Extraordinary Adventures of Saturnino Farandola (1914)

This movie poster for the 1914 film L'Avventure Straordinarissime di Saturnino Farandola (The Extraordinary Adventures of Saturnino Farandola) was drawn by Albert Robida. This version of the (paleo)future appears to involve riding sea creatures while shooting magical underwater firearms.

See also:
Going to the Opera in the Year 2000 (1882)
Evening Fashions of the Year 1952 (1883)
Undersea Cities (1954)
Sealab 1994 (1973)
Man's Future Beneath the Sea (1968)

French Prints Show the Year 2000 (1910)

[Update: The Paleo-Future blog has moved. You can read and comment on this entry here.]

Flying FiremenThe National Library of France (BnF) has an amazing collection of prints from 1910 which depict life in the year 2000. They are credited to Villemard.

There's speculation that they were included with "foodstuffs" of the era, much like the German postcards we looked at back in April.

Car ShoesThe BarberThe Avenue of the OperaA Curiosity
I wonder if the "curiosity" referred to is the horse as an uncommon means of transportation, or the extinction of all animals as referenced in the 1900 Ladies' Home Journal article we looked at a while back.The Electric Train From Paris to BeijingA RescueSpeak to the Caretaker
This image clearly takes its inspiration from another French futurist, Albert Robida, and his book The Twentieth Century.Sentinel Advanced in the HelicopterCyclist ScoutsPhonographic MessageOne For the RoadLady In Her BathroomHeating With RadiumHearing The NewspaperCorrespondence CinemaCars of WarBuilding SiteAt SchoolA Festival of FlowersA Chemical Dinner
It's amazing how long the idea of synthetic food has been with us. Before starting this blog I had assumed that the idea started with the Jetsons.Airship On The Long CourseThe TailorFlying Police

See also:
Postcards Show the Year 2000 (circa 1900)
Evening Fashions of the Year 1952 (1883)
The Air Ship: A Musical Farce Comedy (1898)
Going to the Opera in the Year 2000 (1882)
Collier's Illustrated Future of 2001 (1901)
Predictions of a 14-Year-Old (Milwaukee Excelsior, 1901)
No One Will Walk - All Will Have Wheels (Brown County Democrat, 1900)
The Next Hundred Years (Milwaukee Herold und Seebote, 1901)
What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years (Ladies Home Journal, 1900)
Flying Machines (circa 1885)

Evening Fashions of the Year 1952 (1883)

This illustration is from a beautiful 1981 edition of the 1883 Albert Robida book Le vingtième siècle. La vie électrique. The edition I've linked to is in French and doesn't include any color pictures such as the one above. For an English translation check out The Twentieth Century (Early Classics of Science Fiction), but again, the illustrations are in black and white.

See also:
Going to the Opera in the Year 2000 (1882)

Going to the Opera in the Year 2000 (1882)

This lithograph from 1882 depicts the fanciful world of 2000; flying buses, towering restaurants, and of course, 1880's French attire. Albert Robida is less well-known than Jules Verne but contributed just as much to the collective imagination through his amazing illustrations.

If you speak French I recommend picking up the Robida book La vie électrique. For the record, I don't speak French. Much like a child, I got it for the pictures.

(UPDATE: Some very good questions have been raised about the date of production for this lithograph. The year 1882 came from a Library of Congress source. La Vie Electrique (published 1892) contains structures that look similar to the Eiffel Tower but are in fact lighthouses. However, I am definitely open to the idea that "circa 1900" would be a more appropriate label.)







See also:
Postcards Show the Year 2000 (circa 1900)
Collier's Illustrated Future of 2001 (1901)
Predictions of a 14-Year-Old (Milwaukee Excelsior, 1901)
The Next Hundred Years (Milwaukee Herold und Seebote, 1901)
What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years (Ladies Home Journal, 1900)