Movies | September 02, 2009 | 14 comments

The Age of Dystopian Cinema

source: http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/2009/09/02/age_of_stupid/pem

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As wildfires fires continue to rage in the Angeles National Forest, polar glaciers melt, ocean levels rise, and hurricanes grow more powerful as the world gets warmer, we are looking not only at The Age of Stupid, but the rise of Dystopian Cinema.

A Dystopian world is the opposite of a Utopian one, basically: usually miserable, poverty-stricken, and dehumanizing. Last year Wall-E proved a surprise blockbuster, while 2009 brought us Alex Proyas’s Knowing, starring Nic Cage as a man facing a grim forecast for the world, McG’s Terminator Salvation, set in the future as John Connor (Christian Bale) rages against the Machines, and Neill Blomkamp’s sleeper hit District 9 with its insect-like aliens living in a fetid South African slum. Still to come: Shane Acker’s animated 9, John Hillcoat’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the British documentary hybrid The Age of Stupid, and the latest sky-is-falling installment from Roland Emmerich, 2012: dystopian movies all.

If we’re not scared yet, we should be.

Filmmakers have been imagining the end of the world and what life would be like for its survivors since William Cameron Menzies’ 1936 H.G. Wells adaptation Things to Come. The nuclear age brought 1959’s On the Beach, followed decades later by George Miller’s 1979 Mad Max and its sequels, Ridley Scott’s 1982 Blade Runner, and more recently, Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men (2006) and Will Smith in Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend (2007).

Opening September 9, the animated 9 pits friendly humanoid robots against deadly monster-bots. Set to open October 16 after its debut at the Toronto Film Festival, The Road stars Viggo Mortensen as a father trying to protect his young son (Garret Dillahunt) in a hostile, fire-ravaged world inhabited by gangs of cannibals scavenging for food. Here’s the Apple trailer. (@ link)

UPDATE: Another movie coming up that fits the bill is the Hughes brothers’ Book of Eli, starring Denzel Washington as yet another warrior in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The Guardian has theories about this trend.

The post-apocalyptic disaster movie is one strain of the genre. Armed with the latest VFX, will 2012 prove as successful on November 13 as Emmerich’s other destroy-the-Earth scenarios Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow? Here’s the 2012 trailer: (@ link)
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14 comments // The Age of Dystopian Cinema

  • GURUDADDY
    • 0
      GURUDADDY  

    • we are being indoctrinated to accept the inevitable....
      open wide and take it.....
      these movies are not far from the truth at all

    • 2 years ago
  • hombre76
    • 0
      hombre76  

    • I can't beleive I'm gona do this but I agree with ProjectBat... I freekin love these typw of movies. the END is NEAR! WOO HOO!

    • 2 years ago
  • BKsaysAction
  • ozoneocean
    • 0
      ozoneocean  

    • There isn't really a Utopian genre anyway. Future mmovies are always about dystopias. It doesn't have much to do with prediction and pessimisim, it's just that it makes a really interesting central plot device. It's like the way there are always murders in a murder mystery- the writers don't advocate murder or have a particular feeling for it, it's just a great theme.

    • 2 years ago
  • ProjectBat
  • vistapoint
  • drunkenhopfrog
    • 0
      drunkenhopfrog  

    • THE ROAD was a great book and could translate into one of those strangely claustrophobic movies when considering the broad canvas. And, um, really the story is only ostensibly about Post Apocalyptic times.

      Dystopian has traditionally been used to describe a controlled society in which expression and thought and civil freedoms are disallowed as well as a destitute and/or controlled and/or squalid citizenry. 1984, A Brave New World, We, many PK Dick books. I think dystopian could only apply loosely to The Road or 2012. They're more Post Apocalyptic and the difference is not that subtle.

      This genre has been prolific forever though. Most zombie movies usually provide the social commentary of a dystopian theory along with apocalyptic themes, So every Romero movie, 28 Days/Months/Years, etc. Not to mention The Running Man, Demolition Man, Total Recall, The Island, The Matrix, Gattaca, Dark City. I mean, really, these flicks have been around since the most glaring movie missed in this article, Metropolis (1927).

    • 2 years ago
  • libertyforall
    • 0
      libertyforall  
    • drunkenhopfrog:

      Agree, they are different genres that are somewhat being combined.

      Disagree about the Road. Possibly one of the worst books ever written. It is literally 280 pages of a man walking around with his son. Absolutely nothing happens in that awful book.

    • 2 years ago
  • PajamaDan
    • 0
      PajamaDan  

    • While these films' inspiration is abominable,... they're much better than Hollywood's other recent trend -- brainless buddy comedies. And sometimes it takes pop-culture messages to enlighten the naive.

      P.S. I thought District 9 was the best movie (and only good one) I've seen in a very long time.

    • 2 years ago
  • chmk
    • 0
      chmk  

    • That picture of The Road has far, far too little ash strewn about. Every other word McCarthy put to page was 'ash, ash, ash.'

      Color me disappointed already.

      Also, I don't think 2012 will have to work all that hard to top Day After Tomorrow.

    • 2 years ago
  • Sam_the_Wizer
  • MajorMajorMajorMajor
  • TenGig
    • 0
      TenGig  

    • While I agree the genre is fast spiraling out of control (this is not unknown, look at the sudden plethora of crappy superhero movies), I would have to disagree on some of your characterizations.

      2012 - not a dystopian future. After 2012, there is no future. This movie is about armageddon and the end of time. ID4 and TDAT fall into this thread as well.

      District 9 - is more about apartheid and racism. It's "future" is not really different than our present. Then again, some might classify the present as dystopian.

      That being said, it's all just entertainment.

    • 2 years ago
  • etienna
    • 0
      etienna  
    • TenGig:

      I'm reading it right now and you're right. It basically goes like this...

      Ash. Grey. Cold. More ash. More grey. More cold.

      Charlize Theron looks far to pretty to be in such a place.

    • 2 years ago
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