Bidets?!
This guy doesn’t know about the three shells!
Bidets?!
This guy doesn’t know about the three shells!
The supposed utopia is modeled after the ideal of suburban USA. That's pretty fucking dystopic. Add to that tge prohibition of kissing, sex, Rock music, etc...
I think someone didn't watch or utterly misunderstood the movie.
Comrade, I rented that movie from a locally-owned VHS rental shop that used physical membership cards.
Sure it's a dystopia, but it's a dystopia where they solved too many problems. John Spartan gets into a high speed car crash and his car instantly fills up with safety foam and he's completely unharmed. The police force is ethnically and gender diverse. Guns are museum pieces. The cops don't know HOW to assault somebody.
Sure they've killed a large amount of choice, and the guy in charge of it all seems to be determined to secure even more power for himself because of course he's a sociopath with Mr. Rogers' speech patterns, but all told I'd much rather live in the Demolition Man future than Judge Dredd or Death Race 2000.
but all told I'd much rather live in the Demolition Man future than Judge Dredd or Death Race 2000.
But all the dystopian elements is not necessarily the price for the improvements. The message of the movie (to me) was "don't get fooled by some shiny surface when the core is rotten."
And your choice is not between "bad" and "worse". We can imagine even better futures (Star Trek Federation citizenship seems to be pretty neat (if you're not trying to settle some fringe worlds at the cardassian border) for example), so we can work on these.
the guy in charge of it all seems to be determined to secure even more power for himself because of course he’s a sociopath with Mr. Rogers’ speech patterns
If the right people don't have power do you know what happens? The wrong people get it!
but all told I’d much rather live in the Demolition Man future than Judge Dredd or Death Race 2000.
What Pluribus is.
Ngl, digital tantric neural sex link seems pretty fuckin' rad.
I guess they left out the part where it implants Taco Bell ads, mines your subconscious for thought crimes, and sells the data so people can have virtual sex with your likeness. Less rad.
If I had to choose between the two, I rather be in a dystopian system that preserves its dystopia with calm, naive civility rather than armed death squads.
In a similar regard to OP's answer: why do you think that would be your only two choices, between "bad" and "worse"? Why not go another route that's more akin to "good"?
Also I think this is less about specific aspects of dystopia and more about "Don't let the shiny surface blind you towards the rotten core".
Demolition Man is what Europe will look like. USA will look like The Running Man (1987 version, not the remake). It already looks like Idiocracy.
one thing I remember about that movie. walmart grew so big it bought everything else. all stores are now Walmart. and all restaurants are taco bell.
Well there was that entire underground society.
**EDIT: The movie is 'The Invasion' (2007)
There was a sci-fi movie 20 years ago about an alien intelligence taking over world governments, replicating itself into human hosts via inoculations for a 'virus', and as the movie progresses world peace is achieved, but the protagonists fight against it over fears of losing free will.
And I'm over here like... the aliens are the bad guys?
Don't forget that moist virtual action!

Reminds me of the TTRPG Shadowrun. Sometimes its hard to sell the corporate dystopia when you're describing eating & drinking soy products because meat is prohibitively expensive and they can sell the effect of dubious cash crops like coffee and chocolate with a soy based alternative.
Remember how there's also a giant second city underground that's barely scraping by, and the people running the utopian city are trying to eradicate them? Yeah, not a very bright take on the movie.
It's only a utopia for wealthy vegans that love Taco Bell (or Pizza Hut if European). All the poor meat eating people are forced into the sewers and eat rat burgers.
Also what bidets? They had a shelf with 3 fucking seashells. They never mention bidets.
Oh and we can't forget that every radio station exclusively plays nothing but ad jingles.
Also what bidets? They had a shelf with 3 fucking seashells. They never mention bidets.
Guess what this guy doesn't know.
But if you flush the Seashells then there wouldn't be any more??
You would not ask about the 3(very specific number) Toilet Paper pieces if there was a roll of hundreds.
And fuck the movie The Fan starring Wesley Snipes. Demolition Man's the only Snipes movie I like.
Who said it was a dystopia?
Denis Leary
They get fined for cursing. Tons of stuff that doesn't harm anyone else is banned. The government is overbearing and controlling, brainwashing everyone into meek conformity.
It looks like North Korea propaganda.
It was designed to be the worst future for anybody who used "woke mind virus" and means it.
It was loosely based on Brave New World. Although in BNW everyone was fucking all the time and on drugs. Also no one was frozen and there were much fewer gun fights.
top 63 comments