Turning on the news, what takes over is a… disheartening presentiment about the future. Questionable governments, selfish, narrow-minded masses voting for these governments, sociological dyspepsia, misanthropy, pandemic, psychological decadence… If the present feels that way, it is no wonder why filmmakers “see” the future in a cataclysmic and calamitous light.
Society: “A large group of people who live together in an organised way, making decisions about how to do things and sharing the work that needs to be done”. (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/society)
Utopia: “A perfect society in which people work well with each other and are happy”. Imagine a world where everyone is happy, the laws favour everyone, the economy flourishes, and the government looks after their people. (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/utopia)
On the other hand…
Dystopia: “A very bad or unfair society in which there is a lot of suffering, especially an imaginary society in the future, after something terrible has happened”. (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/dystopia)
I wholeheartedly believe that there is no soul out there who believes in a utopian future. Why? Because the present firmly and regrettably indicates otherwise. We usually say that something impossible is science fiction, but, in this instance, it is merely naïve. But! There is another reason, too. Constructing the “perfect” society is nothing like creating a “seemingly” perfect society. And that is for two reasons:
“Utopia” creates a problem and begs a fundamental question from the very beginning of the definition: What does “perfect” mean? Consequently, what does “perfect society” mean? How would a filmmaker define and depict the “perfect society”? The short answer is that they can’t. Because there is no “perfect”, if it did, humans wouldn’t be it, and therefore, they cannot form the “perfect society”. That is why it is called u-topia (??-????? in Greek). It exists nowhere, much less on the small or big screen.
The second issue is that even if it miraculously existed, where would the story lead? Everything is “perfect”, everyone is happy. That is beyond science fiction and cinematically unimportant, indifferent, idle, yawnsome, and most likely a box-office bomb.
Dystopia, though, is inundated with messages and parables. In films, the world has fallen apart due to:
- Economy Collapse
- Climatic Disaster
- World War
- Nuclear Holocaust
- Pandemic (sore point)
- Comet’s Impact
- Divine Judgement
- Alien Invasion
- Zombie Rise
- AI Takeover
- …
Your imagination is your limit! And that’s just in the foreseeable future (hopefully, not too foreseeable).* Despite your pick, survival and reversing the situation to make the world a better place would most likely be the film’s theme. How everything started, how it will play out, and how it will end are the thrilling parts and the reasons all of us go to the movies to watch films of that sort.
*I wouldn’t want to expand to the distant future’s sci-fi as the focal point is mainly different, such as life in different, colonised planets or space issues.
One of my favourite types of dystopias is the one that starts as a utopia only to reveal the fake and the rot behind society’s epidermically beautiful facade. Yes, the concept of Brave New World. The concept of a deconstructed society that, if it revolted would mean its end is also another favourite of mine. Yes, Snowpiercer (2013) has made an impression on me. Authors such as Aldous Huxley, Jacques Lob, Philp K. Dick, Isaac Asimov, Octavia Butler, Ray Bradbury, and Arthur C. Clarke have thoroughly, and with imagination aplenty, criticised the society they have lived in. Tomorrow’s dystopia is today’s society’s existence, living, breathing, and proudly walking on this Earth complications. Our current insecurities, anxieties, fears, misconceptions, and personal and societal problems are projected into our escalated faulty future, leaving so much to the imagination.
Is this how we will end? Would I have made it? What would I do if I did make it? Would I be able to rise to the occasion and become one of the heroes I see on screen? What would I do if everyone I knew was gone? These are but a few questions we all ask ourselves while sitting back and relaxing and experiencing something impressive and entertaining yet educational and ill-wishing.
Dystopias are there to warn us! Plato’s Dialogues is the perfect place to start reading about the origin of such concepts and terms and their purpose. The aforementioned authors, their books, and the films that came out of their adaptations are fascinating places to unfold and enrich your journey, discovering from creative to deranged ways that our world as we know it comes to an end.
As the title implies, this article is deliberately short and aims to emphasise the importance of dystopia in sci-fi. I don’t believe there is a top 5 or top 10 when it comes to such a subgenre. Below, you can find my all-time favourite films and series that have powerfully depicted our dystopic future world in the way the filmmakers truly envisaged it. Keep in mind that some of these films’ future belongs now to our past. How accurate were their predictions? Does filmmaking’s evolution affect the accuracy of films’ predictions about the future? What do you think?
References
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/society
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/utopia
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/dystopia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Dialogues_of_Plato
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Lob
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavia_E._Butler
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Bradbury
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke
http://theworldofapu.com/category/film-analysis/
Dystopian Films
Metropolis (1927)
The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961)
Alphaville (1965)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
The Omega Man (1971)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
THX 1138 (1971)
Mad Max Franchise (1979, 1981, 1985, 2015)
Brave New World (1980)
Escape from New York (1981)
Blade Runner (1982)
Videodrome (1983)
Nineteen Sighty-Four (1984)
Threads (1984)
Brazil (1985)
Dead Man’s Letters (1986)
RoboCop (1987)
The Running Man (1987)
Total Recall (1990)
Demolition Man (1993)
Fortress (1993)
The Stand (1994)
The City of Lost Children (1995)
Judge Dredd (1995)
12 Monkeys (1995)
Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
Strange Days (1995)
Waterworld (1995)
Starship Troopers (1997)
The Fifth Element (1997)
Gattaca (1997)
The Postman (1997)
Dark City (1998)
Pleasantville (1998)
eXistenZ (1999)
The Matrix (1999)
Battle Royale (2000)
On the Beach (2000)
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Equilibrium (2002)
Minority Report (2002)
Resident Evil (2002)
The Time Machine (2002)
28 Days Later (2002)
Code 46 (2003)
I, Robot (2004)
The Island (2005)
V for Vendetta (2005)
A Scanner Darkly (2006)
I Am Legend (2007)
28 Weeks Later (2007)
Children of Men (2008)
Blindness (2008)
Daybreakers (2009)
District 9 (2009)
The Road (2009)
Watchmen (2009)
Book of Eli (2010)
Never Let Me Go (2010)
The Divide (2011)
Cloud Atlas (2012)
Looper (2012)
Snowpiercer (2013)
The Congress (2013)
Elysium (2013)
The Purge (2013)
The Zero Theorem (2013)
The Rover (2014)
Z for Zachariah (2015)
Westworld (2016 – )
The Handmaid’s Tale (2017 – )
Hotel Artemis (2018)
Ready Player One (2018)
Brave New World (2020)
Thanks for reading!
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Solidarity for all the innocent lives who suffer the atrocities of war!
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