Describe a movie or a book about the future

IELTS Cue Card # 123 – Describe a movie or a book about the future

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Last Updated: Wednesday, 11 August 2021 11:45

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IELTS Speaking Part 2: IELTS Cue Card/ Candidate Task Card.

Describe a movie or a book about the future.

You should say:

• what movie or book it is
• when you watched or read it
• how it is related to future

and explain how it has depicted the future.

Model Answer 1:
This is such an interesting topic because I like to learn about what the future exactly holds for us and our world. While, many great movies have been made, and many books have also been written on this interesting subject, one particular book deserves to be specially mentioned here because of its interesting take on the future.

The name of this book is called “In 100 Years: Leading Economists Predict the Future” which was compiled and edited by an Economist, from the London School of Economics called Mr Ignacio Palacios-Huerta, in the year 2014.  

This isn’t exactly like any other regular book, with the chronology of thoughts or chain events, in a sense that it only contains the views and opinions of 10 prominent economists of the world, which included Nobel laureates and several other likely laureates, in order to offer their ideas about the world of the twenty-second century.

Anyway, regular or not, this makes very interesting and stimulating reading because some common predictions –  as in the common ideas and thoughts of all the 10 economists – emerge in this book. Some of these predictions include, but are not limited to, continual improvement in technology, diminishing poverty and population growth, and catching up with most of the relatively poor countries in the rich world while the severe risks of climate change and the spreading of unforeseen epidemics. But, please understand that these are just some predictions, and they may not carry any complete resemblance with the realities.

Interesting enough though, after reading in 2017, I thought that it painted a rather rosy picture of our future world, with, of course, some predictions of bad news here and there in the book, but the main theme of the book has tried to show that the change in the “status quo” is almost inevitable as the transformation of wages and works, along with ever-increasing inequality, would probably make things a lot worse before getting better, if it ever actually become better. Still, I think it is an interesting read because economists, in general, probably are more equipped to predict the future a bit better than some science fiction writers.

Model Answer 2: 
Artificial Intelligence, also known as A.I., is a science fiction movie that was made about the future. This science-fiction drama movie was directed and produced by the famous movie maker Steven Spielberg and was released in the year 2001. This movie was adapted from a short story and was a hit at the American Box office. 

I watched it at the end of 2001 for the first time, and later in 2014 again with my family members. The movie plot was set in a future era when the population would be drastically reduced due to global warming, pandemic and other natural disasters. As the name of the movie implies, artificial intelligence has flourished at that time and people produced robots that exactly resembled humans. Not only they look like a human, but they also act, think and feel like a human. The movie set the plot at a time that is yet to come but is very much possible to happen. The human-like robots, their feelings, love, hatred etc are still in their preliminary stage, but the movie depicts the time when all of those have been flourished. 

The storyline went on to further future, two thousand years later when the humans are extinct and Manhattan city got buried under several hundred feet of glacial ice. Then the superintelligence has evolved who could create a clone of humans from DNA. 

The movie has depicted the future where global warming and other natural disasters will cause a dramatic decrease in the number of the human population. At a later stage, the movie shows that humans are extinct and only machines or robots exist. The artificial intelligence gets so powerful that they can create the human from their DNA. They become interested in humans and want to know about them to find the true meaning of existence.

Sample Answer 3:

I remember many books and movies I enjoyed reading or watching which were based on future events and eras. For this topic, however, I would like to talk about one particular book that was written by James Maroon. The name of the book is “The Lonely Planet”. In my opinion, it is one of the best books I have ever read about the distant future. I love reading science fiction, and this book was an impressive one that I thoroughly enjoyed.

I read it 4-5 years ago when I was a freshman at the university. It was probably 2016 when I bought this book from a bookstore, and it took me just 2 days to finish it as I could not keep it down unfinished. This book was a sure page-turner, and I could not concentrate on anything else while reading this book! It was in my mind for the entire week even after I had finished reading it.

The story begins in 2090 when technology and space research is unbelievably advanced on our planet. It shows our first encounter with the aliens which answers many mysteries and questions about the universe, time and space. On the other hand, the alien civilisation gets many of their questions answered from human life, cultures and spirit.

In the book, the future is depicted at the time when humans become more technologically advanced. Social class, classifications of citizens, politics and power still reign on the planet, and the way it is presented seems pretty convincing and realistic. It shows the reflection of Plato’s theory of society, and unlike other science fiction books, it shows that intelligent robots and other machines are working hard to help humans instead of fighting them. The story also depicts that the human at that time will become more liberal, peaceful, hard-working, and benevolent despite having social divisions and hunger for power. Most of them don’t need to worry about basic needs like food, shelter and treatment as they are taken care of by robots. The human, however, tries to find an alternative planet for starting a new colony for them as the world is moving faster to its destruction.

I really enjoyed reading this book, and in my opinion, the way the future world had been presented in this book is quite interesting and realistic. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to read books about the future.

Similar Cue Card Topics:

Your ability to talk about this Topic would also help you talk about the following Cue Card Topics:

1. Describe your favourite book.
2. Describe your favourite movie.
3. Describe a book that has impressed you.
4. Describe a movie you have recently watched.
5. Describe a movie you want to watch in the future.
6. Describe a science fiction book you have read.
7. Describe an interesting book you have read.
8. Describe a movie that you would recommend to your friends to watch.