LITR 4632: Literature of
the Future
Student Future-Visions Presentation 2007
Presenter: Pam Richey
May 31, 2007
Serenity: Utopia and Civilized Meddling with the Individual
Show first clip
Summary: Joss Whedon’s Serenity (2005) is a movie sequel to the short lived television series Firefly. Both the show and movie depict a small crew of misfits, fugitives and petty thieves aboard the small Firefly spacecraft, Serenity, trying to avoid the heavy control of a futuristic government, the Alliance of Planets, by skirting the fringes of known space. The Alliance sees itself as the bringer of civilization. The Alliance is attempting to create a semblance of a utopia, a civilized world of social and political perfection. But on the fringes of the known space live those who resist this vision of utopia. They live instead on backwater planets. Even further out in space, barbaric humans called the Reevers are said to have gone mad and have evolved into cannibalistic barbarians.
Show second clip
One of the members of the crew, a young girl named River, is an unstable psychic rescued from government labs and horrific experimentation by her brother. She is being hunted by the Alliance because she knows a volatile secret. In a failed attempt to create a utopian world the government created Miranda, a settlement whose terra-formed atmosphere was chemically altered to “weed out aggression.” Along with aggression they also killed the will to survive, creating a world that simply lied down and died. They also inadvertently created the Reevers from those who reacted badly to the chemicals.
The crew, once they are in control of the evidence, decide that the world must know the truth. They become a small band of self appointed saviors intent on this mission.
Primary Objectives:
To identify, describe, and criticize the narratives or stories humans tell about the future
Ø Apocalyptic
Ø Evolutionary
To identify, describe, and criticize typical visions or scenarios of the future (seen from 2007).
Ø Utopia vs. Dystopia
Ø High tech/ Virtual reality—those who accept the Alliance government, cluster at its center and assimilate to its standards benefit from its technology and advances.
Ø Low tech/ Actual reality—those who resist or choose to live further away from the control of the government have fewer technological advancements and are considered backwater rubes and barbarians
Questions:
1. In the first clip the statement is made by the student that civilization “meddles” with people, “tells them what to do and what to think” and that is why people resist the civilization the Alliance holds out to them. The teacher replies that the government or civilization does not tell them “what to think, but how to think.” Is there a distinction between the two or is this splitting hairs in the argument? Is this vision of the future a reflection of our own fears that society, civilization or the government will eventually eclipse the individual?
2. While the film goes to an extreme, it seems to suggest that free will cannot exist within a true utopia, either free will is given up to the society or else the utopia is violently resisted. If there is a utopian society as depicted by those who accepted and assimilated into the Alliance, then does it follow that there must be a dystopia as depicted by the fringe or the Reevers? Do you think that the individual can exist within a utopian society? Why or why not?