Futuristic Foods & What Terminator Really Meant By “Judgment Day”
The ominous “Judgment Day” (August 29th) from The Terminator has come and gone and — phew — we’re still standing! Take that Skynet, our lumpy frail human bodies survived yet another year! The menacing “Judgment Day” has loomed on the horizon since we saw the popular ‘80s movie, The Terminator, and we were promised a robot uprising if “Skynet” became self-aware. And, ever since, we’ve eyed the Roomba vacuum with dread or questioned if Alexa sounded just a little bit annoyed when we asked her to do something.
In fact, the future that is promised in movies and television never seems to be a hopeful one... Unfortunately, it seems like it’s not going to be all flying cars and cleaning robots like The Jetsons promised us! However, rather than worrying about our eventual enslavement by an army of iPhones, we’re going to worry about something that seems a lot more pressing: the food of the future!
We live for food. If the robots take over the world and they leave us our waffles, maybe the future won’t be so bad, right? Except... every glimpse of the future from pop culture hints that we’re in for a rocky foodie existence ahead! The real “Judgment Day” comes when the robots make us eat the food of the future! Gross. Here are a few of the meals you should be the most worried about:
1) Tea. Earl Grey. Hot: Star Trek’s Food Replicator
We’re not gonna lie, we were initially very excited about Star Trek’s Food Replicator! The futuristic system — made popular in Star Trek: The Next Generation by Captain Picard’s repeated orders of “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot” — can make any food you request. We’ve always wished that we could lean over our computers and whisper, “chili cheese fries, please” in the middle of the workday! Except — because the future ruins all delicious foods — the Star Trek food replicator is not as great as we originally thought. With our limited knowledge of future technology, we can only assume that the replicator works by recycling molecules into whatever meal you’ve requested. That means even the gross stuff (fingernails, old sponges, and moldy cheese) goes into the “recycled” bin to be reconstructed as your morning pop tart. EW.
Plus, if robots are making our food, do we lose some of the magic? Is it really your grandma’s famous recipe if it’s a standardized equation? When grandma made her famous chocolate chip cookies she’d throw in a pinch of love, or she might add another splash of wine to her spaghetti sauce because she was feeling a little saucy that day. Can a replicator bring that sort of warmth and humanity into food? Nope.
2) Finger-Lickin’ Good: Soylent Green
According to the 1973 dystopian film, Soylent Green, we have a lot to expect from the year 2022. And — well — it’s all pretty much going to suck. In the film, our world has been so devastated by global climate change and depleted natural resources that people survive on a wafer-like food called Soylent Green that is created in a laboratory.
Fast-forward through a heart wrenching view of our miserable lives in 2022 to when we discover (spoiler alert!) that "Soylent Green is people!" Family BBQs are going to be way more awkward now...
3) Back to the Future’s Family Dinner
All we can hope is that our future robot overloads leave us our pizza! The world can’t be so bad if we can still order an extra-large pizza after a long day at work, right?
Thankfully — according to Back to the Future II — we’ve been spared a life without pizza! The McFly family sits down to a delicious home-cooked (aka hydrated) pizza in the film.
It may not be exactly what we remember, but our robot overloads can’t be all bad if we still have pizza, right?! Let’s just hope that the robots leave us our hydrating machines, or those tiny dry dehydrated pizzas are all we get...
4) Try a Glass of Star Wars’ Refreshing Blue Milk
The Star Wars future promises exciting new planets, impressive new technology, and the ability to control things with your mind. That seems pretty great to us. Except... what sort of food does this far away galaxy promise us?
From what we can tell, there’s going to be a lot of weird little frog-like aliens to eat, some dehydrated bread rolls, and lots of alcohol. I guess the first two choices won’t seem as bad if we drink a lot of the third option beforehand...
Don’t worry though, there’s also roasted Porg (but look at their sad eyes!) and the infamous Blue Milk (why does Luke Skywalker look so miserable drinking it though!?) in the saga too. Uh oh, you might just want to stick with drinking your calories at the Mos Eisley Cantina in this future world after all.
5) WALL-E’s Pizza Plants
Pixar’s WALL-E foreshadows a bleak future for Earth and an even bleaker future for food. The humans traveling aboard the Axiom can indulge (and oh boy do they indulge) in meals like a hamburger in a cup, a pie in a cup, and a cupcake in a cup.
Wait... we’re sensing a theme here. Is all the food in the future blended into some sort of weird meat or dessert frappe? Do we even have solid food anymore!? We like using our teeth and chewing things though! Thanks, future, you even ruined chewing!
Thankfully though, WALL-E saved the day and now there’s a chance that humans will be able to farm on Earth again and “grow all kinds of plants. Vegetable plants, pizza plants.” Pizza plants don’t seem so bad, right?
If you weren’t already worried about Judgment Day, now you can be even more worried about it! Thankfully for you though, we still have an entire year before the next Judgment Day rolls around. Use that time wisely to indulge in food that is not made from people or food not blended into a milkshake!
Or, if you’re watching your calories (so you can outrun the robots when they come), try a taste from the DBH Foodie Collection instead or design your very own food-inspired tee for the Star Trek FanShop! You can also prepare for next Judgment Day by watching the official trailer for the newest Terminator: Dark Fate premiering on November 1st!
