Demolition Man, released in 1993 and starring Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes, is your archetypal mindless action film of the early 1990's...
...except that it's not as mindless as it might first appear. In fact, besides being a 90's action film, it has quite heavy sociopolitical commentary, a vision of a dystopian future which in the 90's was deemed too ridiculous to ever become even remotely possible... yet has turned out eerily accurate.
If you have never seen the film, I highly recommend watching it. Heck, even if you have seen it a long time ago, I recommend re-watching it. Pay close attention to the eerie similarities of the world depicted in the film with the current world, and where it seems to be headed. The similarities are absolutely uncanny. The exact details may not be absolutely exact (which isn't surprising), but they are to an even surprising extent, both in terms of the depicted technology and, more particularly, in terms of the direction that current western society is taking.
I think it's quite safe to say, and quite telling, that Demolition Man would most probably not be filmed today. At least not without very severe and radical alterations, to make the society it's describing less of a political commentary and criticism on current society. Extreme political correctness would be heavily changed from being represented as oppressive to being depicted as a positive. Several key scenes would be changed in tone to make the main character (depicted by Stallone) to be in the wrong, and to depict him as the moral villain, and the morally depraved person. Quite ironically, I'm certain that if the script of the movie were to be revised today, it would be changed more to be in line with what the corporate overlord in the movie would want it to be.
I'm quite certain that the amazing predictive accuracy of the movie was largely accidental and unintentional. Nobody in their right mind would have thought in the early 90's how close the world would actually become to that depicted in the script. But that's what makes the movie even more amazing in that regard.
I highly recommend watching the movie with a modern mindset in mind, to spot the parallels between the movie and the modern real world.
...except that it's not as mindless as it might first appear. In fact, besides being a 90's action film, it has quite heavy sociopolitical commentary, a vision of a dystopian future which in the 90's was deemed too ridiculous to ever become even remotely possible... yet has turned out eerily accurate.
If you have never seen the film, I highly recommend watching it. Heck, even if you have seen it a long time ago, I recommend re-watching it. Pay close attention to the eerie similarities of the world depicted in the film with the current world, and where it seems to be headed. The similarities are absolutely uncanny. The exact details may not be absolutely exact (which isn't surprising), but they are to an even surprising extent, both in terms of the depicted technology and, more particularly, in terms of the direction that current western society is taking.
I think it's quite safe to say, and quite telling, that Demolition Man would most probably not be filmed today. At least not without very severe and radical alterations, to make the society it's describing less of a political commentary and criticism on current society. Extreme political correctness would be heavily changed from being represented as oppressive to being depicted as a positive. Several key scenes would be changed in tone to make the main character (depicted by Stallone) to be in the wrong, and to depict him as the moral villain, and the morally depraved person. Quite ironically, I'm certain that if the script of the movie were to be revised today, it would be changed more to be in line with what the corporate overlord in the movie would want it to be.
I'm quite certain that the amazing predictive accuracy of the movie was largely accidental and unintentional. Nobody in their right mind would have thought in the early 90's how close the world would actually become to that depicted in the script. But that's what makes the movie even more amazing in that regard.
I highly recommend watching the movie with a modern mindset in mind, to spot the parallels between the movie and the modern real world.
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