Dystopian fiction explores the aftermath of extremely negative societal changes. Post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of some of that dystopian fiction. Both of them cross the boundaries of fantasy, horror, and science fiction stories.
Some of these types of stories are fascinating to me, while others are borderline repulsive. Post-apocalyptic fiction, in particular, tends to portray dystopian societies and I have more faith in humankind than that.
Dystopian and Post-apocalyptic Movies
I was treated to my first dystopian movie at the age of seven, when I saw Planet of the Apes in a theater in 1968. My original memories were reinforced by watching it more times over the years than I can possibly count. The only original memory I’m sure of was when one of the characters showed his naked backside while running. For whatever reason, most of the audience laughed at that.
I didn’t care for the sequels and the other media it inspired. I disliked the 2001 remake, mostly due to the twist ending. The franchise reboot in 2011 was better, but I still like the original.
I saw Logan’s Run in a theater when I was 15 years old, around the same time as the King Kong remake of that year (which I also watched). Jenny Agutter (eight years older than me) was my fantasy girl for a time because of her nudity and near nudity in that film. I’ve been waiting on a remake for years.
Most of the dystopian or post-apocalyptic movies I’ve seen were broadcast on television or cable TV, at least until streaming media services started popping up with Netflix in 2007. For the sake of clarity, I call cable TV and streaming media the same thing as television, and mainly because we use the same television sets to watch it with.
My Movie List
Here’s a list of what I remember, which I consider worth watching more than once, based on one or more Wikipedia lists, disregarding franchise sequels:
- The Time Machine (1960)
- The Last Man on Earth (1964)
- Planet of the Apes (1968)
- A Clockwork Orange (1971)
- The Omega Man (1971)
- THX 1138 (1971)
- Silent Running (1972)
- Soylent Green (1973)
- Westworld (1973)
- Dawn of the Dead (1974)
- A Boy and His Dog (1975
- Logan’s Run (1976)
- Damnation Alley (1977)
- Mad Max (1979)
- Escape from New York (1981)
- Blade Runner (1982)
- The Terminator (1984)
- The Quiet Earth (1985)
- Robocop (1987)
- The Running Man (1987)
- Freejack (1992)
- Demolition Man (1993)
- 12 Monkeys (1995)
- Judge Dredd (1995)
- Waterworld (1995)
- Gattaca (1997)
- The Postman (1997)
- The Matrix (1999)
- A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
- Equilibrium (2002)
- Minority Report (2002)
- Resident Evil (2002)
- The Time Machine (2002)
- I, Robot (2004)
- Æon Flux (2005)
- Children of Men (2006)
- Idiocracy (2006)
- I Am Legend (2007)
- Babylon A.D. (2008)
- WALL-E (2008)
- Daybreakers (2009)
- The Road (2009)
- Zombieland (2009)
- The Book of Eli (2010)
- Oblivion (2013)
- The World’s End (2013)
- This Is The End (2013)
- The Maze Runner (2014)
- The Thinning (2016)
- Ready Player One (2018)
- Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
There may be more movies like this that I haven’t mentioned, that aren’t on the original lists.
Dystopian Novel
Before I got married, way back in 1985, I frequently read novels and novel series. Once I got married, because other things demanded my attention, I was lucky if I read a single novel over the course of several years. Here are the novels related to dystopias (the basis of some movies), that I can remember reading:
- Earth Abides (1949) by George R. Stewart
- I Am Legend (1954) by Richard Matheson
- The Riverworld series (1971-1983) by Philip José Farmer
- The Stand (1978) by Steven King
I’m sure I’ve read more than these, but I doubt I’ll ever remember the titles or the authors.
Cannibalism
A lot of post-apocalyptic movies depict cannibalism as being rampant at points in time that don’t even make sense. I’ll be specific about two of the movies I linked above, “The Road” and “The Book of Eli”. Only months have gone by in the former and about thirty-five years in the latter.
Unless the existing food supplies in various locations of the United States get tainted by something, this shouldn’t happen. A lot of military food supplies are stored in locations (where anyone with reasonable intelligence can find them) that are sheltered from anything that wouldn’t also wipe out humanity along with it. I sincerely believe people will only turn to cannibalism as a last resort.
Image by Elliot Alderson from Pixabay