This subreddit focuses on the futurist visions of eras past. However posts may also contain contemporary art with a retrofuturist theme. Futurism was born out of humanity's sudden thrust into technological revolution. To the many that witnessed the dramatic, rapid change, it seemed a technological utopia was fast approaching. This unbridled optimism caused the collective imagination to run wild.
I re-watched this movie by accident on TV last night, for the first time in decades I think, and I was delighted by the 80s vision of an optimist future. (Kind of the opposite of the dystopian / bleak vision from Blade Runner.)
Although the most fantastic predictions (flying cars, holographic adds, robot "gas stations", etc) are certainly not there, there's also more subtle stuff that is hilarious. For instance the fashion of 2015 is absurdly colorful - in fact an extrapolation of the fashion from the 80s - when IRL we mostly kind of migrated to a sad world of black, gray and white.
Some of the predictions almost got there. For instance we don't have restaurants attended by Max Headroom-like AIs, but there are many places where we have giant flat screens to choose your order in a totally digital process with no humans involved.
Talking about flat screens, they also show up. Also, voice interfaces a la Alexa, although far more ubiquitous than they really are today.
Notable absence: smartphones. The machine that truly changed the world flew under the radar of most if not all old scifis.
