New Topic

...is "Dystopian Cities"

To clear up a little bit on what "dystopian" actually means.

"A dystopia (from Ancient Greek: δυσ-: bad-, ill- and Ancient Greek: τόπος: place, landscape) is, in literature, an often futuristic society that has degraded into a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian. Dystopian literature has underlying cautionary tones, warning society that if we continue to live how we do, this will be the consequence. A dystopia, thus, is regarded as a sort of negative utopia and is often characterized by an authoritarian or totalitarian form of government. Dystopias usually feature different kinds of repressive social control systems, a lack or total absence of individual freedoms and expressions and constant states of warfare or violence. Dystopias often explore the concept of humans abusing technology and how humans individually and collectively cope with technology that has evolved too quickly. A dystopian society is also often characterized by mass poverty and brutal political controls such as a large military-like police."

Thank you, Wikipedia. You just saved me the better half of an hour explaining it myself.

Film References

"A typical dystopia paints a picture of government or society attempting to exert control over free thought, authority, energy, freedom of information. Others focus on systematic discrimination and limitations based on a variety of factors - genetics, fertility, intelligence, and age being a few examples." Wiki

Such is the case in, e.g:

Aeon Flux, Babylon A.D, Blade Runner, Demolition Man, District 9, Escape from New York (aka Die Klapperschlange), Equilibrium, Gattaca, Judge Dredd, Metropolis, Minority Report, The Running Man, A Scanner Darkly, Strange Days, Serenity

Then, we have corporate-based dystopias.
"A corporate based dystopia is similar to a government/societal dystopia with the exception that the repressing power is a private company rather than a government. These stories generally include the motive of commercial profit instead of, or in addition to, the benefits of increased power and authority." Wiki

Good examples are:

Akira, Alien movies, Total Recall (yes Henry, I know^^), I Robot, RoboCop, Fortress, The Island, Metropia, Paranoia 1.0, Resident Evil movies, Surrogates, Tank Girl, Tekken, No Escape, Johnny Mnemonic...

Then we have Cyberpunk, characterized by "high-tech, low-life", whre advanced technology itself is dystopian. Examples:

Akira, Avalon, Blade Runner, eXistenZ, Ghost in the Shell, Metropolis, The Terminator, Videodrome, Johnny Mnemonic, Strange Days...

Then Post-Apocalyptic storylines, meaning everything went basically to complete shit on planet earth. The aftermath of a disaster - typically nuclear holocaust, war, plague - that justifies a civilization's turn towards dystopian like behaviors.

12 Monkeys, 28 Days Later, The Book of Eli, Children of Men, Mad Max, The Postman, Terminator Salvation, Titan A.E, Ultraviolet, WALL-E, Waterworld,...etc

Of course, some of these overlap, thematically. Still, this should suffice for giving a general idea of the concept of "Dystopia".

Thanks for reading, have a nice day.