Optimistic future sci-fi movies.........

[RJDiogenes]

Hyams' 2010 can only be called optimistic in the sense that it depicted a world much worse off than the real one was at the time and then made it a bit less worse off at the end. That's not really an optimistic future not compared to our world. It's also the kind of story the Shine editor calls "Alien Saviours" -- it doesn't actually entail a solution to our problems when someone else swoops in and fixes things. And the ending of 2010 doesn't even count as a real solution; it just distracts humanity from its own conflicts without doing anything to address their causes or prevent their recurrence.

Well, it was a wake-up call to the leaders of the conflicting powers. In any story about conflict, there can be intervention by a third-party to provide redirection or inspiration-- whether it's an innocent child making fighting parents feel like jerks in a mainstream story or the Organians putting the kibosh on Kirk and the Klingons in Star Trek. In the Odyssey storyline, the aliens didn't just stop a war in 2010, they evolved David Bowman in 2001-- to say nothing of the fact that it was the Monolith (originally Clindar) who jump-started Human evolution to begin with. I don't think it really negates optimism or Utopianism to have a mentor; even Caine had Master Po.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

Andrew Niccol's Gattaca has the hero defeat the dystopian social system by force of will. That's actually pretty optimistic.

Good choice. Totally slipped my mind.

You're right--though the film postulates a future where children who were not genetically manipulated at birth are discriminated against, the hero basically overcomes this with tenacity, some money, and a little help from the doctor at the very end. And it’s an excellent film, too. Thank whoever you’d like they lost the preachy ending with the title cards, though. That would have been too preachy.

Gattaca depicts a dystopic future, it just contains a happy ending for the main character.

It's a two-class society in which racism was replaced with "genoism". And it the end, it stays this way. Our hero simply succeeds in fooling the system.

 

[Christopher]

Well, it was a wake-up call to the leaders of the conflicting powers. In any story about conflict, there can be intervention by a third-party to provide redirection or inspiration-- whether it's an innocent child making fighting parents feel like jerks in a mainstream story or the Organians putting the kibosh on Kirk and the Klingons in Star Trek. In the Odyssey storyline, the aliens didn't just stop a war in 2010, they evolved David Bowman in 2001-- to say nothing of the fact that it was the Monolith (originally Clindar) who jump-started Human evolution to begin with. I don't think it really negates optimism or Utopianism to have a mentor; even Caine had Master Po.

But the point is, the movie doesn't depict a future that's better than our own world; it depicts a world that's much worse off than our own and has it get slightly better at the end. That's not an optimistic depiction of humanity's future. Any optimism at the end is relative to the sheer awfulness of what's come before.

And the same goes for Gattaca. Showing a glimmer of hope in a dystopian future is very, very far from being a genuinely optimistic view of the future. Sure, there's optimism in the message "We can find hope even in the worst circumstances," but the topic of this particular thread is about depictions of fictional futures that are better than the world we live in, or at least no worse. Stories wherein the whole world has become a better place to live.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Well, it was a wake-up call to the leaders of the conflicting powers. In any story about conflict, there can be intervention by a third-party to provide redirection or inspiration-- whether it's an innocent child making fighting parents feel like jerks in a mainstream story or the Organians putting the kibosh on Kirk and the Klingons in Star Trek. In the Odyssey storyline, the aliens didn't just stop a war in 2010, they evolved David Bowman in 2001-- to say nothing of the fact that it was the Monolith (originally Clindar) who jump-started Human evolution to begin with. I don't think it really negates optimism or Utopianism to have a mentor; even Caine had Master Po.

But the point is, the movie doesn't depict a future that's better than our own world; it depicts a world that's much worse off than our own and has it get slightly better at the end. That's not an optimistic depiction of humanity's future. Any optimism at the end is relative to the sheer awfulness of what's come before.

Well, optimism has to be relative to something. But you're right, it does not depict a Utopian world; the uplifting feeling comes from the idea that a corner has been turned.

 

[Christopher]

Again, I'm not talking about utopianism. The original question was about movies that depicted "''good' futures" as opposed to "bleak futures." So a movie where the future is much bleaker than today but there's a ray of hope at the end does not fit the parameters of the question that started this thread.

 

[Thespeckledkiwi]

Wall-E?

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Jason X had an optimistic future, well, until Jason showed up.

 

[Christopher]

Wall-E?

Same problem. A dystopian story that ends with change for the better is still a dystopian story.

 

[melancholymecha]

I wonder if the far future at the end of AI: Artificial Intelligence would count? With the alienoid beings and advanced genetics and things? I mean, everyone was happy...

I was thinking of that one, until I remember that we kinda go extinct at the end there.

uh what about the Jetsons?

 

[Thespeckledkiwi]

Wall-E?

Same problem. A dystopian story that ends with change for the better is still a dystopian story.

But they are happy.

 

[Trent Roman]

^ Technically, they were also happy as fat, self-absorbed wastes of space being served on hand and foot by their robotic attendants. That's the trouble with the false/counter/anti-utopia iteration of the dystopia: it isn't always obvious that it is a dystopia. (Heck, first time I read Brave New World as a preteen, I completely missed the point and wondered why people wouldn't want to live in this world of conspicuous consumption, chemical cheer and casual coitus.)

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[RJDiogenes]

^^ Hmm, I wonder if Magnus, Robot Fighter can be considered Utopian.

Again, I'm not talking about utopianism. The original question was about movies that depicted "''good' futures" as opposed to "bleak futures." So a movie where the future is much bleaker than today but there's a ray of hope at the end does not fit the parameters of the question that started this thread.

You're right, it doesn't fit the parameters of the question. But there are so few movies that do, we had to kind of scramble for crumbs.

 

[Grant]

Andrew Niccol's Gattaca has the hero defeat the dystopian social system by force of will. That's actually pretty optimistic.

Good choice. Totally slipped my mind.

You're right--though the film postulates a future where children who were not genetically manipulated at birth are discriminated against, the hero basically overcomes this with tenacity, some money, and a little help from the doctor at the very end. And it’s an excellent film, too. Thank whoever you’d like they lost the preachy ending with the title cards, though. That would have been too preachy.

Gattaca depicts a dystopic future, it just contains a happy ending for the main character.

It's a two-class society in which racism was replaced with "genoism". And it the end, it stays this way. Our hero simply succeeds in fooling the system.

How true.

How can one charactor beating the system mean the movie isn't dytopian? It's dystopian start to end. Period. Is Logan's Run not dystopian because they defeat the ruling computors at the end?
I mean the world has been destroyed, they're killing people at 30, they live in a bubble, they know nothing, they aspire to nothing, but hey Logan & Jessica are happy at the end so it's not dystopian!!

 

[Myasishchev]

Andrew Niccol's Gattaca has the hero defeat the dystopian social system by force of will. That's actually pretty optimistic.

Good choice. Totally slipped my mind.

You're right--though the film postulates a future where children who were not genetically manipulated at birth are discriminated against, the hero basically overcomes this with tenacity, some money, and a little help from the doctor at the very end. And it’s an excellent film, too. Thank whoever you’d like they lost the preachy ending with the title cards, though. That would have been too preachy.

Absolutely. I remember watching that as a special feature and thinking WTF, this is like hitting an anvil with another anvil. Plus it totally ignores the other edge of its own sword: if, in the fictional world of Gattaca, genetic engineering hadn't been available, all of the characters we meet except for Vincent never would have been born. So it's okay to deprive genetically engineered people of life, but it would be terrible to keep Abraham Lincoln from being born without being subjected to steam-powered DNA manipulation, I guess.

Gattaca is a great movie, but unravels a little when you start thinking about how unlikely it is that corporations would shut themselves off from the potentially rich human resources of the faithborn just because there are genetically engineered people around. Particularly the way they made it sound--in Gattaca, it appeared that genegineering was largely just choosing the best genes from the parents, not wholesale construction of a new DNA program, and randomness is clearly capable of producing individuals as qualified as the laboratory specimens.

It's just a little hard to believe that someone as dedicated and brilliant as Vincent would be stuck cleaning floors.

Anyway, as for optimistic SF, other than what Central did to Sam, Moon was actually very optimistic, as helium-3 fusion had apparently made obsolete our energy problems.

 

[Christopher]

Gattaca is a great movie, but unravels a little when you start thinking about how unlikely it is that corporations would shut themselves off from the potentially rich human resources of the faithborn just because there are genetically engineered people around. Particularly the way they made it sound--in Gattaca, it appeared that genegineering was largely just choosing the best genes from the parents, not wholesale construction of a new DNA program, and randomness is clearly capable of producing individuals as qualified as the laboratory specimens.

It's just a little hard to believe that someone as dedicated and brilliant as Vincent would be stuck cleaning floors.

There have always been nonwhite people as qualified as white people, and there have always been women as qualified as men, but it wasn't that long ago that corporations, governments, and other institutions routinely excluded those people or relegated them to menial work like cleaning floors. Discrimination based on genetics doesn't make sense, but it happens nonetheless.

After all, there was a time when European scientists were convinced that whites were a genetically superior breed and all other races were genetically inferior. They had elaborate rationalizations for why it was simply the natural and necessary order of things that whites remain dominant, because they were intrinsically more intelligent, competent, rational, and moral than the "degenerate" breeds. That belief had no actual basis in fact, it was irrational and stupid, but it was taken for granted by Western civilization for many generations. So it's not really surprising that in a future like Gattaca's where there's actually a basis for the notion of some people being genetically superior to others, old habits of thought might reassert themselves. It's just that in that future, the definitions of the "superior" and "inferior" breeds are based on something other than skin complexion. But it's still essentially racial discrimination.

 

[Non Sync]

3001: The Final Odyssey

 

[SG-17]

I guess the Stargate series could be considered optimistic. We have acquired this awesome technology and we helped free a race of enslaved people, helped them establish a democracy, and we are starting to set up colonies on many worlds.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

I guess the Stargate series could be considered optimistic. We have acquired this awesome technology and we helped free a race of enslaved people, helped them establish a democracy, and we are starting to set up colonies on many worlds.

Overall, sci-fi shows seem to be more optimistic/utopian than sci-fi movies. Maybe because it's too depressing to watch a dystopia on a weekly basis. (*expects some remark about nuBSG now* )

However, in movies the future seems to suck for the most part.

 

[Christopher]

I guess the Stargate series could be considered optimistic. We have acquired this awesome technology and we helped free a race of enslaved people, helped them establish a democracy, and we are starting to set up colonies on many worlds.

Optimistic, yeah, but not the future.

And I'd find it more optimistic if the whole thing weren't a massive government/military conspiracy. I think the Stargate program should've gone public years ago. The people have a right to know what the military is doing in their name.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Logan's Run seems to be at first