In Abbott’s text, a review concerning the cities in sci-fi films and a probable future of humanity is raised. Examples of imaginary cities from various sci-fi films are used to discuss how our future world will become. And most of these examples depict a dark and pessimistic future of humanity.
This idea has some kind of resonance for the genre of ‘Cyberpunk’. In movies or literature that falls into the genre of cyberpunk, people are living with ‘high tech, low life’ as the advanced technology is used by tyrannical authorities as a tool to control them. The ‘low life’ of people is mostly illustrated by the inner-city slums located in a seemingly flourishing metropolis. Thus, a quite pessimistic future caused by the continuous development of technology is predicted and foreseen.
Yan Ka Hin 3035829144
Good summary on the cyberpunk cities. One of the underlying messages in the films discussed in Abbot’s piece was that the functional specialisation. In this realm, identity is clearly defined by one’s role in the community. I would suggest that one of the more productive ways to read the film through Carl Abbot’s piece is to question what would it mean to society to have the distributed city operating in real life? Would it narrow or broaden the existing social (class) distance? By following these questions, you could open more possibilities to critically delve into more pressing issues in society.