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That movie is fantastic. The entertainment value is beneficial, but the predictive warning is certainly as influential as the book The Time Machine which conta

That movie is fantastic. The entertainment value is beneficial, but the predictive warning is certainly as influential as the book The Time Machine which contained similar analogies.

unalone 17y ago
I'm gonna have to disagree. It was entertaining, but the movie was entirely farcical. Its assumption re:how the world might potentially degenerate was silly, but I'm baffled at how people think that could possibly happen. It's like watching Office Space by the same director and thinking that taking a guy's stapler will definitely lead to him burning down a building. Comparing the influence of a cheesy movie to one of the stapleholds of science fiction is ridiculous. The fact that Idiocracy owes its existence to the concepts of The Time Machine suggests that it's a derivative work, meaning it's not as influential at all. I'm not saying The Time Machine was a good warning, either, not as much as 1984 and certainly not as much as Brave New World, which is arguably the best prediction we've seen from a book, so saying Idiocracy is as right as The Time Machine isn't saying much to begin with.
- mechanical_fish 17y ago
  I haven't actually seen Idiocracy, but I know enough about it to recognize that (a) like most SF, Idiocracy is a commentary on the present disguised as a commentary on the future; (b) The folk theory of demographics embodied in Idiocracy (together with the time machine, of course) is a framing device, designed to give us an excuse to adopt a ridiculous perspective. It's a deliberately silly theory, just as Beavis and Butthead were a deliberately silly representation of the average fan of MTV in the 1990s.
- Freebytes 17y ago
  I never said it was true, and it is certainly for entertainment purposes as its primary focus. If you were to summarize its predictive nature, it would result in a one sentence statement. Brave New World and 1984 are better in their predictive aspects, but I was not comparing Idiocracy to them. I was primarily comparing it to The Time Machine and well... to itself in a way. The intent of the movie was not as a documentary on the condition of humanity, but as a plot device, it can serve the purpose of warning us of the danger of thinking we can predict everything when we cannot predict much of anything at all.

That movie is fantastic. The entertainment value is beneficial, but the predictive warning is certainly as influential as the book The Time Machine which contained similar analogies.

unalone 17y ago

I'm gonna have to disagree. It was entertaining, but the movie was entirely farcical. Its assumption re:how the world might potentially degenerate was silly, but I'm baffled at how people think that could possibly happen. It's like watching Office Space by the same director and thinking that taking a guy's stapler will definitely lead to him burning down a building. Comparing the influence of a cheesy movie to one of the stapleholds of science fiction is ridiculous. The fact that Idiocracy owes its existence to the concepts of The Time Machine suggests that it's a derivative work, meaning it's not as influential at all. I'm not saying The Time Machine was a good warning, either, not as much as 1984 and certainly not as much as Brave New World, which is arguably the best prediction we've seen from a book, so saying Idiocracy is as right as The Time Machine isn't saying much to begin with.

mechanical_fish 17y ago
I haven't actually seen Idiocracy, but I know enough about it to recognize that (a) like most SF, Idiocracy is a commentary on the present disguised as a commentary on the future; (b) The folk theory of demographics embodied in Idiocracy (together with the time machine, of course) is a framing device, designed to give us an excuse to adopt a ridiculous perspective. It's a deliberately silly theory, just as Beavis and Butthead were a deliberately silly representation of the average fan of MTV in the 1990s.
Freebytes 17y ago
I never said it was true, and it is certainly for entertainment purposes as its primary focus. If you were to summarize its predictive nature, it would result in a one sentence statement. Brave New World and 1984 are better in their predictive aspects, but I was not comparing Idiocracy to them. I was primarily comparing it to The Time Machine and well... to itself in a way. The intent of the movie was not as a documentary on the condition of humanity, but as a plot device, it can serve the purpose of warning us of the danger of thinking we can predict everything when we cannot predict much of anything at all.