I keep forgetting to post this

[gnomi]

I appeal to the brain trust that is my LJ friends list.

beckyfeld's mother-in-law (AKA osewalrus' mother) is seeking science fiction movies with positive portrayals of cities in the future.

Anyone have any recommendations?

Comments

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

What exactly do you mean by "positive"? I don't know of any that are _entirely_ positive, but if you mean "not evil Blade-Runner dystopias" there's _The Fifth Element_ with its bright, sunny, very wide and tall NYC (complete with dark underbelly, seen briefly) and _Demolition Man_ with its ultra-peaceful San Angeles (which is, again, sitting on a civilization of people living in sewers). Sadly, 27th century San Dimas doesn't appear much in either of the Bill and Ted movies - but I hear it's pretty nice.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Definitely not distopias. But I think she'd like less of the dark underbelly, as well.

mabfan had thought of The Fifth Element, but that was as far as we got.

Browse:

[tiptoe39.livejournal.com]

http://imdb.com/Sections/Genres/Sci-Fi/

:-)

What about Star Trek movies? Don't they count?

[lensman.livejournal.com]

Well while everywhere else may not have been happy places... Most cities on Earth were supposed to be fairly positive in most of the Star Trek series. (Excluding alien invasions and such) :-) Hunger and poverty were supposed to have been all but eliminated...

In Star Wars things looked fairly positive before the fall of the Republic. Naboo was idilic, Corusant had the industrial edge of a big city, but otherwise seemed nice enough.

Re: Browse:

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

Ah, nice list. TrantorCoruscant, in Star Wars 1-3, looks like a pretty nice place (as does Cloud City in _The Empire Strikes Back_), and 2015 Hill Valley in Back to the Future II is definitely positive. I'm sure there are some anime features that would qualify as well...

If I may provide some context

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

My mother teaches urban planning at University of Rhode Island. For a course for undergads, she decided to do "the city in film." The idea was a historic perspective on how filmmakers have viewed cities over the last 80 or so years. Consider the difference between, say, "Easter PArade," where NYC is a fun and sophisticated place to be, with "Fort Apache, the Bronx" or the punk world of "Liquid Sky."

So for the final lesson, my mother started to look at how folks envision future cities -- and they are all almost uniformly negative in the movies. (Star Trek and Bab5 are out as TV SF rather than movies -- even though there are Star Trek movies.)

Are there any SF movies since "The Shape of Things To Come" that envision a future society in which the city is a positive thing? Which portrays cities in which people actually _want_ to live. Bill and Ted II is the closest I can think of. Perhaps "Minority Report?"

Re: If I may provide some context

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

Coruscant, Hill Valley, and the Fifth Element's NYC seem like they'd fit, then - they don't really say "gee whiz, look at this great city" but they're not anti-city in any way (well, I guess Leeloo didn't really care for NYC - but everyone else seemed to like it well enough). Apparently pro-city filmmakers just neutrally display their cities as backdrops, while anti-city ones hit you over the head with the grim'n'gritty stick.

(The Chicago of "I, Robot" is not too dystopic either - modulo the killer robots, of course.)

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow

Made in 2004 but really it's a 1930's scifi movie. The world is "futuristic" ...but it's the vision of the future from the 30's. The city is a nice place to be until this bad guy with robots shows up and starts kidnapping scientists.

Cheesy good fun!

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

The question came up when we were at Chez Greene a few weeks ago and I suggested Back to the Future 2. sdavido suggested the Jetsons.