A still from the movie Demolition Man in which some police officers prepare to confront a character played by Wesley Snipes.

Top Text: Demolition Man: A movie which depicts a horrifying dystopia...

Bottom Text:...in which food is too healthy, bidets are common, and cops literally don't know how to assault a black man.

Well there was that entire underground society.

Bidets?!

This guy doesn’t know about the three shells!

With a great food spot too.

Apparently it's canon that you use two like chopsticks to get most of the poo and the third scrapes the rest off.

A bidet would be great compared to that.

Rat burgers

But the underground society seemed to be more about finding their own version of freedom rather than outright exclusion.

In a world with super aids they still wanted to raw dog it.

Who said it was a dystopia?

Denis Leary

gross to read, thank you

Edgar Friendly.

That’s just a fan theory, no where in the movie is that established.

Rat burgers

psh this dude hasn't used the three shells

Don't forget that moist virtual action!

Demolition Man is what Europe will look like. USA will look like The Running Man (1987 version, not the remake). It already looks like Idiocracy.

If you glaze over all the shitty parts about the "dystopia."

The supposed utopia is modeled after the ideal of suburban USA. That's pretty fucking dystopic. Add to that tge prohibition of kissing, sex, Rock music, etc...

I think someone didn't watch or utterly misunderstood the movie.

It was designed to be the worst future for anybody who used "woke mind virus" and means it.

The idea of demolition man cannon makes me wish for a demolition man extended universe, hopefully with a crossover with Judge Dredd

It was loosely based on Brave New World. Although in BNW everyone was fucking all the time and on drugs. Also no one was frozen and there were much fewer gun fights.

BNW was about encouraging hedonism to control the population. Much of demolition man was about suppressing all of that, combined with excessive political correctness through government overreach.

No, that’s what the poop knife is for.

It's only a utopia for wealthy vegans that love Taco Bell (or Pizza Hut if European). All the poor meat eating people are forced into the sewers and eat rat burgers.

Also what bidets? They had a shelf with 3 fucking seashells. They never mention bidets.

Oh and we can't forget that every radio station exclusively plays nothing but ad jingles.

This is what cybersex should actually be like, tho.

Also what bidets? They had a shelf with 3 fucking seashells. They never mention bidets.

Guess what this guy doesn't know.

one thing I remember about that movie. walmart grew so big it bought everything else. all stores are now Walmart. and all restaurants are taco bell.

I didn't say it was in the movie.

https://legacy.aintitcool.com/node/30865

If the three sea shells discourse isn't a stand-in for 90s Americans' anxiety about bidets then I don't know what is.

And fuck the movie The Fan starring Wesley Snipes. Demolition Man's the only Snipes movie I like.

-Jon "MC Vagina" Lajoie

**EDIT: The movie is 'The Invasion' (2007)

There was a sci-fi movie 20 years ago about an alien intelligence taking over world governments, replicating itself into human hosts via inoculations for a 'virus', and as the movie progresses world peace is achieved, but the protagonists fight against it over fears of losing free will.

And I'm over here like... the aliens are the bad guys?

Taco Bell won the fast food wars.

That's basically the plot of Pluribus

Blade was alright

Comrade, I rented that movie from a locally-owned VHS rental shop that used physical membership cards.

Sure it's a dystopia, but it's a dystopia where they solved too many problems. John Spartan gets into a high speed car crash and his car instantly fills up with safety foam and he's completely unharmed. The police force is ethnically and gender diverse. Guns are museum pieces. The cops don't know HOW to assault somebody.

Sure they've killed a large amount of choice, and the guy in charge of it all seems to be determined to secure even more power for himself because of course he's a sociopath with Mr. Rogers' speech patterns, but all told I'd much rather live in the Demolition Man future than Judge Dredd or Death Race 2000.

the guy in charge of it all seems to be determined to secure even more power for himself because of course he’s a sociopath with Mr. Rogers’ speech patterns

If the right people don't have power do you know what happens? The wrong people get it!

Just started that one, Carol sucks. Enjoying it so far.

but all told I'd much rather live in the Demolition Man future than Judge Dredd or Death Race 2000.

But all the dystopian elements is not necessarily the price for the improvements. The message of the movie (to me) was "don't get fooled by some shiny surface when the core is rotten."
And your choice is not between "bad" and "worse". We can imagine even better futures (Star Trek Federation citizenship seems to be pretty neat (if you're not trying to settle some fringe worlds at the cardassian border) for example), so we can work on these.

But if you flush the Seashells then there wouldn't be any more??

You would not ask about the 3(very specific number) Toilet Paper pieces if there was a roll of hundreds.

Ngl, digital tantric neural sex link seems pretty fuckin' rad.

I guess they left out the part where it implants Taco Bell ads, mines your subconscious for thought crimes, and sells the data so people can have virtual sex with your likeness. Less rad.

Reminds me of the TTRPG Shadowrun. Sometimes its hard to sell the corporate dystopia when you're describing eating & drinking soy products because meat is prohibitively expensive and they can sell the effect of dubious cash crops like coffee and chocolate with a soy based alternative.

The anxiety about bidets is leaving the bathroom with a wet spot on my ass.

You still wipe with toilet paper, you just use far less, anyone who has a wet spot on their ass might have turned it in with their pants on. In which case the bidet isn't the problem.

They get fined for cursing. Tons of stuff that doesn't harm anyone else is banned. The government is overbearing and controlling, brainwashing everyone into meek conformity.

It looks like North Korea propaganda.

3 mysterious sea shells... you think 3 dry sea shells (which most people understand logistically would be impossible to clean yourself properly with) was a stand in for bidets?

I was also around when the movie came out and not a single human i interacted with imagined they were a bidet. In fact bidets were so uncommon in the US at the time that most Americans experience with them was from the movie Crocodile Dundee.

Everyone's problem with the sea shells was that you wouldn't be able to clean yourself properly when you imagine physically using them. But people in the future they imagined have extremely small and limited diets, they probably don't produce an huge amount of waste. There's only 1 fat guy in the whole movie, and you wonder how Otho from Beetlejuice got that way on taco bell protein pellets.

IF they had introduced the concept of a bidet system, it would have immediately removed the mystery from the sea shells and made them far less intimidating.

I already don't use much toilet paper. Do Europeans have chronic diarrhea or something they need a hose every time?

If I had to choose between the two, I rather be in a dystopian system that preserves its dystopia with calm, naive civility rather than armed death squads.

In a similar regard to OP's answer: why do you think that would be your only two choices, between "bad" and "worse"? Why not go another route that's more akin to "good"?

Also I think this is less about specific aspects of dystopia and more about "Don't let the shiny surface blind you towards the rotten core".