It is extremely difficult to tell a story that is set in the future. Even the finest movies won’t get the advanced technology correct. Some examples include “Minority Report” with the hologram newspapers (hello internet) and “Men In Black” with tiny discs that were supposed to replace CDs (hello Spotify). However, you can forgive those misses simply because the movies themselves were great. 

I can’t say the same for “The Running Man” by Richard Bachman (pseudonym of Stephen King). The book takes place in 2025, and the movie takes place in 2017-2019. However, it was too distracting how dated they were.

Take, for instance, with the book, which came out in 1982. The black characters are talking jive out of the 1970s. In the movie, which was released in 1987, the costumes and overall vibe was definitely 1980s, such as with the dancers choreographed by Paula Abdul. 

In both mediums for “The Running Man,” the story itself does not do enough to forgive the inaccuracies of the future. While I find both dissatisfactory, I prefer the book over the movie, as the nationwide manhunt was more entertaining than the three-hour version watching Arnold Schwarzenegger being chased around in a poor man’s Gladiator tv show. 

The novel also had a darker tone, with the protagonist Ben Richards entering the game for his wife and sick child. Towards the end, they both end up dying. This left Richards with nothing to lose, and ultimately killed Dan Killian, who was the mastermind of the game show. 

In the movie, Richards doesn’t have a family. Instead, he goes to prison because he refused to kill innocent people as a helicopter pilot. 

There were some accurate portrayals of the future, however. In the book, when Richards is on the plane, they refer to the P.O.D. or point of destination, which is what we know today as autopilot. 

The novel also accurately captures celebrity fandom, where citizens take pictures of celebrities (Richards, in this case). Granted, they don’t use smartphones to follow him around, but the idea of catching a reality tv star on camera still rings true today. 

Also, the idea of Photoshop, where a picture of Richards’ wife was “doctored” sexually to get a rise out of him. 

With the movie, it was more campy, and while set in the late 2010s, there wasn’t much of an effort to create a realistic future.