Today is the birthday of George Lucas, Robert Zemeckis, and Mark Zuckerberg, three men whose mutual fascination with high tech toys has changed our very culture, and in some ways even how we look at reality itself.
Largely because of Lucas, we all have a sort of comfortable familiarity with robots, anti-gravity, bizarre alien races, and the casual intermixing of sci-fi with magic, in ways that otherwise would have remained largely on the fringes of our culture.
Largely because of Zemeckis, we take for granted that the actors in our movies will become ever more digital. Others more recently have taken up the charge, but it really started with him.
And you’ve probably heard of the third guy. Some people would argue that his fascination with high-tech toys has had an impact, for better or worse.