peterx | 23 Sep 2016 3:59 p.m. PST |
So, my theory may be wrong, however, I think Star Wars: A New Hope was the first space science fiction film that shows a lived in, used, and dirty future. It isn't shiny or well-maintained like the Star Trek space craft and universe. The Star Wars universe has poverty with robot slaves, violent dictatorships, dirty planets, dirty space ships, but it isn't a pure dystopia. The earlier dystopian films and post -apocalyptic films of the Sixties and early Seventies are not pure space sci-fi (I.E. Omega Man, and the Planet of the Apes series). The post-Star Wars films like Alien and Aliens both have that gritty, used and dirty future look, that may have been building on the Star Wars universe. Post-apocalyptic films like the Mad Max films and dystopian films like Blade Runner came after Star Wars and seem influenced by the dirty future look of some of the Star Wars films that came before them. So, the dirty future/ Star Wars theory, discuss and dispute. |
peterx | 23 Sep 2016 4:04 p.m. PST |
Oh, I hope I didn't make anybody think I was talking about "sexy sci-fi" when I put "dirty future" in the title. Sorry if I disappointed any TMPers out there. |
Dynaman8789 | 23 Sep 2016 4:12 p.m. PST |
Star Wars isn't so much dirty as run down. Lucas intentionally had it so that ship engines sounded slightly out of calibration and he mentioned backfires but I don't specifically remember that. Ships were not not pristine – having rust and marks on them but they were not dirty as such. Only exceptions really were the JAWA landcrawler and the Lucas farm – those had junk laying around. |
peterx | 23 Sep 2016 4:17 p.m. PST |
Dynaman, I meant run down as well when I was talking about a "dirty future". Not only dirt and grime, but a run down, used and lived in science fiction world. |
McWong73 | 23 Sep 2016 4:19 p.m. PST |
Did Dark Star come out before SW? |
peterx | 23 Sep 2016 4:28 p.m. PST |
I looked up "Dark Star", McWong, and it came out in 1974. So. my theory is incorrect. |
SBminisguy | 23 Sep 2016 4:36 p.m. PST |
Silent Running predates Star Wars as well. link |
peterx | 23 Sep 2016 4:36 p.m. PST |
Right, "Silent Running" which came out in 1972, was a pre-Star Wars "dirty future film" as well. I remember that film very well, and was impressed by it. I think I saw it late one night on channel 20 when I was babysitting., |
haywire | 23 Sep 2016 4:38 p.m. PST |
Star Wars a new hope is 1977 Dark Star is 1974 ALIEN which I always thought of as "dirty sci fi" is 1979 |
Dynaman8789 | 23 Sep 2016 4:41 p.m. PST |
I think the predominant ingredient for a "dirty" future is for it to be bleak, Star Wars was never that. Even the prequels didn't manage to make things bleak. |
peterx | 23 Sep 2016 4:44 p.m. PST |
Yup, I agree, Dynaman. Star Wars was not totally bleak like the world of Mad Max or Alien. |
Extra Crispy | 23 Sep 2016 5:02 p.m. PST |
A lot of Star Trek episodes had kinda shabby sets. What about the old Flasg Gordon setials? |
peterx | 23 Sep 2016 5:11 p.m. PST |
Flash Gordon never seemed like a "dirty future" to me. Star Trek shabbiness seemed like a small budget problem and not very intentional to me. |
Mark Plant | 23 Sep 2016 5:25 p.m. PST |
Star Wars is, theoretically, set in the past. What struck me about it was that it mixed wealth and poverty. Clean and dirty. Ordered systems and anarchic systems. Too much Sci-Fi picks one or the other and then everything is like that. And Lucas set the poverty in bright light. What is it about grim futures being literally dark? |
peterx | 23 Sep 2016 5:34 p.m. PST |
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Volstagg Vanir | 23 Sep 2016 6:00 p.m. PST |
Metropolis (1927) is fairly grundgy youtu.be/Q0NzALRJifI?t=13m26s …and it most definitely contrasts mixed wealth and poverty, clean and dirty. ordered and anarchic systems…. And Things to Come (1936) gets a bit tattered around the edges, because, yknow: war & stuff.
youtu.be/atwfWEKz00U?t=1h13s |
Coyotepunc and Hatshepsuut | 23 Sep 2016 7:00 p.m. PST |
Star Wars is more "lived in for multiple eras" rather than "dirty." The civilizations of Star Wars have been around so long that ecen slaves can build their own robots and vehicles just by scavenging around the environment enough for the parts. Seriously, did anyone go to Tattooine and say, "Ah, lifeless desert! The perfect place to raise a family!" Probably, 10 or 15 thousand years ago, it was a really nice place to live. Probably an industrial world, maybe a resort destination for the undeveloped areas until *something* happened. Climate change brought on by a variation of rhe orbit in the twin suns? Who knows? But clearly, the world has been civilized for far longer than our own. And it isn't even near the center of civilization. Coruscant has been the center of attention for so long it is entirely encased in city. And it has very ckean and very dirty areas. Grim, yes. Look at the Ewoks. They have a reputation for being cutely annoying teddy bears. But their first reaction to captives is to eat them. Who are their enemies that this has become a standard part of their culture? The Empire only showed up a few years before we see them, and there doesn't seem to be a big Empire-Ewok conflict until the Alliance gets involved. However, the Ewoks seem to already be prepared for war, and also are quite good at it? Ewoks are analagous to some South Pacific islanders, making brutal war against each other and eating their captives. They are NOT cute teddy bears! |
peterx | 23 Sep 2016 7:01 p.m. PST |
Also, The Time Machine from 1960 fits that model. Although it doesn't include space travel, only time travel. |
Allen57 | 23 Sep 2016 8:31 p.m. PST |
Both Blade Runner (early 80's)and The Fifth Element (late 70's) showed overcrowded and run down cities. |
Zephyr1 | 23 Sep 2016 9:19 p.m. PST |
"Oh, I hope I didn't make anybody think I was talking about "sexy sci-fi" when I put "dirty future" in the title." Well, that rules out Barbarella… ;-) |
Patrick R | 24 Sep 2016 3:27 a.m. PST |
I don't think Star Wars counts as a dystopia, unless you count something like a WW2 movie as such. Star Wars is "lived-in", it's a departure from the clean, unsullied worlds of Forbidden Planet or Star Trek. In lived-in worlds, stuff gets used, wears down and/or isn't put away in a meticulous fashion. This is normal every day wear. Lived-in is the normal for the vast majority of people, aside from the ones with OCD who live in a picture-perfect furniture catalogue. Blade Runner and dystopias tend to go for "Run down" where the stuff that people have lying around is being overwhelmed by entropy and disuse. Extreme forms like Mad Max and Things to Come go for "gone to the dogs" or wastelands. But dystopias aren't necessarily run down places, Logan's Run is meticulously clean and perfect. |
Martin Rapier | 24 Sep 2016 4:10 a.m. PST |
As above, SW isn't dystopian, just lived in. But Silent Running and Dark Star came before that, DS was the first 'lived in' Sci Fi film I saw, and much better for it. Even 2001 was pretty squeaky clean. |
45thdiv | 24 Sep 2016 5:39 a.m. PST |
Star wars did not show a future at all. It was set a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. :-) |
15th Hussar | 24 Sep 2016 8:28 a.m. PST |
"B5"…a brand spanking new station has a dirty underbelly (Below). |
20thmaine | 24 Sep 2016 9:52 a.m. PST |
Zardoz – 1974 The future is bleak – giant flying heads will roam a desolate landscape :
there will be random violence :
Cloth production will be severely reduced
|
20thmaine | 24 Sep 2016 9:54 a.m. PST |
BTW – I don't care what anyone else thinks about Zardoz – it was worth making just for the flying head. |
Mobius | 24 Sep 2016 11:10 a.m. PST |
Star wars did not show a future at all. It was set a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. But the light is just now arriving here. |
nevals | 24 Sep 2016 3:57 p.m. PST |
The world of Soylent Green (1973 or 74) was rather unappealing, but that would me more of a dystopian story than a SF. |
Martin Rapier | 25 Sep 2016 10:18 a.m. PST |
Like all good Sci Fi, Soylent Green was based on a book, in this case Harry Harrisons 'Make Room'. Make of the politics in that what you will, but I do recall the thing of dressing down to avoid trouble very prescient. Harrison wrote some brilliant books which would have made excellent films, the Stainless Steel Rat series and the unparalleled 'Bill the Galactic Hero'. The bit where he is changing the fuses on the superdreadnought still crack me up, and a complete p**s take of Starship Troopers. Pretty much the same vein the ST film was made in (view it as a comedy po faced people). If you want real glum dystopian Sci Fi then John Brunners 'The Sheep Look Up' is one for you. Again, very prescient about the modern world. Never made into a film afaik. |
jowady | 25 Sep 2016 11:17 a.m. PST |
Flash Gordon never seemed like a "dirty future" to me. Well, if you want "dirty" from "Flash Gordon" there was "Flesh Gordon" 1974. On a more serious note though some of the episodes of Star Trek TOS have a "dirty" look to them, for example the one where Harvey Mudd has taken some women to be married to miners on a really horrible planet. That wasn't a future I would have really cared to live in. |
Hafen von Schlockenberg | 25 Sep 2016 1:00 p.m. PST |
Fifth Element is 1997,unless you're thinking of something else. Blade runner is from Phillip K. Dick,the father of Cyberpunk,so yeah. +1 Martin Rapier! I'd love to see a Bill film. There was a weird little no-budget thing from some college students that had nothing to do with the book. I'd like to see a series on the West of Eden novels. Of course, that's "alternate history" SF. But then,I'd really like to see Peter F. Hamilton's Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained made into movies. Transformers (the "Alamo Avengers") as museum pieces brought back to life! |