Futuristic Movies of the Past Trivia Quiz

Answer: Destroy All Monsters

An alien force takes control of the monsters and forces them to attack major cities across the world. Toho's star monster, Godzilla, lays waste to New York City, Mothra takes Beijing, and Rodan flies over Moscow. In all, eleven of Toho's film monsters appear in this movie.
'Frankenstein', 'Gargantuans' and 'War' were also Japanese films made around the same time.

Answer: Things To Come

Set in the fictional city of Everytown in 2036, the new world order of engineers and mechanics called 'Wings Over The World' are making ready for the first manned flight around the Moon (the movie was off by 68 years). The plans, though, go against the wishes of a mob of Luddites who believe that man had already gone too far in technology.
The film stars Raymond Massey (best known for 'Abe Lincoln in Illinois' and 'Arsenic and Old Lace'), Cedric Hardwicke and Ralph Richardson.

Answer: The collapse of the Soviet Union.

According to the movie, the U.S. borrows $40-billion dollars from NIKE (which stands for 'National Indian Knitting Enterprise' by its native American owners). To pay back NIKE before they foreclose (and, ironically, buy the country back), a nation-wide telethon is launched.
Written by Phil Proctor and Peter Bergman of the Firesign Theatre, the film stars Fred Willard, John Ritter (as President Chet Roosevelt, who ran on the ticket 'I'm Not A Schmuck'), Peter Riegert, Harvey Korman, and features cameos by Meat Loaf and a very young Jay Leno. George Carlin is the narrator.

Answer: Jupiter

It is revealed in a pre-recorded message within the 'HAL' computer that the Moon monolith was completely inert, except for a single radio emission aimed at Jupiter, hence the journey to the giant planet 18 months after the Moon discovery.
You probably heard the computer 'HAL' was so named by moving each letter of its name one step backward from IBM, the computer company. Science-fiction legend and '2001' screenwriter Arthur C. Clarke said the naming was pure coincidence. 'HAL' was actually an abbreviation for 'Heuristic ALgorithmic Computer'.
The script for '2001' was partly based on Clarke's 1948 short story, 'The Sentinel'.

Answer: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes

Based on the novel 'Planet of the Apes' by Pierre Boulle, the series was one of the most successful in the 1970s. In this installment, chimpanzee Caesar (Roddy McDowall) hides his identity as the son of ape scientists Cornelius and Zira (McDowall and Kim Hunter), who time-travel from ape-dominated Earth back to the present-day before being killed (all this was chronicled in 'Escape').

The now-adult Caesar proceeds to lead an ape rebellion against their human masters. 'Beneath' was the second film of the series, while 'Battle', made in 1973, completed the cycle of ape domination on Earth.

Answer: Terminator 2: Judgment Day

The second of the 'Terminator' movies was, at its time of release, one of the most expensive films ever made (over $100 million), and far surpassed its parent film not only in gross revenue, but also in awards, winning four Oscars. A lot of the production money went to the special-effects team who destroyed L.A. by atomic fire.
Incidentally, the date given to 'Judgment Day' (which, as the series revealed, was delayed until 2004 and didn't happen then, either) marked the 50th anniversary of the former Soviet Union detonating their first atomic bomb and joining the nuclear family.

Answer: Independent thinking

Smith, who makes his living re-writing history for the Ministry of Truth, begins to question his motives and falls in love with the rebel Julia (Suzanna Hamilton), all of which is prohibited by 'Big Brother' and the Thought Police. Smith is brought before the interrogator O'Brien (Richard Burton), who tortures and brainwashes him to rejoin society.

This film version would prove to be the last film appearance of Burton, who died two months before the movie's release. The film is dedicated to his memory. An interesting point of this film... when Smith writes onscreen in his diary, 'April 4, 1984', the camera was actually rolling on him on April 4, 1984. Director Michael Radford made sure the filming coincided with the dates given in Orwell's book.

Answer: Strange Days

'Strange Days' (the title was taken from an album by the Doors, as was 'Soft Parade') features some eerie technical effects using steady-cams and ultra-small cameras with replaceable lenses for the personal 'point of view' experience found on the discs. Most of the editing was done by the film's scriptwriter, future Oscar-winning director James Cameron, who reportedly said his inspiration for the film actually came from the fallout of the Rodney King trial in 1992. 'End of Days' was an action/horror vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger and 'Millennium' was a TV series starring Lance Henriksen.

Answer: Just Imagine

'Just Imagine' starred Maureen O'Sullivan (Mia Farrow's mother and Tarzan's long-time love interest), Frank Albertson (best remembered as Sam Wainright in 'It's A Wonderful Life') and John Garrick. Most of the footage of the futuristic city scenery was used throughout the '30s and '40s in such movie serials as 'Flash Gordon' and 'Buck Rogers'. One scene also features the electricity-powered gadgets that would be better shown a year later in the horror classic 'Frankenstein'.

Answer: When he is ordered to jump out a window.

In this adaptation of a novella from Isaac Asimov's 'Robot' series published in 1976, Andrew Martin (surnamed for the family who owns him) is ordered out the window by eldest daughter Grace Martin (Lindze Letherman), causing him injury, but also achieving independent thoughts, questions and emotions. With the help of robotics expert Rupert Burns (Oliver Platt) and a female-designed robot called Galatea (Kiersten Warren), Andrew takes on more human features so that by the start of the 23rd Century, he is more human than robot... or is he? According to the Internet Movie Database, Andrew's programming was based on Asimov's 'Three Laws of Robotics', made famous in his novel 'I, Robot'.