Leave the World Behind may have eerily predicted at least one real-world event. Although Elon Musk was offended by a scene in the movie in which his self-driving Teslas were hacked, two million of his vehicles were just recalled for an autopilot defect.
Leave the World Behind is currently the number one movie on Netflix, which isn’t surprising considering how relevant it is to today’s world. The film follows the Sanford family, who must contend with a global crisis while vacationing at a rental home on Long Island. It is the kind of ambiguous movie that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. However, one impossible-to-miss theme is the impact of technology. Leave the World Behind criticizes society’s over-dependence on technology but also probes how easily our technology could be used against us.
What’s especially chilling is that we’re not talking about futuristic technology. We’re all familiar with movies that imagine the threat of extremely advanced artificial intelligence that may not even be feasible to create. However, Leave the World Behind differs in that it’s existing technology that results in wide scale destruction. It suggests the entire country could be debilitated and thrown into chaos just by controlling and tampering with its technology. One of the most memorable scenes is when it’s revealed that hackers are controlling all the self-driving Teslas in the country. Although some viewers might have scoffed at the improbability of the scene, real-life events prove it’s not that far-fetched.
All U.S. Teslas recall days after Leave the World Behind premiere
Just days after Leave the World Behind’s streaming release, it was reported that Tesla is recalling nearly all of the two million vehicles it has sold in the United States. The massive recall is the culmination of a two-year investigation into Tesla after the company’s self-driving cars were involved in numerous accidents, some fatal. The recalled vehicles will be undergoing a software update due to issues with the autopilot function. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that accidents occurred because drivers were too reliant on the autopilot feature and would stop paying attention when it was enabled. The update will not only create frequent reminders for those using autopilot to pay attention but will limit the areas where a driver can use autopilot.
Many readers may have been started to read the headlines about two million Teslas being recalled after watching Leave the World Behind. Of course, the Teslas weren’t recalled for hacking, but the recall still proves that the movie’s warnings about self-driving Teslas weren’t misplaced. It’s also quite humorous because Tesla founder Musk defended his self-driving cars after the movie premiered. He missed the movie’s whole point, arguing that, because the vehicles use solar panel charging, they’ll remain functional even in an apocalyptic situation.
