Utopia and Dystopia

What is utopia and dystopia?

Utopia is any real or imaginary society, place, state,etc, considered to be perfect or ideal.

Dystopia is an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one. The opposite of utopia.

Utopian and Dystopian films that I watched:

Never Let Me Go (2010)

In the film, there is a society within the larger one consisting of children who were ceated in a laboratory to be Donors. They have no parents in the sense we use the term. They exist to grow hearts, kidneys, livers and other useful items, and then, sadly, to die after too much has been cut away. They live within a closed world whose value system takes pride in how often and successfully they have donated. The society wants these Donors just for one purpose, they don't think that these children are humans. However utopian view that people having these donors could live longer was destroyed. Two Donors falls in love and according to Thomist philosophy two requirements to be a human and have a soul is to have a free will the ability to love. Donors qualify for both.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

In a futuristic Britain, a gang of thugs called "Droogs" controlled by one young man, Alex, likes to get stoned at the Korova Milkbar before committing some 'ultra-violence': murder, rape and other heinous acts. When Alex is apprehended after killing a woman by smashing her skull, he is sentenced to 14 years of prison. But two years into his sentence he is able to partake in the experimental Ludovico treatment, which is designed to rehabilitate criminals by exposing them to violent imagery whilst being drugged and listening to loud renditions of Beethoven’s compositions. 

As a result, Alex becomes nauseous whenever confronted with violence, sexual imagery or the music of his favourite composer. He is released but becomes a victim to the people he used to terrorise as they are out for revenge. Constantly abused by those he did wrong by and despising his life now that he can no longer enjoy Beethoven’s music, Alex tries to commit suicide, turning public opinion against the treatment that “cured” him.

Artificial Intelligence: A.I. (2001)

A robotic boy, the first programmed to love, David is adopted as a test case by a Cybertronics employee and his wife. Though he gradually becomes their child, a series of unexpected circumstances make this life impossible for David. Without final acceptance by humans or machines, David embarks on a journey to discover where he truly belongs. He tries to find the blue fairy that could make him a real boy and he would be accepted by his 'mother'. However he is a robot and can live forever, contrary to his 'mother' that was just a human. Robot who was able to love never was loved.

Her (2013)

A sensitive and soulful man earns a living by writing personal letters for other people. Left heartbroken after his marriage ends, Theodore becomes fascinated with a new operating system which reportedly develops into an intuitive and unique entity in its own right. He starts the program and meets "Samantha", whose bright voice reveals a sensitive, playful personality. Though "friends" initially, the relationship soon deepens into love. He thought that that Samantha is unique and just for him, however it is just an operating system and is the same for every user. At the same time she was able to talk with 8316 other people and was in love with 641 users.

The Truman Show (1998)

He doesn't know it, but everything in Truman Burbank's life is part of a massive TV set. Executive producer Christof orchestrates "The Truman Show," a live broadcast of Truman's every move captured by hidden cameras. The world that he is living in is utopia. He has a wife, good job and good friends, but everything is fake. 

This film made me thinking that we are watched everyday as well. Of course our lives are not TV show, but CCTV cameras are everyday and every our move is captured by them.