When do things become "recognizably modern" to you?

[Queequeg]

Post-1990 examples of this: Dark Knight Trilogy, Star Trek: The Next Generation (explicitly), Terminator (implicitly), Miracleman, Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Uh, no?  TNG's world is post-scarcity so people can do whatever the hell they want, the Dark Knight's world is dystopian, Rise of the Planet of the apes doesn't even have anything to do with this. 

Post-1990 example of this: every action movie made in the past twenty-three years.

Things to Come has the eradication of entire classes as a worthy goal, you don't really have that in Western drama after the collapse of Marxist ideologies in the late 70s.

Star Trek.

That was already considered corny in the mid-60s. 

Yeah, bad taste.  Alien > 2001.  No wonder you didn't like Sinister.  You're nuts.

They're such different movies that this isn't a really meaningful conversation. 

[CountDeMoney]

Obviously Queequeq's first passion, after chicks of obscure ethnic backgrounds, is motion picture set design and art direction.  Go for it, Q.

[Ideologue]

Aw, Mike, I wasn't really trying to be confrontational.  Hence the

Star Trek, especially early TNG, constantly espouses disdain for capitalism, even in a inter-scarcity society.  It also depicts a tremendously militarized society (if also a well-socialized military), which is not the result of replicators but rather Roddenberry's belief system.

The world in the 2008 Dark Knight is dystopian but can be corrected by benevolent statism and a dictatorial presence.  The third one is arguably about the elimination of poor people, but it's also terribly made, so it's hard to say.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is about a singular leader leading the oppressed.  It is also about the genesis of a caste society.  Ape society is not a democracy, it is a dictatorship, and at least while engaged with the story, the audience is expected to find Caesar's rise to power (along with the accompanying destruction of humankind) a positive development.

I didn't mention Wall-E, but that is also a grimly authoritarian movie where democratic input into a decision that may lead to the extinction of humankind, and will certainly result in great sacrifice and suffering, is never even considered.

Also, after having just watched Pain & Gain again, it is explicitly against the accumulation of wealth and the existence of the wealthy; the envy their existence engenders leads to social and economic waste, not to mention human carnage.

Also from this year, The Purge and You're Next are explicitly about class inequality.  Elysium argues for the elimination of class explicitly.  The Purge presents those of privilege as vile or indifferent or both.  You're Next, which is subtler, still presents the rich as weak or evil or both.

Marxism is dead because no one cares about boring books that spend thousands of pages on archaic and invalid economics lessons.  But class war lives.

However, if you mean there is no didactic utopian fiction that outlines a specific blueprint for the classless, perfect society, I can't name many other than Star Trek, but how widely popular do you expect didactic utopian fiction to be?

[CountDeMoney]

However, if you mean there is no didactic utopian fiction that outlines a specific blueprint for the classless, perfect society, I can't name many other than Star Trek, but how widely popular do you expect didactic utopian fiction to be?

You're forgetting Madagascar 1, 2 and 3.

[Ideologue]

However, if you mean there is no didactic utopian fiction that outlines a specific blueprint for the classless, perfect society, I can't name many other than Star Trek, but how widely popular do you expect didactic utopian fiction to be?

You're forgetting Madagascar 1, 2 and 3.

Lolwhut?

[Queequeg]

Obviously Queequeq's first passion, after chicks of obscure ethnic backgrounds, is motion picture set design and art direction.  Go for it, Q.

This actually isn't that far off the mark if you include costume.  It's a passion. 

[Queequeg]

Star Trek, especially early TNG, constantly espouses disdain for capitalism, even in a inter-scarcity society.  It also depicts a tremendously militarized society (if also a well-socialized military), which is not the result of replicators but rather Roddenberry's belief system.

Star Trek universe has like 10 big milky way species that want to totally annihilate humanity, hundreds of malevolent godlike beings, and Star Trek is basically 19th Century Britain in Space, only all of the shows and movies obviously focus on Space Horatio Hornblower more than Space Jane Eyre. 

[Ed Anger]

However, if you mean there is no didactic utopian fiction that outlines a specific blueprint for the classless, perfect society, I can't name many other than Star Trek, but how widely popular do you expect didactic utopian fiction to be?

You're forgetting Madagascar 1, 2 and 3.

Lolwhut?

[Valmy]

As soon as cars, city life, and working for wages becomes the standard.  I guess around 1920 or so in the US.

[derspiess]

As soon as cars, city life, and working for wages becomes the standard.  I guess around 1920 or so in the US.

1920s is my answer as well.  I'm also thinking in terms of radio, movies, photography (i.e., pictures from the 1920s onward start to look "real" to me), women's rights (for better or for worse ), socialist governments, etc.

[garbon]

The 1990s. Before that, the US still had rampant oppression.

[Jacob]

Obviously Queequeq's first passion, after chicks of obscure ethnic backgrounds, is motion picture set design and art direction.  Go for it, Q.

This actually isn't that far off the mark if you include costume.  It's a passion.

Does the costume thing apply to the girls or the motion pictures?

[Queequeg]

Both?

[Jacob]

Both?

[crazy canuck]

'Brazil' in part reflects how the modern world is/doesn't work.   

Nice choice.