Bad Future: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Steins;Gate]]'' has two: time travel research by {{spoiler|CERN leads to a dystopian future ruled by them}}. The protagonists actions prevents this and inadvertently ensures {{spoiler|that ''every country in the world'' gets time travel, which touches off a hellish World War 3.}}

* In ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' Chibi-usa comes back to the present to get help in order to save her own time. The Senshi end up travelling forward with her and fighting the evil force which has invaded Future!Earth. Becomes a bit of a [[Timey-Wimey Ball]] since there is a lot of travel between the present and the future, both by heroes and by villains, and Present!Mamoru and Usagi learn things which ought to help them avert the Bad Future in the first place, but apparently they don't because they need to go forward in order to learn them.

 

== Comic Books ==

** Other instances included a played straight Bad Future involving a race of Metal Sonics taking over, and a Bad Future-esque ''Present'' that came about by Robotnik managing to become a god, and [[Wonderful Life|deleting Sonic]] [[Ret-Gone|from history]].

* Startlingly averted in ''[[DC One Million]]'', where the heroes of the present learn that the Solar System of 80,000 years in the future is basically a mutli-planet utopia supervised by a benevolent Justice Legion. (Where, for example, the JLA discourages alien invaders by giving them a tour of the JLA museum, and superpowers are available on-demand.) It's not devoid of problems, but it sure looks nice from the perspective of the year 2000.

 

== Fan Works ==

* In ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20181101050021/https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5178251/1/30-Minutes-That-Changed-Everything 30 Minutes That Changed Everything]'' by Radaslab, the century or so following the canon ending of the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' books is the Bad Future. In the first chapter Harry Potter, literally the last man alive, creates a magical [[AI]] and sends it back into the past in order to change the events that led to it.

 

* ''[[Meet the Robinsons]]'', with the alternate future ruled entirely by a robotic ''bowler hat''. Specifically, when the Bowler Hat Guy takes credit for Lewis's Memory Scanner, he unwittingly helps Doris and her demonic, robotic bowler-hat offspring destroy the bubblegum neo-fifties [[Zeerust]] future in favor of a [[dystopia]]n future. Bonus points for a [[Future Badass]] mind-controlled Robinson family. You can tell they're Future Badass because all the women wear black lipstick.

* An abandoned concept in ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'' featured Jafar wishing that he "''always was Sultan''", resulting in a [[Bad Present]] for Agrabah. The artists ''loved'' BadFuture!Agrabah, but the [[Timey-Wimey Ball]] was too much for the writers to get around.

** They got to use it in the series though: villain Abis Mal goes back in time, teams up with his own ancestor Abnor Mal, and tries to replace the current sultan's family as founders of Agrabah. Both of them being [[Harmless Villain|rather inept]] however, their plan does not work and is, as always, foiled by Aladdin.

* Averted in ''[[Back to The Future]] Part II'' in 2015. The filmmakers stated that they didn't want to just rip off ''[[Blade Runner]]'' and wanted to get people out of that sort-of grim mindset, so they portrayed the future as a generally nice place to live, though not perfect, and that any trouble was caused by the people (like Griff) there, not technology. Also, they knew that whatever they showed would likely become [[Zeerust|badly dated or inaccurate]] as the ''real'' 2015 came around, so they just [[Rule of Funny|made it all into jokes]]. The [[Bad Present]], on the other hand...

* ''[[It's a Wonderful Life]]'' did the "bad alternate present" thing way before that one.

* The ''[[Kamen Rider Kabuto]]'' movie ''God Speed Love'' is set in such a future. The meteor that brought the Worms to Earth was much larger than in the series and as a result vaporized Earth's oceans and turned the entire planet into a desert wast land and to make matters worse, {{spoiler|an evil Kamen Rider exclusive to the movie wants to let the Worms take over the world}}. Interestingly, this was actually the {{spoiler|original future and the series timeline is caused by the title character going back in time.}}

* One of those rare inversions drives the plot of ''[[Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure]]'': the good future is in danger of ''not'' happening if Bill and Ted don't get to start their band.

 

== Literature ==

* In ''[[A Christmas Carol]]'', the Ghost Of Christmas Yet to Come shows Scrooge the future consequences of his miserly ways: Tiny Tim dies, the deceased Scrooge's belongings are pawned off for chump change, everyone rejoices and no one mourns at his death, and he is buried in a neglected corner of the cemetery.

 

* ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', "Five Years Gone," after New York was blown up, and Sylar takes over the country. And then ''again,'' with the Shanti virus having wiped out most of humanity. Season Three ''starts off'' apparently averting one Bad Future and creating a new one. Though the series seems to be moving toward that future ''anyway'' - [[Prophecy Twist|just by a different route]]. [[Super Registration Act]] - done. Nathan "betraying his kind" - done. Sylar posing as Nathan - done. And with Daphne dead and Hiro [[Brought Down to Normal]], nobody can [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]] ''this'' time. {{spoiler|As of Season 4 the registration act is gone, Hiro is getting better (his powers are anyway), and it's getting more and more likely that Matt is going to change Sylar back.}}

* ''[[Double the Fist]]'' shows us one in the second to last episode where Steve has taken over the world and punishes people for being weak (which entails such things as reading and being comfortable) and uses Womp as the symbol of Weakness. Subverted in that this future apparently comes to be, and that within the context of the show, this is a good thing.

* In [[Ludo]]'s [[Rock Opera]] ''The Broken Bride,'' we get to see the Bad Future caused by the narrator messing around in the time stream.

* In [[Black Sabbath]]'s "Iron Man", a man time-travels and witnesses the Bad Future, but when traveling back to the present, he gets turned into Iron Man, [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy|who ends up causing the bad future.]]

 

== Video Games ==

* In ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]'', there's a Bad Future in which superintelligent dinosaurs rule the world and most of the characters are either dead or part of [[La Résistance]].

* In ''[[Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi]]'', {{spoiler|there's at least one timeline where Megaville and everyone in it are slaughtered due to one of the heroes performing a [[Face Heel Turn]]. Said timeline is explored in a spinoff to its sister comic, ''[[Grim Tales from Down Below]]''.}}

 

== Western Animation ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:You Would Not Want to Live In Dex]]

[[Category:Time Travel Tropes]]

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:We Will Not Use an Index In The Future]]