Futuristic Dystopias, Part II

It is time to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Here is a list of movies:

Metropolis
Fahrenheit 451
Zardoz
A Clockwork Orange
Soylent Green
THX 1138
Sleeper
Logan’s Run
Rollerball
Blade Runner
1984
Brazil
Gattaca
The Matrix
Minority Report
Code 46
The Island
V For Vendetta
A Scanner Darkly

If you, like me, are a Hollywood screenwriter, you will see not one but two lists here.  There is a short list of movies that were very successful and a longer list of movies that were not successful.  We’re not talking about artistic success here, just boxoffice.  A few of them were smash hits, some were middling disappointments, some were high-profile disasters and others escaped the notice of almost everyone.

My job is to figure out why.  Why did audiences connect with some of these movies and not others?

They all share the Futuristic Dystopia element, which puts them in the realm of sci-fi, but some of them mix in other genre elements as well.  Blade Runner and Minority Report are detective stories, The Island and The Matrix feature action-film elements.

Each has a single protagonist in opposition to his or her society.  That society is either (a) forthrightly awful or (b) awful with a sweet candy-coating that must be peeled away before the awfulness can be tasted.

The key, it seems to me, is in the journey of the protagonist.  Specifically, the protagonist must be active, and must represent something unique and important.

Let’s compare The Matrix and V For Vendetta.  Same filmmakers, similar storyline.  In Act I of The Matrix, Neo is chosen, as The One, to undergo a test.  He is pulled from his world and shown “reality.”  In Act II he undergoes rigorous training, all the while doubting that he is, in fact, The One.  In Act III, a crisis emerges and he must face his destiny, face his oppressors, prove his worth and emerge, triumphant, as The One.  In V For Vendetta, Evey is not The One, she is Some Woman who gets into trouble one night.  She does not undergo rigorous training, she gets brainwashed by a mysterious stranger who won’t take off his mask.  And in Act III, a popular movement forms, but how much does that have to do with Evey’s actions?

The protagonist’s journey need not be heroic.  Alex in A Clockwork Orange is an equal-opportunity thug, victimizing rich and poor alike, seeking nothing out of life but the opportunity to beat, maim, kill and rape.  He’s motivated by the basest of human desires, but we like Alex because he’s pure; he’s smart and resourceful and he has a whale of a time.  He enjoys his life.  Society wants to take from Alex not only his opportunity to rape and kill but his desire to do so.  As bad as Alex is, a society that would take away free will is seen as worse.

In Brazil, Sam has a clear goal, but has no idea how to achieve it.  He gets jerked around a lot, cringeingly accepting indignity after indignity for a very long time.  When he does finally rebel he is immediately punished so severely that he must retreat into a very long fantasy sequence.  It’s also worth noting that Sam is not The One, but rather gains his role of protagonist quite by accident, when a fly falls into a telex machine, starting the narrative in motion.

Rollerball, interestingly, is a sports movie.  The plot is the same as every boxing noir: the athlete just wants to play a good game but the powers-that-be want him to take a dive for the short-end money.  It takes a very simple old story and puts it in a dazzling new context.

In Fahrenheit 451, Montag wants something clear and understandable, but thuddingly uncinematic — he wants to read.  The enormity of that still hasn’t quite sunk in for me yet — a movie about a guy who’s only desire is to curl up with a good book.  Rod Serling in The Twilight Zone knew that that’s no protagonist, that’s an antihero.

I’m off to have dinner with Mr. James Urbaniak, so I’ll leave this for now, but there is much more to be discussed here.  Any information regarding the protagonists’ journeys of, say, Zardoz (which I haven’t seen) or Gattaca (which I haven’t seen in a long time) or any other movie not yet discussed is greatly appreciated.