So one of my favorite rare scifi tropes is the “near apocalypse” (or maybe “sort of apocalypse” or “slow decline”). Where society has gone south, big time, due to one of the usual apocalypse causes (war, environmental collapse, disease, etc.). But it’s not collapsed, society is still around, the government is still functioning. Just everything is sort of crappy and could be about to finally collapse.
My favourite example of this is Looper (which I just rewatched on Netflix and I still rate v highly)
In the “present day” Looper timeline at least, it’s implied things could have tipped over the line into “collapsed” at least in some parts of the world in the “future” timeline (which also gets it brownie points from me as one of the rarest scifi trope: the idea that society could collapse in the US or Europe but still carry on elsewhere)
What other good examples of this are there? Interstellar did a good job IMO (though generally was, at best, pretty patchy as a movie). Also I guess Idiocracy counts?
I’m excluding the common 80s/90s trope of society and government carrying on normally except for a huge increase in crime. e.g. predator 2, escape from new York (maybe? I’ve not seen this recently enough), the opening scene of Demolition Man.
It’s not obvious if large society has collapsed, there has been a war, or whatever during the movie, but law and order is still being practiced. They have trials. And Fifi tells the squad " So long as the paperwork’s clean, you boys can do what you like out there." Society may be (is, judging by The Road Warrior) falling, but someone still cares about the paperwork.
I’d add Children of Men. Civilization is clearing falling at the point of the movie, but it had been carrying on for the last 20 years or so of no children being born.
The apocalypse is that we’ve stopped giving birth to new people (reasons never quite clear), and 20-ish years later, society is still “functioning”, at least in England, but things are just winding down. Most people have just given up on life, and giving a crap about anything. War, famine, racism, fuck it, we’re doomed anyways. The government is providing Home Suicide Kits for those who’ve had enough of it all.
Don’t think this would count as the best of anything, but I’ll list it because it amuses me that this movie with this plot is shown on some weekend afternoons on broadcast television. (One of the “point” channels, like MeTV. They show Barbarella, too.)
I think Children of Men is set right at the point where the true apocalypse is beginning. It is, not coincidentally, at the time when the last of the children on the planet have officially become adults. There really are no more children. The start of the final decline begins with the uprising in the refugee camp. Thus the baby arrives at the darkest hour.
Matter of opinion but I kind of lump this kind of thing in with apocalypse movies, in that you have one scenario where society collapses and dissolves into anarchy (e.g. Mad Max 2) and another where society collapses (or comes close to it) and you end up with autocracy (e.g. Running Man)
Total sidetrack but, while I really like the movie, they really missed a trick setting it in the west, it would have made much more sense (and been a great way of flipping the normal US/UK centric paradigm) to have the developing world survive longer without collapsing (as they have much younger population) and the developed world collapse into chaos with their aging population unable to support itself.
I think the word the OP is looking for is “dystopia”. As in society hasn’t collapsed in the sense that major urban centers are destroyed and there is no government beyond perhaps roving bands of warlords, but what society still exists is overcrowded, corrupt, crime-ridden, oppressive, intrusive, dirty, militarized, highly segragated, and probably not sustainable in the long term.
Indeed many parts of the world may actually have collapsed already (much in the same way places in the modern world aren’t exactly functioning).
So a few that haven’t been mentioned (of varying quality):
A Clockwork Orange
Akira
Dredd
Robocop
Ready Player One
1984
Fahrenheit 451
Alita: Battle Angel
Divergent
Johnny Mnemonic
Freejack
It’s a very specific sub-genre of dystopian film. Society hasn’t collapsed (e.g. Mad Max 2), its not been replaced with something completely different (e.g. Running Man, or the rest of Demolition Man after the opening scene) It’s still recognizably the same society that exists in the west in the 20th/21st century. But it’s clearly decayed and isn’t about to get better any time soon (in fact will likely get worse)
Thinking about this thread, I’d add Soylent Green.
It appears to be your average 70s dystopia, evil government doing evil things, but I really think it the last days of Rome sort of movie. There still is law and order, more or less, but there is no more food. In a year I suspect there will be massive famine and death. Like billions. Getting the word out that SOYLENT GREEN IS PEEEEOPLE! isn’t going to change that. In fact, it will make it happen sooner.
Elysium is a setting where the rich elite live in orbit while the rest sweat it out on a ruined Earth below.
Logan’s Run has domed cities where young people frolic (until they turn 30 of course) while the rest outside struggle to live.
