A mix of Her, Gattaca, Mad Max, Idiocracy, 1984, Ready Player One, Waterworld.
It’s not much of a dystopia, and it certainly doesn’t seem to end that way, but the animated movie Robots just keeps feeling more and more relevant.
Cyberpunk? Deus Ex, just the first game. The sequels have the depth of a puddle.
Or if climate apocalypse then something like Mad Max, but way dumber perhaps.
That’ll do.
“This plague…the rioting is intensifying to the point where we may not be able to contain it.”
“Why contain it? Let it spill over the schools and churches, let the bodies pile up in the streets. In the end they’ll beg us to save them.”
“You misunderstand. They’re rioting because we’re trying to save them with vaccines. They don’t think they need to be saved.”
“God, people are so fucking stupid. Why do I even want to take over the world?”
Yeah we were too optimistic in our dystopia fiction.
Idiocracy lacks the malice and bad faith.
The ones with fascist governments are the closest, like 1984.
If fascism is not a distraction. I still can’t believe that the billionaires have let Trump win with no further plans.
They’re working toward the Network State model where they basically get to be tech-enabled neo-feudal lords with near slave populations.
Yep, Ive heard it referred to as techno-feudalism.
Is our current dystopia not good enough?
“We have dystopia at home”
Snow Crash seems to be a favorite of the current heads of mega tech corporations.
I gave up reading it because of the chase scenes early on. Was expecting it to be more heavy on philosophical concepts.
But I prefer Art house movies to Hollywood (except for Matrix which managed to combine action with philosophy).
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, or A Scanner Darkly. Definitely something by Dick.
Elysium
Instead of a space station, the ultra rich will live in a giant gated city that has all the world’s latest technologies and medical services.
The rest of us will work menial jobs to supply everything for the city.
I replied elsewhere but, yes, that’s what they want. Peter Thiel is a proponent of the Network State and absolutely is working towards that end.
That movie was contemporary geopolitical commentary using a sci-fi metaphor. Same as District 9 (a refugee crisis). So you could argue that future is now, depending on your views.
Science fiction is usually about present issues. It puts them in a different context to offer a different perspective and enable consideration.
That’s true. It’s also a way of taking contemporary trends and extending them in a slippery-slope type analysis.
The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror have entered the chat.
Akira Battle Angel? But, before the war or without the warrior women.
^Alita
Although an Akira crossover with Alita could be fun.
The other one I was thinking of was Hunger Games … 12 different regions governed over by one powerful region that controls everyone else with military power using all the latest most deadly and most invasive technologies humanity can imagine.
I thought Hunger Games used at least, if not mostly, police and intelligence agency powers, much like 1984 and V for Vendetta… post Great War, at least.
I don’t remember all the details of the film series … but a feature of it was in seeing genetically enhanced, augmented animals and insects used for warfare … killer wasps, more powerful animals, birds eaves dropping and recording conversations (the mocking jay)
Imagine a world where genetic modification became unrestricted and used for warfare and used to enhance or modify humans, animals, insects or diseases or conditions.
A small correction: Jabberjays were the mutts used for surveillance and reconnaissance, mockingjays were what happened when Jabberjays interbred with wild Mockingbirds. Nature reclaiming its beast allowed for the districts use them as a tool for communication, an insult to the capital who was trying to strip power away from the districts, not give them more. This is why the Mockingjay became the symbol of the rebellion.
Elysium
We can’t get to Elysium, because we defunded all our health care R&D
most likely? not the xenomorph part of Alien, specifically, but the general message of unchecked corporate greed leading to disaster for everyone is an all-timer.
Weyland-Yutani has entered the chat
Wall-E, except no spaceship
Robocop one is rather close.
1984, but with Idiocracy.
“Her” except the main character is an incel with a AI waifu that is drastically too young looking of a model
“She’s akchually a thousand years old, kind sir”
also the apartment they live in is a basement
Is ‘Brazil’ in contention?
That’s closest to the expected Idiocracy in cyberpunk aesthetic.
Whoever thought that we’d look at idiocracy and think “well, it’s optimistic because they put the smart person in charge of real policy”
I guarantee it wasn’t Mike Judge. He put Crocs in the movie because they were just coming out and thought they were so stupid, they’d never take off.
Look where we are now.
Oof. The Ministry of Information would like to interview you about your involvement in this “buttle” affair.
Or ‘THX 1138’
I was hoping for Shadowrun, at least there’d be magic, elves, orcs and trolls around
Deus Ex 1’s dystopia probably - ultra wealthy trying to ascend humanity with the help of technology, the powers that be imposing morality and good/bad guy values onto general populace, heavy indoctrination of state/international police and general high levels of poverty. All we’re missing are cool augmentations, but we’ve speedran the rest of the checklist pretty well
