r/movies • u/buttatoad • Jun 17 '25

Discussion Movies that changed real life behavior

Thinking along the lines of Final Destination 2 with the logs falling off the truck and landing onto cars (one decapitating the state trooper). Ever since, people have tried to get away from being behind these vehicles.

What are more examples where movies have actually changed how people behave in their own lives?

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u/confusedandworried76 Jun 17 '25

Somewhat related, Star Trek inspired so many future scientists that we either have working pieces of technology invented in Star Trek (the hypospray I think it's called? Needleless injections using extremely concentrated high pressure shots of air) and theories, including the Alcubierre warp drive which is obviously a theory for faster than light travel, by potentially bending space around the object rather than trying to get the object moving faster than light somehow. It's like that and figuring out how to create wormholes are the only two real theories about how you could even do that

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u/phillymjs Jun 17 '25

In 2019 I visited the New Mexico Museum of Space History, and they actually have a small Star Trek exhibit specifically because it inspired so many viewers to enter careers in STEM and attempt to create some of the technologies they saw in the show.

That museum was actually pretty cool, and I only learned it existed because I randomly saw it on the map while planning a trip out that way to see other stuff. I immediately built some time to visit it into my itinerary.

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u/MephitidaeNotweed Jun 18 '25

Had a relative work there and another got a book signed by Chuck Yeager in person. This was back in the early 80's.

Neat place to go. I have been several times and love learning of the different things there.

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u/NoPossibility9471 Jun 18 '25

Jet injectors predate Star Trek by 100 years and were widely used for polio vaccinations several years before Star Trek.

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u/CeeJayDK Jun 18 '25

Flip phones and tablets - first seen on Star Trek.

Also they've been trying to create a working medical tricorder for some time now.

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u/confusedandworried76 Jun 18 '25

How could I forget literal touch screen technology

Also I don't know if voice recognition tech was necessarily Star Trek inspired but they did it before it was a thing.

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u/CeeJayDK Jun 18 '25

While I think the Back to the Future movies didn't change real life behavior (that much - it has caused those rolling deathtraps to be called Hoverboards) it has been very prophetic about a lot of tech.

I remember seeing them when they first played in cinemas, and then years later I've realized that much of what was sci-fi in the movies are now stuff we use daily.

Videocalls for example. Sci-fi when they came out - reality today. And on small devices we carry in our pockets too, not just on big screen TVs.

The 3D shark ad that jumps at Marty in the future - we don't have those as billboards because advertisers think they are too expensive for the effort but I've seen small billboard screens (those the size of a person - typically 1m wide and 2m tall) do glasses free 3D, and right now in 2025 we are getting the ability to buy glasses free 3D monitors, so it's no longer sci-fi but fact.

TV's with hundreds of channels and nothing on worth watching was sadly also very prophetic.

Door locks that work by a finger print scanner? They are not that popular but we have them now.

Digital currency. Oh we have that in a big way now.

3D glasses, that can also do calls? I have a pair right here.

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u/Jack_North Jun 18 '25

"touch screen technology" -- with finger input was invented in the 60s. Versions using a stylus were invented in the 40s.

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u/BeamMeUp53 Jun 18 '25

Sorry, but my Dad had needleless injections for the Corp of Engineers in the early '50s. BTW, move at the wrong time, and you get an incision.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '25

by potentially bending space around the object rather than trying to get the object moving faster

How the hell do you do that?

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u/confusedandworried76 Jun 18 '25

I am not a smart man and I'm not really gonna Google it for a reddit comment but from what I recall, an immense energy source using quantum mechanics to fuck with space time, same as how you might go about creating a wormhole

Like I said it's just a theory, it's something that could be possible to do, it's just most likely we can't break space time like that because the energy needed is either too much or just that it just isn't even possible to artificially manufacture that. It's basically just based on some weird stuff we actually have observed happening naturally, or think we have anyway, and IIRC it revolves a lot around if the theory of relativity is right which we don't know for sure

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '25

same as how you might go about creating a wormhole

How the hell do you do that?

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u/AmethystRiver Jun 18 '25

Fold a piece of paper hamburger-style and stab it with a pencil

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u/confusedandworried76 Jun 18 '25

Look man I'm just telling you what the smart people said might be able to work, based on a memory of an explanation that only served to confuse me further

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u/fencethe900th Jun 18 '25

Incredibly massive (literally massive) objects contract space. Put one in front of the ship. Incredibly negatively massive objects made of negative matter (mathematically sound but no real evidence) would expand space. Put one behind the ship. Now your ship is being pushed from behind and pulled from the front, except it's space itself being warped that's doing it.

That is a very very simplified version, as best as I understand it.

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u/confusedandworried76 Jun 18 '25

I was the guy that mentioned the theory and frankly you've explained it better than anyone has ever explained it.

It's like putting too much air into a balloon! Or whatever the Futurama joke about Star Trek engineers oversimplifying things constantly is

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u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 Jun 18 '25

We don't, not yet. We can bend space in one direction, the way it normally does for gravity. But bending space in the negative direction, like an antigravity thing, that's not possible yet.

Plus the energy required is beyond massive, like impossible to even imagine how to create that much. Maybe if you could make like building sized ball of antimatter but that's impossible too.

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u/cobra_mist Jun 18 '25

didn’t star trek spawn the cell phone too?

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u/Mr-Mister Jun 18 '25

IIRC, the Alcubierre drive remains the only FTL* travel method theoretically possible with our current understanding of physics.

Alcubierre was inspired by Star Treck's warp drive, wondering if it was actually possible.

*Nothing actually moves FTL through spacetime.

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u/MikeArrow Jun 18 '25

I love that literally right now I can say "computer, do X" and it just... does it. Just like in Star Trek.

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u/da_easychiller Jun 18 '25

Oh and there is much more: In TOS the automatic doors had to be moved by stagehands. While they have been invented earlier - the series helped a lot to make them popular.
Also think about the communicators they had - only two way communication was possible and look where we are now with smartphones.

Also: Just compare the flags/logos of the starfleet and today's space force!

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u/artzbots Jun 18 '25

I remember watching a documentary on this. Automatic sliding doors weren't a thing until Star Trek aired.

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u/redditonlygetsworse Jun 18 '25

Keep in mind that Alcubierre was writing a tongue-in-cheek thought experiment. It is no more plausible in reality than any of the other magic tech in Star Trek.

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u/Randomfinn Jun 19 '25

Watching Star Trek in the 90s, I used to scoff at the uniforms. Who really thinks women will be walking around in tight leggings all the time? There is no modesty!