6 ms·
As someone who used to really enjoy dystopian themes, and who still does when done properly, the trope has become overused. "Epic new dystopian" film instead so
by csdrane 12y ago
As someone who used to really enjoy dystopian themes, and who still does when done properly, the trope has become overused. "Epic new dystopian" film instead sounds like your standard "start out interesting for the first thirty minutes," and which then devolves into an hour or so of mindless fighting. Then again, Gilliam did do Brazil so maybe I'm wrong.
- mercurial 12y ago12 Monkeys too. His last films have been okayish, but this one looks pretty good.
- smutticus 12y agoI went to a Neal Stephenson talk where he argued that the main reason we see so many dystopian themed TV shows and movies is because they're cheap. He argued that it's cheaper to depict a dytopian future than a utopian one.
- mateuszf 12y agoRegardless whether this is true I also find it very funny.
- aluhut 12y agoI don't understand it. Why is it cheaper to design a colourful background animation then one of a cyberpunk city? Or cloth or items?
- Terr_ 12y agoJunk and grit and small areas are cheaper than "I would buy that" devices and open space.
- aluhut 12y agoYes but it's never only junk. You always have some kind of weird tech and there is always "the other side" with "I would buy that" devices.
- roc 12y agoIt's not about CGI. It's about practical effects; set and setting -- to convey the emotional feel of hope, safety, plenty and beauty. Utopia requires verdant green lawns, large old trees, calm ponds or slowly flowing water. Big Open spaces. Lots of good light, clean surfaces, rich materials and blue skies. This adds up to larger sets, more expensive sets (more care needed in their construction and use), lots of expensive lights or desirable locations -- everyone loves a picturesque park, so imagine how much it costs to shut one down for filming. And now imagine what happens if that day is cloudy, or rainy, or a scene just didn't get captured on schedule. (This is also why so very few movies are shot on or around water. And why, when they are, massive water tanks are so often used. Even though they are massively expensive to create, they're far cheaper than trying to film out on open water.) If you need to build and furnish a "utopian" apartment or a building, it needs to be aesthetically pleasing, with graceful curves and clean surfaces. Drop the fancy chair? You might have to get a new one or at least spend time and effort reconditioning it or setting it so damage isn't visible on camera. Dystopia, on the other hand, is conveyed with dark, cramped, dirty, broken and grimy sets and setting. These things are easy to find, are not in particularly high demand, can be done trivially on a sound-stage, etc. If you need a building you can literally just screw together shipping pallets and scrap metal. If you need to furnish a room, you take a stroll through a dump or buy some cheap dorm-class furniture and then beat it up a bit. And, importantly, less light. Fewer lights to rent and move and set up and operate (and move and set up and operate and move and set up and operate...). You can shoot into the night, you can shoot facing a decrepit building, you can shoot in the back of a rusted out buick in a garbage dump.
- aluhut 12y agoYes I get the picture. Thank you.
- kazagistar 12y agoI find that the somewhat more utopian futures are fairly well presented in games and anime, precisely because scale color are cheap there.
- lukifer 12y agoCounterpoint: the far future of Mr. Nobody, which feels well-fleshed out for a considerably smaller budget than most blockbuster sci-fi: http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70117580 http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70117580 Star Trek TNG also managed to pull off utopia on a budget, although who knows if that would be feasible in today's fractured TV landscape; at the time, TNG was nearly the only sci-fi game in town. While cost is a benefit for dystopian media (ie, Snowpiercer), it's also just easier to tell a story in those universes, as the conflict comes baked in.
- ArkyBeagle 12y agoSo that's a self-referentially constructed explanation for dystopianism in film :) Nice. The budget for Blade Runner was US $28,000,000.00 in 1982, which was A Lot. It's so much that the IMDB page says "(estimated)" .
- chadgeidel 12y agoIf you haven't seen "Black Mirror" from Channel 4 yet, watch it. I just found out about this recently from the Hello Internet podcast. Very dystopic/dark satire. There are 2 series of 3 episodes each. Don't spoil it by reading about it!
- jarvist 12y agoA feature-length special is coming this Christmas: http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/aug/21/charlie-brooker-black-mirror-christmas-special-channel-4 http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/aug/21/charlie-...
- seanflyon 12y agoI recommend Black Mirror as well, but I would suggest skipping the first episode. Like the twilight zone, each episode is independent so it doesn't matter what order you watch them and the first one is... unpleasant (and in my opinion not as well done as the others).
- ArkyBeagle 12y agoYep. It's all been way overdone. Brazil and 12 Monkeys were different because it was all more or less new then. Both also had great arc and reveals, but It's Been Done Now. I say "new then"; dystopian SciFi was a staple of drive-ins in the '70s - from Silent Running to Planet of the Apes to Logan's Run... It's not like there isn't a huge backlog of great sci-fi to draw on that isn't dystopian. I'd like to see The Foundation Trilogy as a multi-year "Breaking Bad" style series. It's basically a massive essay, but Scorcese's "Personal Journey" manages to explain why movies are in terrible shape without being hopeless about it. The reasons are profound.
- r00fus 12y agoDisagree - it's not what you do, but how you do it. Execution matters. The Matrix was even old hat at the time - future dystopian, man vs. machine - Terminator 1 and 2 really hit those themes. But the Matrix took the idea and dug down, found ore, and refined it, crafted it, polished it. Gilliam has some good notches on his belt so I'm hopeful there will be substance.
- ArkyBeagle 12y agoNot a big Matrix fan. I agree it was extremely well-executed. I also hope Gilliam hits this one out of the park on general principles.
- aluhut 12y agoI rather have the feeling there wasn't much there. All that new dystopian action movies are just the basic and shallow action movies we had with a distopian theme on it. I watched Elysium recently. You could have this without the SciFi part also. I haven't seen a good dystopian movie in a long time. I was however also not very happy with Zero Theorem but they tried to do something different at least. My relationship with Hollywood is this: I'm always happy they do something with SciFi. No matter how bad it is. People like SciFi atm and this brings money to ideas which also rises the chances of one really good movie. Then it all was worth it. Same goes for TV shows. Black Mirror has been mentioned here. What a great show! But it was a great time for SciFi also. Look how many episodes Star Gate got. I couldn't watch it because it was so shallow but many people liked it and it was great for the genre.