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Positive future sci-fi movies and TV

 
 
 
Angry Floof

Angry Floof

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Positive future sci-fi. Is there such a thing outside of Star Trek and a few books?

Do we as a species have no imagination at all other than lame, fear-based, negativity biased doom-and-gloom? Does our capacity for seeing possibilities other than utter dystopia stop at Star Trek?

How do we convince writers to see past fearful cowering regarding the future? (For that matter, how do we get anyone to do that?)

What are some positive future sci-fi movies?
 
Altered Carbon. Someday we get to live forever and indulge in all manner of fetishes. Fun all around.
 
Angry Floof said:
Positive future sci-fi. Is there such a thing outside of Star Trek and a few books?

Do we as a species have no imagination at all other than lame, fear-based, negativity biased doom-and-gloom? Does our capacity for seeing possibilities other than utter dystopia stop at Star Trek?

How do we convince writers to see past fearful cowering regarding the future? (For that matter, how do we get anyone to do that?)

What are some positive future sci-fi movies?
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I''m sure there are examples, but for movies to be engaging there has to be some type of conflict; against people, against ideas, against the status quo whatever. A sci-fi movie where everything is fine wouldn't be entertaining. And considering how often sci-fi is used as a metaphor to discuss contemporary issues it would be almost impossible to paint it in a unviersal positive light.

Also Star Trek isn't positive. Watching Discovery has made me more bitter and cynical :p.
 
Because such a society isn't going to be a very interesting place for a story.
 
I thought Arrival ended on a positive uptick.
 
I just remembered a terrible, terrible sci-fi movie, The Last Mimzy, that had not only a positive future ending but a wonderful story that was enmeshed in all the craptastic nonsense.

The part I liked:

Future humans live in a genetically compromised state. They've figured out time travel, only humans can't travel or they die. So they create an AI to make the journey back to our current time to get some healthy human DNA. They make the AI in the shape of a toy bunny, and send it back along with some kewl-tech puzzle toys. The AI carries some kind of technology that affects the brains of human children in the vicinity of the AI. This enables the kids to figure out how to learn from the puzzle toys to create the technology to send the AI back once it gets the DNA, which it got in the form of a tear drop from a little girl.

 
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Angry Floof said:
How do we convince writers to see past fearful cowering regarding the future? (For that matter, how do we get anyone to do that?)
Click to expand...

Step 1: Convince major film studios to choose science fiction scripts based on contemplative value instead of mass-market appeal.
Step 2: LOL there's no chance you completed Step 1.
 
bigfield said:
Angry Floof said:
How do we convince writers to see past fearful cowering regarding the future? (For that matter, how do we get anyone to do that?)
Click to expand...

Step 1: Convince major film studios to choose science fiction scripts based on contemplative value instead of mass-market appeal.
Step 2: LOL there's no chance you completed Step 1.
Click to expand...

:lol: I think you're right. *sigh*
 
Angry Floof said:
Positive future sci-fi. Is there such a thing outside of Star Trek and a few books?

Do we as a species have no imagination at all other than lame, fear-based, negativity biased doom-and-gloom? Does our capacity for seeing possibilities other than utter dystopia stop at Star Trek?

How do we convince writers to see past fearful cowering regarding the future? (For that matter, how do we get anyone to do that?)

What are some positive future sci-fi movies?
Click to expand...


It was my impression that they mostly had and have a positive outcome. Certainly this seems to be true of mainstream examples, wherein humanity, or our hero or heroes, win out in the end, even if they have had to struggle.

To me, this is one of the most prevalent mainstream tropes, in almost any genre.

I don't mean to suggest there aren't counter-examples. '1984' springs to mind.
 
Worth nothing that Star Trek is post-post-apocalypse. It's set in a universe where Earth's society bottomed out: Our current world order utterly failed, bombed itself into Mad Max, and then society rose out of the ashes to become a phlebotinum-powered, post-scarcity commie utopia. That stuff just happens off-screen and in the show's past.
 
Is there something in the back of Sci-Fi writers and the general public's mind about the basic unsustainability of this massive civilization we are running?

From the 1960's and especially early 70's collapse based on environmental and resource depletion and overpopulation has been a strong theme. I think this is highly accurate.

But now we are focused on social media and identity politics as if that has anything to do with the facts on the ground regarding resources and population. Actually it is more fucking noise distracting and cocooning us from the damage we are wreaking. Do you think that frogs that are going extinct (would if they were as sentient as us) care that we are struggling with racial injustice? We know in the back of our minds that we are raping the earth. They would want us to voluntarily control our numbers and habitat encroachment. We are as dumb as dirt as far as a long term plan.
 
repoman said:
Is there something in the back of Sci-Fi writers and the general public's mind about the basic unsustainability of this massive civilization we are running?

From the 1960's and especially early 70's collapse based on environmental and resource depletion and overpopulation has been a strong theme. I think this is highly accurate.

But now we are focused on social media and identity politics as if that has anything to do with the facts on the ground regarding resources and population. Actually it is more fucking noise distracting and cocooning us from the damage we are wreaking. Do you think that frogs that are going extinct (would if they were as sentient as us) care that we are struggling with racial injustice? We know in the back of our minds that we are raping the earth. They would want us to voluntarily control our numbers and habitat encroachment. We are as dumb as dirt as far as a long term plan.
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Come now. No need for such gloom. Have you not seen the ending scene to '2012' or, 'The Day After Tomorrow'? I could even, at a pinch direct you to the ending of Cormac McCarthy's, 'The Road', or, 'Children of Men'.

Just don't watch Lars von Trier's 'Melancholia' that's my advice. Or "28 weeks Later" (though '28 Days Later' is ok). Or 'The Happening' by M. Night shyamalan. Though to be fair, most of those only have ambiguously negative-ish endings. Avoid 1984 too, maybe, along with Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil'.
 
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