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[dropcap size=small]I[/dropcap]n the upcoming film Passengers, starring Hollywood darlings Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt, a spacecraft transports passengers placed in suspended-animation sleep to a distant colony. While this sounds like a fairly standard sci-fi movie premise, what is interesting is that scientists are already experimenting with these ideas in reality.

Just five months ago in October, a critically ill two-year-old Thai girl had her brain cryogenically frozen, in the hope that that may be eventually revived in a new body. Then, there is the Mars One project, which has a target to send the first human settlement on a one-way trip to the red planet by 2026, a mere decade from today.

Of course, these ideas are all in fledgling stages, with little indicators of whether or not they would succeed. However, the movie provides a glimpse of what may be possible, should these grand ideas work out in the real world. After all, this would not be the first movie to give an accurate forecast of the future. Many sci-fi movies have been surprisingly spot-on in predicting today’s technological advances. The eight we found are a mere sampler. Could we one day live under the rule of the machines, a la The Matrix or The Terminator series?

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