Akira

The Best
Neo Tokyo - Neo Tokyo is an inspiring city the huge super modern skysrapers with connecting walkways make for an excillent battleground between the police and gang members. Also the slums with graffiti and industrial districts all help to make it a believeably city.
Gangs - The varied gangs make great characters in the film the punk school kids against the clown gang looked great.
The Police - I really like the awesome roit control scene where the police fire gas at the roiters and then storm and and beat them up. It is a good scene of police brutality.
Drugs - There are heavy drug referances in the film which I think helps to keep it very real. I can easily imagine in giant super cities drug problems being rife.
Goverment Testing - The plot of the filma bout the tests that the goverment have been doing on people to turn them into weapons is great. The covered up conspiricay to do testing on people against their will is perfect for a dystopia.


The Good
Neon lighting
Lazer Guns
Mad prophets


The Bad
Not The Book - The film can be hard to follow especially later on when all the silliness breaks out.

Wall-E

Although most people would say that Wall-E is the furthest thing from a dystopia you can get but I strongly disagree.

The Best
Rubbish Planet - A plant abandoned because it is covered with litter is a nice concept an interesting version of the apocolypse. THe shots of the rubbish sky scrapers is awesome.
The devolved humans - The ludicrasly fat humans that do nothing but eat and look at tiny computer screens is a pretty accurate look at the western world and I can realy se this kind of thing becoming truer as time goes by.
THe Evil Computer - Another computer knowing best decided that it should kill a few people off to save everyone from themselves.


The good
Return to earth and starting again
Angry robots


THe Bad
Childrens film - I do not want to make a childrens film.

V for Vendetta (Graphic Novel)

The Best
Goverment - Thegoverment is really interesting in V for Vendetta. With a 1984 style keeping track of their citizens. Secret police that patrol the streets at night. Using biological weapons on their own citizens to scare them into submission. Doing immoral testing on human prisoners. There is alot going on with them.
The Protagonist - A really good protaginst that isnt trying to save the city he wants to turn it all to anarchy so the people will save themselves.
The Ending - The ending is amazingly good in this book, parliment is destroyed and all forms of goverment is removed. It ends with the detective character leaving one of the goverment members wives to be raped by vagrants. It is a really bitter sweet feel as you are not sure if total freedom is better than being controlled.
The detective - The detective is a great character, disgruntled with the goverment and sympathising with the protagonist. I really like the scene where he takes alot of acid and managed to uravel alot of the plot. he makes for an interesting character not clearly good or bad morals.

The Good
Fingermen
the names of the locations 'The eye', 'the ear', 'the mouth'...

The bad
Superman - The protagonist V is a great character but I am not a big fan of his ability to steal anything or to be stronger and faster than normal people. Its never a big problem but it is a minour dislike.

Doomsday

Dooms day is not a good film... Despite this I really like it, its very silly.

The Best
Overcrowded cities - Although I am sure it will look dated pretty quickly there are some nice ideas for the future of england. The overcrowded slums, imposing goverment and law enforcement all make for a pretty horrible atmosphere.
The goverment - when the virus breaks out in scotland the goverments plan is to wall it off and forget about them. When it happens again in london they plant o do the same. There are some pretty harrowing scenes of soldiers killing infect civilians.
Survivours - The post apocolyptic survivours in scotland are quite entertaining with Mad Max style mohawks and crude axes made out of steel plates oh and their cannibles.
The gore - There is some incredibly over the top gore in this film a dude having his head explode when shot with a shotgun, a rabbit that runs into a sentry guns range are just a few of the wonderfully splatterfilled moments.

The good
The road gangs
The gimp
Rock stage performance

The Bad
Silly - There is alot of silliness in this film. I really dont like the survivours that live in a castle and pretend to be knights. It seems impractical for the other suvivours to become cannbiles.
Tech - There is some silly technology in the film. My least favourite is the boinic eye the lead femal has that she can take out and roll around the place to look round courners.
Female lead - Now I have no problems with female leads but in this film it really feels like they went for a sexy femal in not alot of clothing to draw in the viewers. It would have had more impact if the woman had of seemed more realistic or a little filthier.

Gattica

The Best
Genetic future - The genetic designer baby idea is really nice. How most people have to have their bodies designed for them to be able to lead successful careers.
The police -The police force wear some pretty nice drab suits.
Jude Law - although not normally a fan of my law, the character he plays, the crippled drunk works really well in the film.


The good
Mini hoovers for your keyboard.

The Bad
Happy ending - The main thing that left me a little disgruntled about the film was how against all the odds the lead succeeds. I was really hoping that after the long struggle it would have all beeen brought down by the beurocracy of it all.

A Boy and his Dog

Although I concider 'A Boy and his Dog' to be a post apocolypse film instead of a true dystopia there are lots of things I really like about the film.

The Best
The boy - Almost instantly the main character is introduced to you and you quickly become that his is after one thing, women. Within the first few minutes he comes accross a woman whe was murdered and complains about how he couldnt have sex with her. Before long the boy tries to rape a girl and you find out he has done it before. It seems odd to be able to empathise with a juvinile rapest but within the context of the film it all makes sense and doesnt seem as bad.... I guess. Also the very end of the film when he kills and eats the female lead is truely shocking!
The dog - The boy and the dog spend alot of time talking to each other. No one else can hear it, at times you think the boy is mad but others it seems they are warning each other to danger? I like the ambiguity to if the boy is crazy or not.
The vault - The huge council run underground city where everyone is forced obey the rules otherwise they are murdered and it is covered up. also when they capture the boy and plug him into a big fertilisation machine to drain his seed and impregnate the women is a great scene.

The good
The robot henchman
The paranormal screamers

The bad
There was not a single thing I could fault with the film!

Soylent Green

Soylent green is one of my favourite films. Although looking a little dated the film works so well and is a truely intrieging depressing tale.

The Good
Overcrowded city - The streets a crawling with people, against every wall there are families sleeping. In the poor houses ever possible surface is covered with sleeping people, there is a nice scene of the detective trying to climb a staircase that has alot of people asleep on it.
Goverment - The goverment in the city trying to deal with over population and starvation at the same time... The truth behind soylent green is really good and the turning people into food stuff is such a nice idea.
Suicide - The huge automated suicide buildings were really thought provoking. A goverment system to help thin out the population. What happens to all the bodies?
Riot Police - due to the ever increasing population the cities riot force is basically huge bulldozer style diggers that scoop people into large containers and ship them off.


The good
If someone attacks a policeman then they end up dead
The old man relishing real meat, a woman pays thousands for a jar of jam.

The Bad
Dated - The only weakness of the film is it falls into the 70's view of the future which clearly will never come true. This only really applies to a few of the outfits and some home furnishings.

Metropolis (animated)

Although not a particularly grim or gritty dystopia Metropolis has some of my favourite imigary in film in it.

The Best

The city - There are alot of things that I really like about the city so I will break them down a little more. The giant robot driven city is a great setting with all the huge industrial structures and robot workers.
The levels - The city is devided into different levels, with the richest at the top and the poorest at the bottom. As the main characters move between the levels you can clearly see the difference between the locations.
The secret police - The police force that hunts and kills any robots that have left their designated zones. These guys are a great face for an evil goverment.
The robot Detective - When the robot detective single handedly confronts that huge anti robot mob is an amazing scene. You can clearly see that it is suicide and its a touching scene.
The plot - The goverment using some crazy lazer to enrage all the robots in the city so people turn on them. Great goverment plans!

The Good
Ruined city at the end.
Mad robots


The Bad
Not gritty enough - This is a childrens film so I cannot complain too much but I definatly want to have a more grim film.
End - Same as above, I want an unhappy ending.

Logans Run

This film is concidered a sci fi dystopia classic. To me it seemes to have been left out a little too long and gone a little mouldy.

The Best
The city - The huge automated city was a wonderful enviroment for a film. A eutopia where people dont have to work they just have to enjoy themselves all the time. How could this go wrong?
Out law zones - I really like the outlaw zones. Usually the police are to be feared and respected but when they venture into the zones they are the biggest targets of all.
The computer - To me it makes sense to have one ginat computer governing man as he seems unable to do it himself. This is one idea that is really good for a dystopia. While the computer can be completely infallible and make the best choices, it shows no compassion and has no mine for bending the rules.

The good
Crazy old man with alot of cats.


The Bad
The Premise - The tag line for the film is great "An idyllic sci-fi future has one major drawback: life must end at 30." I really like it, it probes my imagination no end. But I think it should have ended there the film didnt match up.
The silliness - What was the deal with the mad ice robot? He managed to defeat everyone that came near him apart from when logan turns up and karate chops him and escapes!?
Dated - The film really shows it age. It looks like alot of sci fi films from that era. The skimpy costumes, the flashing light comuters, the sets... everything. The future will never look so clean.
The coputer - The giant all knowing computer exploding because it could not computer something was stupid. Also blowing up the city aswell... that just seemslike bad electrical planning to me.
End - THe happy end was a joke to me. The giant city explodes and thousands of people are suddenly forced into the untamed wilds with no previous experience, but they dont care as there is an old man outside!?

When I saw this film I imagined my own ending. it continues the story along another year or so jumping through the upcoming events. First the un edicated survivours start to starve and are forced to scavenge, quickly disease spread as they will all be shitting in their water holes and in their camp. As time sget more desperate and bodies start mounting gangs will form fighting over food. Might see some canibles and other terrible things happen.

I guess that the old man everyone was so happy to see would die pretty quickly being old and frail up against youngsters in their prime.

One point O

I had only recently become aware of One point O but when I watched it I became engrossed.

The Good
Paranoia - This is an incredibly paranoid film, almost entirely following one lonely man over a few days while as he becomes more and more paroniod. Mysterios boxes appear in his flat and other residents of his building are turning up dead. I found myself empathising with character through these events and it really helped the film.
The food - A heavy theme with this film is people become addicted to certain things, one woman becomes obsessed with orange juice, the landlord cannot stop eating meat. The main character obsessivly like a junkie drinks pint after pint of milk. It is quite revolting.
The agents - There are lots of times when cruious looking agents turn up to investigate in the film. They always seem a little awkward and like they are hiding something. it worked really well with the paranoi floating around.
The End - Another film with a great ending. The main character ends up being drugged and having his brain cut out on his kitchen floor. The beauty is by the end of the film that feels like the best thing for him.
The Twist - The twist to the film is really nice. I Want to use some kind of goverment conspiracy in my film. Something along the lines of a completely immoral act that is being performed to help deal with the economy or homelessness or another issue facing future civilisations.

The good
There were alot of nice references to humans becoming infected like a computer.
Wonderfully terrifying talking robot that trys to warn the lead.
creepy undesirable characters.

Bad
The romance in the film felt a little wierd, almost like a hollywood afterthought.

Brazil

For a while now I have loved the grim dark future presented by dystopia fiction but few have touched me more than Terry Gilliams Brazil.

The Best:
The overly bureaucratic regime - How everything is run on paper work which is infallable. To the extent that a printing error can cost an innocent man his life.
The brutal police force - Storming into a citezens house and as the forcefully arrest and beat the husband they force the wife to sign a reciept for his body.
Helplessness - The main character is swept along the story and despite his best efforts cannot stem the flow of the bigger story he is caught up in.
The End - I feel I cannot really enjoy a dystopia that has a happy end. It needs to be bleak and show that one person alone cannot avoid the governing systems. The final shot of the main character being wheeled out of the huge torture room was perfect for the film.

The Good:
Feral swearing children
Wierd tech like a futureistic 70's
Nice vehicle design

The Bad
The Dreams - Personally I am not a big fan of symbolic dreams in films. This is the only thing I can pick out for bad, despite my dislike for them in the context of Brazil they work wonderfully. Just not for me.

The Dystopian

For my planned dystopian film I am going to look at other films in the dystopia genre and pick out what i liked most about them and what I liked least. By combining the best elements of each in theory I should be able to make a good dystopia..... right?