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RE: The Ultimate Dystopian & Post/Apocalyptic Films List (1300+ TITLES!)
Yeah. I understand how difficult it is. In a few days I'm going to give a lecture about dystopian movies in the last 20 years. I narrowed it down, by talking only about financially successful once, because I have a time limit of 40 minutes.
You might be sure to include a big paragraph that D & P/A are in fact two separate concepts, that although they tend to overlap in fiction, aren't the same.
In Fury Road the the 'civilization' (one of mans little worlds within The World) was a dystopian society (as was Barter Town), its the World itself that is post-apocalyptic. In Road Warrior the whole world was PA, except for that tiny little oil pump compound it was their little eutopia, surrounded by barbarian marauder despots of course.
Then then's films like "Goodbye World" which dangle between the transition from Apocalyptic to PA (where The World hasnt actually ended, just mans tech civilization 'world'), where Armageddon (1998) is pure Apocalyptic of the looming potential destruction of the planet variety. If that outcome were to play out some humans somewhere would likely survive, and odds are that 'society' would come out dystopian not unlike the future world of 12 Monkeys.
Battlestar Galatica is a choice example too. Total apocalyptic devastation of the 12 planet colonies. Cylon oppressors hunting them thru space. Along the way they tackle their own human urges to turn dystopian, and find them selves trapped within some proper harsh dystopian variants they must escape from, all along the way desperately clamoring for a fabled "Earth", which as far as they really know its a 'Utopia' ("no place") but if they can actually get 'there' and shake the Cylons off their tail along the way its expected to be a proper 'Eutopia' ("good place")... but can they pull it off without expecting another Cylon Apocalypse in the end????
My lecture is already ready so no need to lecture me. I know that Utopia is no where and dystopia is an anti-Utopia. I'm talking about the darker turn that such movies take recently and how generally even not dystopian movies feel very depressing lately and people like it.
I say all that because when ever you search for "dystopian films list" essentially every list our there has selections from the both D & PA. Sure some of the PA are D, but typically pure PA films are on the lists with no distinction between societal or dystopia or just crappy world because it blew up or whatever.
dystopian films lists are tricky thing to begin with. But I prefer the OED definition of dystopia: "An imaginary place or condition in which everything is as bad as possible" In which case D and PA can be the same thing. Because crappy world is as bad as possible in my opinion.
Yeah see I'm driven by a systems analysis approach to the (real) world, and dystopian fiction are the ultimate universe of cautionary tales. So I put a lot of emphasis on people being clear on the subject to more appreciate them for that and for gaining a spectrum perspective on this kind of stuff as even the darkest of them all it all more and more seems to be coming true.
I fear most people whom watch them dont even read into this aspect of the story telling not nearly enough, which would help explain this trend you're emphasizing of people being oblivious how you described it.
And that is why i was "lecturing" you on you lecture.
:D