Books, TV, movies and stories related to the theme.

[HughMungus]

The Soylent Green thread got me thinking. Then I remembered someone is doing a camp based on Logan's Run. Now my head is spinning.

So let's all post the books, TV shows, movies and stories that pop into mind when we think of this year's theme.

Rollerball (predicted ecstasy and megacorporations)
Mad Max (kind of a gimme)
Americathon

Um...that's all I can think of right now for some reason...

Would people kill me if I did a camp based on "The Postman" or "Waterworld"? :P

Oh and I guess they don't all have to be apocalyptic...hm...

[KayTwo]

More Futuristic Movies:

BladeRunner (Real person or replicant?)
A Boy and His Dog (Sterile people in White Face)
Metropolis (So retro, so the Future)
Gattica (Genes mean everything)
The City of Lost Children (Co-joined villaness, talking brain in a jar, confused clones)
Planet of the Apes (Damn dirty apes!)
Dark City (Sinister Men in Black control your memories)

[retropsycho]

More Futuristic Movies:
A Boy and His Dog (Sterile people in White Face)

This is a pretty influential film to be given such short shrift. Director George Miller acknowledged that AB&HD was the inspiration for his Mad Max films. A post-apocalyptic wasteland environment where people really rely on radical self sufficiency to survive, there's a barter-town settlement where people trade food for entertainment (stag films).

. . . I'm just sayin'

[KayTwo]

And Don Johnson plays the lead role (not the talking dog, the boy).

[regionalchaos]

Gattica seemed almost dead on to me. When I watched it I was blown away. We're totally headed in that direction.

[Bay Bridge Sue]

How about Starship Troopers - not necessarily the battle scenes, but all the rest... Since we're almost there, anyway...

I'm doing my part!

Б. Б. Суз

[lazarus]

12 Monkeys

[Bin Noddin]

How about "Brazil" - scariest things are inside your head, not outside.

[the_iconoclast]

I am sticking to my guns..

Literature

1984 - Orwell
Anthem - Ayn Rand
Galapagos - Vonnegut
Ape and Essence - Aldous Huxley
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Altered Carbon - Richard Morgan
Idoru - William Gibson
Farenheit 451 - Bradbury
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
The Iron Heel - Jack London

Movies

Hardware - Mayhem from a robot head
THX1138 - Lucas's Dystopia
Logan's Run - most of us would be dead already
Land of the Dead - good Zombie fun
A Clockwork Orange - Do I really need to explain my Droogs?
Serenity - Interesting take on a future...
Outland - Fortells of Meth...
Silent Running - A very possible future..

Graphic Novels

V for Vendetta
The Watchmen

Enjoy-
Iconoclast

[Atar]

I could see a theme camp arising around the world Tyler Durden created in his head but never got to see If you've read the book you'll know what I mean. Though the leather clothes are not all that handy I assume.

[robotland]

Logan's Run - most of us would be dead already

Hah! Too true. We'd have to make the theme camp a replica of the Senate, and fill it with cats.

More books:

A Canticle for Leibowitz
The Wanting Seed
(almost) anything by Larry Niven
Future Shock
(absolutely) anything by H.G. Wells OR Jules Verne

More movies:

Spacehunter- Adventures in The Forbidden Zone (seriously!)
Voyage to The Prehistoric Planet (available on a two-film collection with "First Spaceship on Venus", on the cheapie rack...Really fun robot, and a slick hovercar, plus Basil Rathbone. Produced by Corman, 1965.)
All 4 "Alien" movies, for various reasons

Bear in mind that I thrive on sets and props..There's just too little "high art" scifi besides "Gattaca", "Blade Runner" and such to expect much more from Hollywood than that I get to see a few nifty greeblies that I can rip off ideas from.

[KayTwo]

Man, when you Burners wrap your mind around a concept, you really go for it. This forum has me now wanting to re-visit several movies and books I've forgotten about, but once loved.

Anyway, here's some more movie ideas:

Barbarella -- Jane Fonda as the highly-sexed Queen of the Universe. pits herself agains the evil Duran-Duran.

Flash Gordon -- The super psychedelic 80's version with a rockin' soundtrack from Queen.

Running Man -- Schwarzenegger, wearing tight, tight spandex, fights to survive a public execution gauntlet. It's America's favorite game show.

Zardoz -- A civilization of beautiful people who never die, but do grow older. Sean Connery, first a savage, then a "body-building Einstein," stirs up the staus quo.

The Jestons -- Rosie the robot, Jane and Judy's pointy dresses, and my favorite, the sound of their space cars.

[theCryptofishist]

Belive it or not the book of the Postman was pretty good. (3 novella strung together, rather than a novel proper, but it was fun.)

I never saw the Kevin Costner futures, but I do remember Bruce Dern (that man's psychotronic rating must be off the charts!) doing a cheezy mad max ripoff when one of the five book that survived to the future was the Iacocca autobiography. The only detail I remember--which a pretty good indication of hte cheeze factor.

Isn't there an old sci-fi pic where the future is all cave men again?

How about planet of hte apes? The movie or the planet? The brand new multi-million dollar broadway musical! (take that, pepe!)

[blyslv]

Snow Crash (excellent tie with the Random Pizza expereince)
Islands in the Net


A History Of Concentration Camps*






OK that one I made up. I'm a pessimist.

[Lorgasm]

One word.....TRON.

[KayTwo]

TRON made me the geek I am today!

[Discosybil]

Ahh one of my favorites

"Westworld"

Tagline: Westworld ...where robot men and women are programmed to serve you for ...Romance ...Violence ...Anything [/img]

[Discosybil]

Which was made in 1973 the same year as

Soylent Green

Another favorite

[Tiahaar]

oh "Silent Running" was creepy as that caretaker fellow went homicidal/suicidal to save the space-based plant farms he was caring for. I hope the future holds better than that.

How about the "Dragon Riders of Pern" books, where a group of people get to start a new future world from scratch, more-or-less replacing the former space-traveling technology with simple farm and craft living (and fire-breathing teleporting dragons!)

[HughMungus]

Larry Niven - just re-read "Inconstant Moon" again for the first time in a long time. One of my favorite scifi stories.

That makes me think of Greg Bear's Hardfought (?).

[robotland]

Larry Niven - just re-read "Inconstant Moon" again for the first time in a long time. One of my favorite scifi stories.

.

The Niven piece that makes me think of BM the most is a short story called "Cloak of Anarchy", which takes place in a "Free Park" where all laws except for those regarding violence towards others are suspended. People in the park spend a lot of their leisure time pursuing Quixotic hobbies and wearing theatrical costumes just like in Our Fair City, but in the park things go south when the floating "copseyes" that keep the peace get knocked out by a tinkering artist.....(1972, in the collection "Tales of Known Space".)

Regarding "Silent Running"....Yeah, Bruce Dern went pretty overboard BUT....Thanks to that movie I designed my dream home...(as yet unbuilt) It consists of three large geodesic domes, each with a different ecosystem represented and with gardens and ponds for year-round enjoyment. And three robot friends! Fun Facts To Know And Yell: The soundtrack to that movie was composed by Professor Peter Schickle, AKA "P.D.Q. Bach"...and featured two tunes by burn attendee Joan Baez!

[Bay Bridge Sue]

The Niven piece that makes me think of BM the most is a short story called "Cloak of Anarchy", which takes place in a "Free Park" where all laws except for those regarding violence towards others are suspended.

I remember this one... the guy with the lawn mower? I think it happened in central park...

I always wondered if the hoover guy out on the playa got his idea from that story... one of my favorites...

My "reminds me of BRC" thing - There was one similar which I read in my early 20's (it was in Amazing or F&SF or something) about a village built after the end of oil, I wish I could remember the name, but the people had formed their own anarchaic village, much like that, on a certain bridge, that years and many jobs later I would end up working on in real life (strange, no??)... As I remember, the story was told by someone taking a "walkabout" across the bridge, through this strange and lawless village...

bb

[Discosybil]

The original Stepford Wives

[Ugly Dougly]

What sci-fi movie seems to be the most truthful and accurate? I think Soylent Green continues to stand the test of time. Unfortunately it's not easily reduced to a sound-bite...

Soylent Green is people!!!!

[Ugly Dougly]

Barbarella
2001: A Space Odyssey
Zardoz
The Empire Strikes Back
Star Wars
The Matrix
Metropolis
Alien (director's cut)
A Clockwork Orange

[dr.placebo]

-- Literature

"The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester. There are times on the playa I feel as if I've jaunted from one place to another. The book even features a burning man.

Either "Dahlgren" or "Triton" by Samule Delany. Questions about sexuality, community, identity, and perception flood both of these works.

"The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood. Not so much a theme camp as an opportunity for theatre about religious oppression.

-- Movies

"Forbidden Planet" Monsters from the Id, indeed.

[repeat] "Barbarella", still my favorite Jane movie. But in the same spirit, I'd add "Flesh Gordon" (for the power pasties, if nothing else) and "The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik Yak".

[Isotopia]

Gattica seemed almost dead on to me. When I watched it I was blown away. We're totally headed in that direction.

Loved Gattica. But then, I love Frank Lloyd Wright.

[nogganoodle]

Literature has to be The Gap Series by Stephen Donaldson. If there was ever a future to be fearful of then this is it.

[KayTwo]

But wait, there's more!

Movies
The Omega Man -- Charleton Heston as the last man on Earth. Unless, of course, you count the light-sensitive, albino, psychopathic murders out to kill him.

The Island -- Creepy take on cloning with corporate evilness in the mix. Lot's of action with plenty of chase scenes and explosions!. Plus, cool jumpsuits.

TV
Lexx -- Best sci-fi series ever. First, their ship is a giant insect. The Hero's been dead for over 2000 years. The Woman is part cluster lizard. The Computer is a talking robot head. Sexy, bizarre, and way, way out there. Oh yeah, everyone wears weird outfits.

[robotland]

After reviewing this thread, I'm surprised that nobody, myself included, had FAHRENHEIT 451 on their list! And Martian ruins a 'la "Martian Chronicles" would be pretty cool on-playa. Or at least a lumpy shade structure that, from satellite view, resembles the "face on Mars"....or Larry, or possibly Bob Dobbs.
Brush With Greatness Under Weird Cicumstances: I met Ray Bradbury during the premiere of Fahrenheit 451- the Musical....Ever heard of it? Well, there's a reason.