What's you favourite Utopia?

As far as cinematic/literary representations of Utopia go, I have to say I think Dystopia has much more interesting dramatic potential. I'm sure that Happy Valley is an enchanting place, but What Actually Happens There?

Personally, I just wish people would be nicer to each other.

'Utophia'? *honestly*

For me, any depiction of Utopia (perhaps the gorgeously artificial Timotei commercial aesthetic of the early forest scenes in Ridley Scott's Legend) or Dystopia requires a reasonably coherent, consistent background that makes you buy into it, that makes you believe that events are happening in a credible other world/galaxy. Consistency of motifs and design is important, but often science fiction (a very relevant genre here) is seen as giving designers the opportunity to go sailing way over the top and come up with lots of improbable weirdness. In terms of television, I think Blake's 7 and its credibly flawed protagonists had a political edge and underlying coherence that makes it far more pungent and interesting than the Treks.

The Star Wars films are a respectable enough representation of Utopia. Both the sequels and prequels have built on the original film, expanding and enriching the background without introducing any real jarring elements. However much you might hate Jar-Jar or the Ewoks they do fit in. Science fiction films (esp. the vast majority which lean towards the 30's Golden Age pulp idiom) do tend to concentrate on the more fantastical iconography rather than grounding them in a plausible social, political and economic whole. Honourable exceptions include Blade Runner, the Alien films, Starship Troopers - all of which could be legitimately described as Dystopian rather than Utopian.

Not sure if I agree with you about Star Wars though. In the original it was a galacy oppressed by an evil empire. In the prequels there are constant tarde arguments, bits of war starting out here and there, slave planets etc. Its only a utopia if we are currently living in a utopia, such is its similarity to the current political concerns.

Utopias in fiction usually have to be fronts for something, the discovery of this is the usual driving force for plot after all. And one mans Utopia is another dystopia, yes?

Yes, Utopia and Dystopia are often interchangeable (one of the reasons why I think Starship Troopers is such a great film)and of course Dystopia presented as overload of gloomy grimness can be just as crass and facile as some Utopian visions.

Utopia seems to imply to me to present a hopelessly nice never-never full of eroded (supposedly lost) "better" values, a reassuring image of a more preferable societal blueprint. For me, Dystopia just offers more interesting possibilities:

1. A fictional externalisation of the viewer's fear of living under such conditions.

2. The fear that they might actually be living in such a society.

3. A reinforcement of their idea of society as it actually is (i.e. cynic's wish-fulfilment).

4. Worst case scenario - a Dystopian vision might actually be preferable to the viewer's present life experience.

Really interesting thread. Thanks Pete.

Scratch away at the idyll of the Teletubbies and you'll find hundred of slaves churning out vat upon vat of Tubby Tutard for their imperialist overlord master Tinky-Winky, Laa-laa & Po.

I assume the Teletubbies is the kind of stage we revert to around about the time the Apes revolt in PotA.

Any thoughts about Diana Rigg or Linda Thorson I shall keep to myself.

"I wouldn't mind living in "Avengersland"

My favorite is probably Houyhnhnm. Gulliver realizing that horses are far more reasonable than people.

"I must freely confess, that the many virtues of those excellent quadrupeds, placed in opposite view to human corruptions, had so far opened my eyes and enlarged my understanding, that I began to view the actions and passions of man in a very different light, and to think the honour of my own kind not worth managing; which, besides, it was impossible for me to do, before a person of so acute a judgment as my master, who daily convinced me of a thousand faults in myself, whereof I had not the least perception before, and which, with us, would never be numbered even among human infirmities."

The first thing I thought of when I read this, though, is all the kids I know (including me) who periodically whine, "I wish I went to Hogwarts!" Well I dooooo....

(c'mon, dozens of posts and I'm the first to use this joke?)

S: Deface The Music, Swing To The Right, Utopia (total fee: about $7 in the used bins)

D: their self-titled album, Ra

I have a soft spot for Adventures In Utopia, even though it's total Boston/Toto '80s AOR.

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You can halt your car for an afternoon in utopia
We shall stop the wars on those afternoons in utopia

Mighty mao moondog drifts across the grass
Healing lullabies for easter time on mars
Paint your hats and shoues with flowers and with stars
Singing in metropolitan operas

You can halt your car for an afternoon in utopia
We shall stop the wars on those afternoons in utopia
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000005J5R.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/snes01/01/Utopia.gif
http://www.vgmuseum.com/images/snes01/01/Utopia%20-%20Ingame.gif

I am very much enjoying the William Morris utopian vision in his News From Nowhere. It seems to me that dystopias are relatively easy to write books about, compared with utopias.