www.youtube.com/watch?v=
Full of trippy, drug-taking cyberpeople and "hosted" by Orson Welles, the 1972 documentary Future Shock (based on Alvin Toffer's mega-bestseller) is like a study in yesterday's dreams of tomorrow. Now available in its entirety on YouTube, you will discover that Toffler predicted things like virtual worlds, temp jobs, and Prozac back in the late 1960s when he wrote his futurist manifesto (and invented the idea of futurism in the process).
But Toffler's serious book is nothing like this crazy documentary. It's like a map of everything that seemed sexy and innovative to audiences of the 70s, and to a twenty-first century eye looks old and ugly. You won't be able to look away as giant, 70s-era Orson Welles smokes and intones, "We live in an age of anxiety. We are the victims of our own technological strength. We are the victims of future shock!" And then there's the gooey, bumpy 70s TV music as background. This movie proves futurism ages as badly as pop songs do.
