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STARSHIP TROOPERS HAS pretty much everything you want from a satirical science-fiction action flick.

There’s the over-the-top action, with guns that hold seemingly infinite ammo. There’s the incredibly cheesy dialogue, with such gems as “The only good bug is a dead bug!”.

And then there’s the awesome technology that the makers predicted we’d have in the future.

While much of it’s still in the realm of fantasy, like faster-than-light space travel, the movie also predicted many things that are already part of our everyday technology. And it did so in 1997 — before the internet changed our lives.

All of the students in Starship Troopers use tablet computers, although they look a little less sleek than today’s.

Based on the stylus, it looks like the Surface Pro beats the iPad in the Starship Troopers universe.

The film’s government ads are a pretty accurate portrayal of today’s visual web, using a combination of interactive links and videos.

Multi-user video chat from around the world with no lag, like Google Hangouts.

You’d think that discs would be outdated in the future, but it actually makes sense.

When you have ships that can travel faster than light, sending data wirelessly (which can only move at the speed of light) is slow in comparison. In fact, with today’s tech, physically sending media like SD cards has a higher “bandwidth” than the entire Internet is capable of. So there.
Here’s a relevant XKCD post about transporting physical media.

If you’ve ever been dumped via text (or worse, Snapchat), you know how accurate this scene is.

Passwords are becoming a thing of the past.

With Android letting you sign in by using your face and rumours of the next iPhone having a fingerprint scanner, it’s pretty clear that Starship Troopers was right when it assumed we wouldn’t be using passwords to sign into our computers in the future.

Both robot-assisted surgery and printing organs are either taking place in some capacity or are making great strides towards becoming a reality in the lab.

Like today’s military, the Federation in Starship Troopers uses renewable energy because of its versatility and easier logistics.

After all, it’s easier to put up a wind turbine than to constantly ship in fuel.

Kyle Russell

(Image Credit for all images: Starship Troopers)

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