Dystopian Movies - A Little Help From My Friends

For today's post I am sharing the blogging love with some great reviews of classic dystopian films.

First let me point you towards Stevee at Cinematic Paradox who writes about watching Battle Royale for the first time. Being a teenager myself when I first saw this movie I guess I was the target audience, or at least I would have been if I was Japanese, and I absolutely loved it. I didn't really consider the science fiction/dystopia element just accepted that perhaps this could happen and with the growing gulf in understanding between one generation and the next in Japan it might be soon.
As far as dystopian visions go this is a plausible Societal change and serves to create a powerful statement whilst at the same time working as fantastic entertainment.

Next up is The Void who will take you on a journey to La Jetee, the brilliant short film from Chris Marker that is comprised of a selection of still photographs and a voice over. You may or may not know but this short heavily influenced David Peoples when he wrote Twelve Monkeys for Terry Gilliam. The first time I watched this film I didn't realise it had been the basis for Twelve Monkeys and the whole way through I was noting how similar it was, right down to camera placement and mise-en-scene, not just story. After a little research and putting my mind to rest I watched it again without having to think about Twelve Monkeys. A incredibly powerful piece of cinema that creates a mood like no other movie can, Marker gives us a post-apocalyptic dystopia.

The incredibly talented Alex over at Film Forager spends some time with everyone's favourite gun enthusiast Charlton Heston with her take on Soylent Green - beware spoilers for those of you who don't know what Soylent Green is yet. I think it's all good fun for early 70s science fiction, my favourite part, being the noir fan that I am, is the performance of Edward G. Robinson and the brilliant riot scene. Another movie that ends with Heston screaming too. A fine example of a Corporate dystopia thanks to the evil company that seems to run the show in the world of Soylent Green. Based on the novel Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison, this is a book I can't wait to find.

Got any links you want to share? Drop them in the blahs and I'll add you to the post.

Announcing: BBBG Dystopian Fortnight

Welcome to a whole new level of foresight on my part, three weeks worth of planning has gone in to this post rather than the usual three minutes.

The Blahblahblahgay Dystopian Fortnight is two weeks of posts on dystopias in movies and dystopias in fiction. Thanks in part to Suzanne Collins writing The Hunger Games, dystopias are en vogue right now, children and middle aged women are reading those books and want more dystopias to read, this is a fact that cannot be denied. Cormac McCarthy's The Road and the subsequent adaptation with Viggo Mortensen marked a recent high point in the genre for the darker more literary side of things and even the Booker Prize got involved when Kazuo Ishiguro was shortlisted for one of literatures most prestigious prizes for his dystopian novel Never Let Me Go.

I don't think there has been such public affection for the genre since the height of the Cold War when we were treated to such classic movies as Logan's Run, Planet of The Apes and Soylent Green (all based on novels.) In the coming months we shall be seeing Logan's Run remade by the Drive pairing of Refn and Gosling and with three books in the series this is one that can sustain itself for as long as the demand for dystopian movies is there (not forgetting the re-issues of the long out of print novels to cross promote with.) Plus the sequel to the rebooted Apes movie, naturally, and countless other movies we haven't thought about yet I'm sure.

The classics of the 60s were written as obvious warnings about nuclear weapons and reflecting the fears of the people at the time but what are our current fears? Global Warming must be in there, dwindling natural resources too, post 9/11 fears perhaps, reality TV most defintiely. Largely I get the feeling that there isn't really a message in these new fictions and remakes with the focus on pure entertainment and making money as quickly and in as large a quantity as possible. But then again I can't back that up with examples as yet.

But what is a dystopia? The basic definitions is something like this: Dystopian societies feature different kinds of repressive social control systems, various forms of active and passive coercion. Works about dystopian societies often explore the concept of humans abusing technology and humans individually and collectively coping, or not being able to properly cope with technology that has progressed far more rapidly than humanity's spiritual evolution. Not to be confused with a heterotopia which is neither a utopia or a distopia merely a world different from ours.

The last part of the definition is very important. For example some might say that Ridley Scott's Blade Runner is a dystopian world but as Scott never really discusses the feelings of the masses (and infact the masses seem happy enough to me) it is merely a futuristic story, the people are not just surviving they appear to be thriving, wheras the Philip K. Dick novel that it is based upon is definitely a dystopian society filled with people looking to flee the planet.

If you analyse the genre you notice that there are several different types of dystopias; most notably post apocalyptic in which people learn to survive in an environment destroyed by war or famine or pollution (The Road, Wall-E, Mad Max,) societal in which a powerful few attempt to control or enslave the masses (1984, Demolition Man, Total Recall,) and corporate in which society is dominated and run by big business (the basis for a lot of cyberpunk novels and movies such as Gamer or Rollerball.) Some novels and movies will fit in to more than one category but at least one of these three aspects will be present in every dystopian movie.

Andy at Fandango Groovers put together a really nice article back in June taking a look at Contemporary Dystopias and so my first link of this series is to him. The point is raised in the opening paragraph that right now in 2012 we are living in a dystopia, the kind of horror scenario envisioned by white America of the 1950s. Perhaps that revelation accounts for the sudden uptake in interest in dystopian worlds?

Coming up in the next two weeks: book and movie reviews by yours truly, lists, some guest posts, a little help from my friends and something a little different.

Thinklings - It's Where Ideas Come From

Apple, making science fiction come true. That should be their tagline. If they needed any advertising at all these days that is. Who has an iDevice of some kind? Me too. I'm generally sceptical of touch screen technology but since I got my new iPhone in January I'm starting to change my mind.

Almost immediately it allowed me to work with an app development company, Thinkling Studios, on their debut game, Thinklings - Space Rescue. Don't worry, I only beta tested. Finally released today, I may not be as proud of the game as Simon and Stewart, the app development genius creators, but I am still excited to see a project I had a little input in to be launched in to the world.

So what exactly is it? Here's a fun little video to help explain:



Using your fastest finger, you must guide the Thinkling Starship, Blue Shift, past the evil Slumlords and rescue the Thinklings, who are trapped on their home world. Beware, however, as space holds many dangers and obstacles: asteroids, mines, wormholes and homing-comets, along with the spiky, disgusting Slumboid, leader of the Slumlords. Help is at hand though, the Thinkings reward players with power ups to assist them on their quest. It is a game of daring and danger, timing and tactics, rescue and reward.

Thinklings Space Rescue challenges iOS players to direct their ship by tapping or dragging their finger around the screen. With three additional ships to unlock, 24 achievements and a bonus mini game, there is plenty to play for and hours of fun to be had for just 69p (or equivalent international price).

 
Having played this game for many hours myself I can attest to both its ease of play and its extreme addictiveness. I started my testing expecting to put in half an hour here and there only to find an entire evening had passed without looking up. The combination of point scoring and multiple goals to achieve kept me repeating the game time and time again ignoring the technical aspect of my task and desperate to open every unlockable and beat my own high scores. You may take that as reason not to play the game but if you're in to playing app games then I can think of nothing better than one with that many hours of gameplay. 

I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you where to get the game, so follow this link to the app store to download the game for your spangly iPad and keep your eyes peeled for the iPhone download in the next couple of weeks.

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