Bokhari is sick of references to Orwell. So, to him, 1984 and Animal Farm are not quite as inciteful as the “Hunger Games”? C’mon man! Really? Hunger Games is a cartoon. 1984 is a Black and White Classic. Yes, Big Brother and the elites are not as brilliantly portrayed as the Cartoon characters in Hunger Games, but so what? The point is not about the costumes and the absurdity of the ruling elite – the message was about the END of FREE SPEECH and the Tyranny that follows. Orwell saw the future of using the Media to control. In simple terms, Hunger Games is a cartoon for millennials and 1984 is a Classic.
The movie that IMHO actually may come closer to the Dystopia we are headed for is the Original Rollerball, directed by Norman Jewison who isn’t (not original, Herb Caen made the observation a few decades ago), with Executives that control everything, and they use a game to entertain the “proles” – with a perfect cast – James Caan in his prime as Jonathan E – the hero that beats the game – hence, the individual that fights the totalitarian system of executives – John Houseman – the Executive in Charge – where there are no longer nation states – just cities and technology centers that use the game as their unifying force. The city states – Houston Energy vs Japan Technology, and so on.
There’s a fabulous cameo by Sir Ralph Richardson as the “librarian” of the Computer System that controls all knowledge but gives no answers…Google before there were tech tyrants. Only difference today is the Tech Tyrants and the Media are the execs…they use more than one game, but games, and distractions are how they are keeping the proles in line while they steal our freedoms…In the end, there may in fact only be City States that keep the people in line. Only thing missing was the rise of Beijing as perhaps the most important City state in our future one world Dystopia.
And no Mr. Bokhari, I’m not sick of 1984 or Animal Farm references, just nitwits who have never really read or understood them.