I reckon, we do tend to believe movies more than scientists :P Even further back they(fiction no doubt) predicted we'd all be flying around in zeppelins, even using them for wars. Somehow it didn't happen, which is kind of a pity.
We were supposed to all have video phones, but I think people just don't want or need that. Sure it sounded exciting, but now we have that technology freely available, hardly anyone uses it.
However there are some technologies that depend on public money to develop. And they can be held back by politics or economics. One example is controlled nuclear fusion. Many countries are pouring public money into that, particularly ITER. But somehow it's not enough to get it finished in a timely manner. It's surely hard to sell to voters because people run in fear as soon as they hear the word 'nuclear'.
I have the feeling that people today generally dislike new technology. There doesn't seem to be the excitement that there seemed to be 60 years ago. Rather, public interest seems to be more puritan. Hybrid cars are actually pretty cool from a technical point of view, but people are only interested in them because they're supposed to save the planet. Same goes for wind turbines.
Nearly 20 years ago, before global warming or peak oil, a power company built a wind turbine in my city. It was a big public attraction, it was an amazing cool high-tech thing. There was a little visitor information center, there were tour buses ferrying people up to it. It became a bit of an icon for the city. It was just exciting because it was impressive technology. They built a posh residential subdivision around it.
But now wind turbines mean only two things: Good for the environment and bad for property values.
