
dramatically over time and we should be able to go into space at least once in
our lifetime. Eventually, there will be vacation
spots on the moon including bars and nightclubs where you can party in zero
gravity.
December 23rd, 2017 – Star Wars VII
When ‘Empire Strikes Back’ was first released, Lucas
explained that it was episode five in a nine episode story – to be told as
three separate trilogies. Since then, he
has retracted that statement and said there will be no more movies. The problem is, Lucasfilm Studios cannot survive
on making video games and cartoons about Star Wars 1-6 forever. Eventually, interest will die out without a
new film. Lucas knows this in his heart,
and will want to oversee these movies before he dies. Our dreams will come true with Episode 7
arriving for Christmas 2017. The budget
will be among the biggest of all time, and the new trilogy will be way better
than Episodes 1-3.
Sept 30th, 2018 – Joe Mauer’s Contract Expires
Wow. Hard to believe
this is the last thing on the list. After
self-driving cars, ‘Rocky 7’, ‘Star Wars 7’ and two more Presidential elections,
Joe Mauer will finally become a free agent at the end of the 2018 season. That’s a lot more milk and shampoo
commercials before we can sign anyone else to a big contract.
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