Is Now a Good Time to Mention that "Soylent Green" Was Set in 2022?

Movies have been imagining the future for a long time. Perhaps faster-than-light-speed space travel and teleportation in Star Trek could still be in store for the 24th century, but we'll have to wait 300 years to find out.

But for movies from decades past, their distant future is now — 2022.

Here are a few of them:

Soylent Green

In 1973, Soylent Green imagined a New York City of 2022. People still drive '70s -style cars and seemingly fashions have gone back to the 1800s. New York is polluted and overcrowded, with food and water in short supply. The oceans are dying. And one giant corporation is responsible for feeding the masses — with a certain mysterious product.

"Nothing runs anymore, nothing works. But the people are the same, and the people will do anything to get what they need," a voiceover says. "What they need most is Soylent Green."

The movie's dystopian future bears some distant similarities to reality, with climate change already exacerbating hunger and poverty and one giant corporation that could one day control pretty much everything.