Three Movie Gadgets We Need To Invent, ASAP
The great thing about the fiction is that the laws of science don’t matter. You can create with quite literally anything, any kind of car, weapon or accessory, and as long as it makes sense in the context of its environment, we the audience will eat it right up. Nowadays, it seems like the mega-geniuses in their laboratories have made every cool gadget of our dreams a reality. But unfortunately, there’s still a bit more work left to in catching up with some of cinema’s most awesome pieces of tech. Here are three iconic movie gadgets that we in the real world haven’t gotten our hands on yet, but would sure like to.
Neuralyzer (Men In Black)
It’s the ultimate ‘get out of jail free’ card. The Neuralyzer is an unassuming slim silver cylinder that looks kind of like a relay baton, but aim its sensor at a person or people, click a little button and out comes a flashing beam which essentially wipes its audiences’ memory blank for an amount of time the user can adjust. From here, the Neuralyzer holder can re-paint the targets memory with whatever ridiculous explanation they damn well please. Sure, on a moral level using the Neuralyzer to deceive just about anyone you want and create your own reality might be a bit sticky, but think about how many screw ups you could get yourself out of with this thing! It’s every teenager’s dream; (flash) “No Dad, I didn’t have a party and trash the house on Saturday night, you did! Now get to cleaning this mess up!” Oh, what could have been.
Lotus Esprit/The Submarine Car (The Spy Who Loved Me)
This one is a bit of throwback. The 1976 Lotus Esprit looked pretty slick when was whizzing along the Italian seaside with James Bond at the helm, but it looked even better when it hit the water, converting into a badass submarine, fitted with propellors and, just for good measure, a couple missile launchers. Now on the surface (no pun intended), this one might not seem all that great from a practicality standpoint. But think about it for a minute. Traffic going over the Harbour Bridge? A problem for everyone in a car not named the Lotus Esprit! You might catch a couple funny looks but when your 20 minutes early to work and your leather seats bone dry, you’ll have the last laugh. As for the rocket launchers? Well, you can never be too careful, I guess.
Lightsaber (Star Wars)
It needs no introduction. The lightsaber still the undisputed most desired and clamored for made-up movie gadget of all time and it’s probably not even close. Functionally, the lightsaber isn’t actually that much more useful than a regular sword (other than its ability to deflect laser bullets which, given that we don’t have laser guns in our world yet, is kind of a pointless feature), but you can’t tell me that owning a real-life lightsaber wouldn’t be the pinnacle of existence. Even if you were a total pacifist, you’d be finding uses for that thing on a daily basis. Throw out the kitchen knives baby, we’re prepping our stir fry with the lightsaber now (fingers crossed you like your vegetables chunky and maybe just a bit charred). Given that we don’t live in a galaxy far, far away, we likely will never get our hands on a real-life lightsaber, but it won’t stop us from dreaming.