Hi

I have an interesting query. I work in a school and the English department are doing a piece on dystopian literature. I was asked if I knew a film they could watch that was rated PG. I suggested a few films, but couldn't think of anything for a young audience. Dystopia and PG don't really go together. Any ideas?

Cheers

Josh

Well, the dystopian satire Brazil is a classic though a bit long at 143 minutes.

Soylent green also springs to mind.

While a bit risqué in their time, by todays standards they are fairly tame.

Metropolis?

Hunger Games and that new one, what's it called. Divergent?

Hardly Grade A stuff, but it is dystopian.

I'll second Brazil. It displays a dystopia in a way that's very rare today. Namely, one where the elements that make society so horrible are not the government functionaries or apathetic citizens, but the basic fact that the mechanical infrastructure upon which the society operates is too large and widespread to be meaningfully maintained.

Dystopian and PG? That's going to be tough. Dystopian films generally have a lot of "shoot people" in them on account of everything having collapsed. Admittedly some of them can get more gruesome than others. Also, if you go old enough (like pre-1985) a movie would get an R rating for "brandishing a shotgun." So...

Lets see here...

I, Robot (PG-13)
Aachi & Ssipak (Unrated..and animated..never heard of it)
Ghost in the Shell (two of the movies are PG-13, the first one is R, the TV series is probably closer to PG-13)
Metropolis (PG-13)
Sleep Dealer (PG-13)
WALL-E (G)
Titan A.E. (PG; fantastic, 10/10 have watched again)
I Am Legend (PG-13)
Waterworld (PG-13)
Batman Begins (PG-13)
Neon Genesis Evangelion - Movie: The End of Evangelion (Unrated, probably not a good choice, as no one knows what the ending means...the movie is an alternate ending and no less confusing)
Z.P.G. (PG)
1984 (from 1956, unrated)
Alphaville (unrated)
Silent Running (G)
Soylent Green (PG)
The Lego Movie (PG)

I'm going to drop Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind in, even though it's rated R and not technically a dystopian film, but it does touch on some things that are very dystopian. According to Rotten Tomatoes it's for language and "some drug and sexual content." I frankly don't recall any of it. I highly recommend it, even if you can't use it in the classroom.

I'd recommend Titan A.E., it was a kids movie from the 90s, I actually went and sought it out as an adult to watch it again. Z.P.G. is not one I've seen, but I think that would be a really good example (ZPG stands for Zero Population Growth and the kinds of society that makes that happen are generally pretty extreme). 1984 is, of course, a classic. And Orwellian. I'm surprised that the 1956 version was never rated. WALL-E and The Lego Movie your students have probably already seen, but serve as some foundational material they might not have picked up on. The theme song from Lego is THE dystopian themesong. There is no other, as far as I'm concerned.



Replace every noun in the song that's stated as being awesome with things like "big brother" "espionage" "the NSA" and leave the tune intact. Remember everything is awesome.

Are there no PG cuts of Bladerunner and Johnny Mnemonic for egg sample?

No. And I don't think you could do it for Johnny, either.

That whole "plot important meeting inside a strip club" problem or the "dude with a mono-filament whip cutting off hands" thing.

Minority Report is PG-13.

Wild Palms was a TV miniseries.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106175/

Ran into another one:
Logan's Run (PG)

Not PG, even by modern standards, but it must be mentioned:

Zardoz!

While Zardoz is certainly dystopian in the strict sense, it leans much more toward the "batshit crazy" end of the spectrum. O.o

Freejack qualifies, although it is perhaps not the most stellar example of cinema for those of us too young to drink.

ZPG is EXTREMELY dystopian.

Eh, you just cut the few seconds where they actually show the person's hand/head/whatever getting cut off. Ditto with the strip club, nix the frames that actually show something naughty and you're good. Worked for showing R rated movies on network TV, back when network TV didn't regularly feature strip clubs and dismemberment.

Replacement words are also helpful.

"I want to sleep with at a $500 a night hooker! hotel!"

[email="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dystopian_films"]Wikipedia[/email]

Yes, but wikipedia won't give you the film's rating. The list I posted above was my taking every single film on Wikipedia's list and plugging the names into Rotten Tomatoes.
Well, a large portion of Wikipedia's list anyway.

I can't work this out. School.

'What about Gattaca'? Touches on issues of genetics/ugenics as well. I've shown it to school kids before. Can't remember the rating though.

'The City of Lost Children' is awesome as well but again perhaps not PG.

'The Omega Man' is a much better version of 'I am Legend'.

The original 'Tron' is pretty tame as well.

'The 5th Element'?

I'm not sure that 'Moon' counts as Dystopian society but I think it's kind of what you're looking for.

Thanks for all the replies folks. I passed on the link to this thread

def wall-E if that's how it's spelled

I mentioned it already. But it is "Wall-E."