I'd like to see a list of 50 Utopian movies (and the Road to Utopia doesn't count). My husband teaches a course in this and it's far harder to find hopeful outlooks on the future.
I bet he can't come up with more than the same ten or so he always uses. That's why the last time he taught it, for the first time, he made in Utopian/Dystopian literature. The students create their own utopians in the class--that's the most fun.
i went to the referred-to site. after the list there were twelve billion comments. this is apparently what people are REALLY interested in. at least that they'll admit to.
I should have been clearer, he mostly uses books. Plato, More, Bacon, Perkins-Gilmore, Piercy, News from Nowhere from William Morris, Bellamy (Looking Backward). Even Lost Horizon loses its utopian focus when someone tried to leave. Why can't we imagine a better world? He uses a Star Trek episode but it also disintegrates. When his students create utopias, they rarely seem utopian to us, too.
The simple answer as to why there are many Dystopian movies and far fewer Utopian ones is probably that Dystopian futures are more likely to offer conflict, and isn't conflict the meat and potatoes of much of fiction. The main Utopian society I can think of in TV or the movies is Star Trek's United Federation of Planets, but we only see the part of the UFP that's on the frontier. Star Trek was famously sold to NBC by describing it as "Wagon Train to the Stars." I tend to regard it as John Ford's "Cavalry trilogy to the Stars" with Star Fleet as the Cavalry. But "back east" in Ford's movies was far different (and less exciting) than being on the chaotic frontier.
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I'd like to see a list of 50 Utopian movies (and the Road to Utopia doesn't count). My husband teaches a course in this and it's far harder to find hopeful outlooks on the future.
Why don't you get your husband to make us that list?
I bet he can't come up with more than the same ten or so he always uses. That's why the last time he taught it, for the first time, he made in Utopian/Dystopian literature. The students create their own utopians in the class--that's the most fun.
i went to the referred-to site. after the list there were twelve billion comments. this is apparently what people are REALLY interested in. at least that they'll admit to.
Utopian movies, including Really Scary Ones (most would be, to someone at least):
LOST HORIZON (two versions, both scary for different reasons)
BORN IN FLAMES
Already, I'm tapped out. What are the ten your husband uses, Patti?
I should have been clearer, he mostly uses books. Plato, More, Bacon, Perkins-Gilmore, Piercy, News from Nowhere from William Morris, Bellamy (Looking Backward). Even Lost Horizon loses its utopian focus when someone tried to leave. Why can't we imagine a better world? He uses a Star Trek episode but it also disintegrates.
When his students create utopias, they rarely seem utopian to us, too.
The simple answer as to why there are many Dystopian movies and far fewer Utopian ones is probably that Dystopian futures are more likely to offer conflict, and isn't conflict the meat and potatoes of much of fiction. The main Utopian society I can think of in TV or the movies is Star Trek's United Federation of Planets, but we only see the part of the UFP that's on the frontier. Star Trek was famously sold to NBC by describing it as "Wagon Train to the Stars." I tend to regard it as John Ford's "Cavalry trilogy to the Stars" with Star Fleet as the Cavalry. But "back east" in Ford's movies was far different (and less exciting) than being on the chaotic frontier.
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