We have covered Post Apocalyptic futures where all seems hopeless, we have covered Dystopian ones as well where something is wrong, but there is often a light in the distance that says “things can still work out okay”, and most importantly we have covered birthdays which have nothing to do with the first two prompts (or this week’s eventual prompt for that matter) but do seem to say “Brick has terrible timing despite his constant comments that life is all about timing, maybe someone should ask him if the word timing means what he thinks it means.” Today however we look to the future one last time to see what kind of Utopias mankind has cinematically imagined.

I see Utopian based movies as the polar opposite of Dystopian. Where Dystopian is often a bleak future with a ray of hope shining through Utopian faithfully start out with the premise of a Utopian society but due to the need of conflict to drive the drama things are often not what they seem… Typing that last sentence out made me realize that Utopian movies are really just stealth Dystopian, but whatever this is my prompt now and I am just rolling with it.

For me to get sucked into one of these movies the Utopia has to clear a few bars. One it has to be believable at the very least in it’s premise that this is in fact a Utopia so people would actually want to live there and it would take time for someone to ask a few questions and go poking around to uncover the sinister truth (there is always a sinister truth). Two and this one is a little more personal, but I kind of need there to be some kind of careful what you wish for style message, otherwise why not just stay in the Utopia? And finally it should either end with a hope for the future that things are getting on the right track now, or alternatively the hopeless ending that nothing changes (this one of course depends on my mood.

Unlike a lot of previous prompts I am not sure there is as much room for creativity in the approach to Utopian society on the parts of film-makers but you of the commenters have pretty much weekly been able to give me at least one surprise answer (and often many) so I turn this ramble over you with a broad prompt: What is your favourite movie(s) depicting “Utopian” societies? For me I would have to go old school and nominate Forbidden Planet. For a movie from the 50s it has great special effects and a really great story. Just the idea that there is a paradise planet where a machine can make dreams come true but peoples subconcious fears also come true and end up killing them and everyone around them as well is some spectacular writing and allegory (not to mention the whole careful what you wish for thing). I also think I mentioned in a previous post that owning a good condition (or better) one sheet original movie poster from Forbidden Planet is my dream collectible as an original one sheet collector.