Future Shock (1972) on YouTube
Orson Welles in Future Shock by Alvin Toffler
Written by Bill G on May 5th, 2007 in Odd Video.
Tags: bizarre, Odd Movies, science fiction, surgery, technology
Watch a 5 part video of this fascinating documentary from 1972.
This is a little known documentary based on the book Future Shock
You can read my review of it here.
Worth a look – at the very least for its historical value.
As far as I can tell, this documentary is in the public domain. I took the liberty of uploading my videotape transfer to YouTube. It is in 5 parts, and you can view them below.
Thanks to Glossolalia Black for uncovering this lost gem!!
I don’t think that TV static qualifies as “art” to anyone
That is a creepy-sounding doll!
Victims of our own technological strength?
I’d like to think that people who believe this have had a career take a nosedive. Orson went from being the world’s premiere filmmaker to making commercials for the Vivitar camera with flash cubes!?
He was a ‘victim’ of his own success, his own decisions…I can see why he thought this was a serious phenomenon.
A sickness that comes from too much change in too short a time -
The more I think about this, the less sense it makes. In about the span of one human lifetime, we went from radio to Avatar 3-D. Did that transformation actually hurt anyone? Is anyone actually suffering because radio is no longer the only game in town? Does a technologically advanced 3-D movie cause suffering because one yearns for the simple 2-D movies of, let’s say, three monghs ago??? Initially, I have to admit that I think this idea is for the weak of mind.
Nothing is permanent anymore.
Nothing was ever permanent. If you wanted to sit in your barn and milk you cow everyday, butt if the king drafted you into his army at the point of a sword, you either joined up or died on the spot.
Absorbing the changes? Sentimental drivel.
The death of permanence?
Nothing is permanent. (Maybe if you were a rock on the bottom of the ocean, things would seem pretty permanent there.) Everything else is now and always was in a state of constant change.
The replacement of man by artificial parts?
I wonder if Toffler considered the face that one’s cells are in a perpetual state of replacing themselves cell by cell, from conception to death?
These people were all in shock. Just 10 years before they were Mad Men. The sexual frustration, the wars (Vietnam & Cold), and the church guilt that was imposed upon these people for the silliest of reasons was enormous back then. To break from the shackels of previous generations, they all took dope, stopped the war, and dropped out. When they started asking themselves what the kind of a world they were actually going to make (not just stop), they had no answers. Very stressful.
Alvin Toffler was really good at informing those Asians that industrialism wasn’t the way to go! HAH!
Can anyone even calculate the misuse of ‘old” firearm technology? How many dead because of the simple gun? Billions? Before that, Toledo steel blades? Before that, the sharpened stick or the well-aimed rock?
Predictions always fail. Sentimental memories are always wrong. Escape from change is a limiting of the self.
Control technology, the way Sony tried to stop VHS porn!
1972 looks pretty cool compared to now
Analog Synthesizers are the future!
I like how the movie talks about change, and how future shock is bad, and yet the entire movie has synthesizer music in the background.
It’s a lot easier to look back than it is to look into the future. Hindsight is 20/20 vision. The risk you take when speculating on the future is that you may be wrong. Bummer!
well well theres a shock flares are coming back lololololol
Wow, that was really cool to see! I’d love to have a high quality copy of it! I spontaneously burst into laughter every few minutes! Orson Welles with his cigar was just awesome. Everything he said was Gold!
Hi:
Loved seeing Future Shock up your sight. I’m making a documentary dealing with the early seventies and wonder if I could use some clips. You have a video of doc? Did someone record it off a TV that was playing it live back in the day? Or did this film have a VHS or Blue Ray? Are there any out there? How do you feel your quality is compared to the You Tube posting? Any other rights info you might have? Thanks for any info you can give me!
Rob