Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Repo Men, Artiforgs And Health Care
The new movie Repo Men takes its title and theme from the earlier 1984 cult movie Repo Man, takes artiforgs from Philip K. Dick (1968), takes its glitzy scenery from the 1982 movie Blade Runner and takes its ending from Star Trek (I'll put the full spoiler in the comments below). So what is this movie about?
The American health care system.
(Artiforg ad from Repo Men)
The basic premise for the movie is that, when you're sitting in the doctor's office and being told that you will die if you don't mortgage your family's future to purchase the latest health care (the aforementioned artiforgs), you sign. Everybody signs.
Eventually, lots of people can't pay and they wind up on the run from Repo Men, scavenging on the edges of society.
This movie has kind of a flat middle, and I found myself wondering how many people there are in America who are on the run from hospital corporations or other creditors because they signed on the dotted line rather than die. That's why I think that the real theme of this movie is a rumination on the American health care system.
By the way, if the MPAA rated movies for "unexpectedly gruesome and unwanted bloody violence", Repo Men could never have gotten an "R" rating. Don't get me wrong, I loved Blade II for example, but I almost walked out on this one.
So, I don't ordinarily do movie reviews, but I wanted to make sure that everyone who hadn't been reading up on their science fiction knew where everything in this movie is coming from. If you want to talk more about it, meet me in the comment section.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 3/19/2010)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 3 )
Related News Stories - (" Culture ")
Switzerland May Cap Population At Ten Million
'The population of Castle Hagedorn was fixed...' - Jack Vance, 1967.
California Governor Candidate Calls For Voting By Phone
'... every veephone on the continent would display, over and over, two propositions.' John Brunner, 1975.
Chinese Hospital Tries Vonnegut's 'Harrison Bergeron' Cosplay
'He wore spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half
blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.' - Kurt Vonnegut, 1961.
A Remarkable Coincidence
'There is a philosophical problem of some difficulty here...' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1953.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
AI Operates An Excavator
'So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at all.'
US Army IBEX Exoskeleton Walks Troops Out Of Danger
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
Boy Makes Biomimetic Turtle Robot
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
Elon Musk Wants Data Centers In Space
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
Origin F1 Humanoid Robot's Facial Skin
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.'
Grok And The City Fathers From 'Cities In Flight' By James Blish
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
Why Not Move A Warehouse District?
'Did you never see a moving house before?'
Will An AI Found A New Religion?
'You must decide how you will worship Me.'
Terraformer Industries Make Methane
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...'
Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer
It's a computer, but just barely.
'Soft Assembly' Fashions That Fashion Themselves On The Wearer
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
Orwell's Nightmare Of AI-Written Novels Comes To Pass
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
ISS Plagued By Leak - Again!
'There were perhaps a dozen bladder-like objects in the tunnel...'
Ridiculous 'Ghost Murmur' Tech Still Science Fiction
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
