⌛ Dystopia Vs. Pleasantville: A Utopia
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Is Our Future Headed Towards a Utopia or Dystopia?
The film takes place in a dystopian American society in the year , where the murderous Transcontinental Road Race has become a form of national entertainment. Compton , set in a future where death from illness has become extremely unusual. When the protagonist is diagnosed as having an incurable disease, she becomes a celebrity and is besieged by journalists. A long imprisoned ultra-violent criminal is brought out of suspended animation by a new "perfect" future society's leader as an unsanctioned solution to its unwanted dissidents. In response, a long imprisoned rogue cop is brought out of suspended animation by the new "perfect" future police department as their solution to the problem.
A dark vision of post-apocalyptic survival, the film was shot in black and white and contains only two words of dialogue. It depicts a world where people have been rendered mute by some unknown incident. An extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth suddenly finds a kindred spirit in a government agent who is exposed to their biotechnology. Based on the adaption of Veronica Roth 's novels of the same names. In a world divided by factions based on virtues, Tris learns she's Divergent and won't fit in. The Divergent Series: Insurgent. After the series of events and death of her parents in Divergent , Tris Prior tries to figure out what the Abnegation were trying to protect and why the Erudite leaders will do anything to stop them.
The Divergent Series: Allegiant. Set in a post-apocalyptic and dystopian Chicago, the story follows Tris Prior, her boyfriend Four, and their small group of friends escaping over the wall that enclosed the city. Once outside, however, they discover new truths that will shift their alliances and introduce new threats. Takes place in a near-future dystopia where gasoline is scarce and a drifter tries to reach a rumored utopian city, Plutopia, powered by clean energy. Mabuse the Gambler. An exaggerated portrayal of Weimar Germany which the titular villain can exploit for power and profit.
Adapted from the comic book of the same name. In a distant and irradiated future where judges and police are the same corp, Judge Dredd and aspiring to Judge Cassandra Anderson become trapped in one of the several storey tower block named Megatowers by Ma-Ma, a powerful and violent drug lady, to prevent Dredd dismantle her business and dominion in the tower block. In this film wealth inequality , the alienation of the super-rich and class conflict are taken to the extreme: in the year , the very wealthy live on a man-made luxurious space station while the rest of the population resides on a ruined Earth. A man takes on a mission that could bring equality to the polarized worlds.
It explores political and sociological themes such as immigration, overpopulation , health care , exploitation , the justice system, and social class issues. The End of Evangelion. When the dawn of the new millennium brings destruction on Earth by means of the seemingly all-powerful angels, the only hope for the future of the human race lies in Evangelions—bio-engineered crafts created from the Angel's technology. Based on the novel of the same name by Orson Scott Card. One of the several low-budget movies inspired on Mad Max made in the 80s.
Set in an Alaska a few hundred years later of a nuclear war, a ruthless and fascist vehicular group named The Ownership ruled by General MacLaine faces a rebellion that tries to destroy The Ownership to live free, but the rude Captain Slade leaves the group after Mayor Lawton kills Slade's father The Ownership's field commander and leaves him for dead, joining to the rebellion. Meeting Karen and her father Dixon, Slade and Dixon modify a firearm to create the massive-weapon Equalizer , turning in one-man army to defeat Mayor Lawton and The Ownership. Two people infected with a disease regain their ability to feel compassion and emotion in a society where emotions no longer exist.
In a totalitarian future where all forms of feeling are illegal and citizens are required to take daily drug-injections to suppress emotion and encourage obedience, a man in charge of enforcing the law rises to overthrow the system. Sequel to the film, Escape from New York. Escape from New York. In , when the US President crashes into Manhattan, now a giant maximum security prison , a convicted bank robber named Snake Plissken is sent in for a rescue. It extrapolates the crime and decay of inner cities.
Directed by David Cronenberg. As in Videodrome, Cronenberg gives his psychological statement about how humans react and interact with the technologies that surround them, in this case, the world of video games. Fahrenheit Based on Ray Bradbury 's novel of the same name. In an oppressive future, a fireman whose duty is to destroy all books begins to question his task. Fourth installment of The Purge 's franchise and a prequel focused in the New Founding Fathers of America, a totalitarian politic party that after take the power in USA make an experiment in Staten Island where for a span of 12 hours all kind of misdemeanor and crime murder, rape, arson, and anarchy will be legal.
A spaceship is sent to check on the welfare of a scientific expedition on a strange planet. Loosely based on Shakespeare's The Tempest. A futuristic prison movie. Protagonist and wife are nabbed at a future US emigration point with an illegal baby during population control. In a future mind-controlling game, death row convicts are forced to battle. A convict controlled by a skilled teenage gamer must survive 30 sessions in order to be set free. In this biopunk dystopia, genetic engineering creates a class of superior people and an underclass of genetically inferior natural born called "in-valids". In a controlled society, a dedicated in-valid assumes the identity of a superior human in order to pursue his lifelong dream of space travel.
Ghost in the Shell. Based on the manga by Masamune Shirow of the same name, follows the hunt by the public-security agency Section 9 for a mysterious hacker known as the Puppet Master. Based on the dystopian novel of the same name by Lois Lowry , this film adaptation is a dark, quiet, but powerful futuristic political tale in which a year-old boy the boy is only 12 in the book , must search for the truth in a world free of war, crime, disease, poverty, unfairness, and injustice.
The Handmaid's Tale. Based on the novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood , in a dystopically polluted rightwing religious tyranny, a young woman is put in sexual slavery on account of her now rare fertility. Hard to be a God. A group of 30 scientists travel from Earth to a nearly-identical alien planet that is culturally and technologically centuries behind. The inhabitants of this planet have brutally suppressed a renaissance movement, murdering anybody they consider to be an intellectual, and thus the planet is stuck in the Middle Ages. Inspired by the short story "Shok!
Harrison Bergeron. A cable television movie adapted from the short story of the same name by Kurt Vonnegut. Adapted from J. Ballard's novel of the same name , the film depicts the experiences of residents of a tower block as social rules disintegrate. Directed by Ben Wheatley. Directed by Jason Eisener, starring Rutger Hauer in a despotic future where anarchy rules and one man with a shotgun aims to bring back some form of justice. Rated R. A nurse runs a secret hospital for criminals in futuristic Los Angeles. The Hunger Games. Directed by Gary Ross, based on Suzanne Collins ' novel of the same name.
Katniss Everdeen voluntarily takes her younger sister's place in the Hunger Games, a televised fight to the death in which two teenagers from each of the twelve Districts of Panem are chosen at random to compete. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2. Adapted from the I, Robot series by Isaac Asimov. Directed by Peter Fonda in his directorial debut and starring Keith Carradine.
An average man is selected for a top-secret hibernation program. When he wakes up years later to discover he's the smartest person in a radically dumbed-down society. In , future people stop aging past 25 so time has become the universal currency traded between people. When the time "bank account" on an implanted clock reaches zero, that impoverished person "times out" and is euthanized. The Inhabited Island. Based on the book Prisoners of Power by Strugatskies. The most expensive Russian science fiction film to date is set on another planet, with a country that is ruled by a totalitarian regime that brainwashes its citizens by towers that send a special kind of radiation erected across the country.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Miles Bennell and his friends discover vegetal cocoons that prove to be an alien race that duplicate human beings when they sleep. A public health inspector realizes that an alien vegetal spores, that have arrived on the planet, are replicating human beings when they are asleep and consuming their original bodies to take over their lives.
A young boy searching for his dog after the species is banished to an island following the outbreak of a canine flu. A man goes on the run after he discovers that he is actually a "harvestable being", and is being kept as a source of replacement parts, along with others, in a facility. In the aftermath of World War III scientists in Paris research time travel, hoping to send test subjects to different time periods "to call past and future to the rescue of the present".
The short film by Chris Marker was constructed almost entirely from still photos and inspired the film 12 Monkeys. Johnny Mnemonic. Based on the short story of the same name by William Gibson, in which a data courier, literally carrying a data package inside his head, must deliver it before he dies from the burden or is killed by the Yakuza. Based on the comic of the same name : in a dystopian future, Dredd, the most famous judge a cop with instant field judiciary powers is convicted for a crime he did not commit while his murderous counterpart escapes.
A dark political satire, based on several incidents throughout history in which tyrannical rulers were overthrown by new leaders who proved to be just as bad, if not worse, and subtle references are made to several such cases. The Last Man on Earth. A scientist tries to survive in an apocalyptic world, where a global disease has turned humans in light-sensitive "vampires. Animation based on the Lego line of construction toys, tells the story of an ordinary Lego minifigure as he ends up becoming involved in a resistance against a tyrannical businessman who plans to glue everything in the Lego worlds. Somewhere in the near future, single people face a choice: join a program to find a mate in forty-five days or be transformed into an animal.
Depicts a dystopian future society set in in which population and the consumption of resources are managed by the simple notion of killing everyone who reaches the age of thirty. In , when the mob wants to get rid of someone, the target is sent into the past, where a hired gun awaits - someone like Joe - who one day learns the mob wants to 'close the loop' by sending back Joe's future self for assassination. In a post-apocalyptic future caused after a nuclear war, Mad Max arrives to a little colony to peaceful villagers who are besieged by a gang of dangerous road killers that want the fuel that the villagers produce, in the hope to travel another place to rebuild the civilization.
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Wandering by a post-apocalyptic Australia, Mad Max arrives to Bartertown, a dangerous village ruled by Aunt Entity that she's in war with one of her henchman, Master Collector, who rules Bartertown's underground where is produced the energy that supplies the city, using crude methane powered by pig feces. Violating a treat made with Aunt Entity to kill Master Collector, Max is left in the desert to die, where he's found by a children tribe that live in an oasis and whom take him wrongly as the chosen one to take them to the "Tomorrow-morrow Land".
After the collapse of the civilization by economic crisis and wars, Mad Max is a survivor of the subsequent holocaust who is captured by lethal and abusive Immortan Joe's War Boys and chosen to by "blood bag" of a War Boy named Nux. Getting escape in the pursuit Imperiator Furiosa, one of the Joe's concubines who flee away with the rest of concubines, Furiosa and Max are forced to make a deal to escape from Joe's hands and locate Green Place, where Furiosa hopes to live free with the rest of concubines. The Man Who Fell to Earth. Based on Walter Tevis' novel of the same name, about an extraterrestrial who crash lands on Earth seeking a way to ship water to his planet, which is suffering from a severe drought.
A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers. Neo, Trinity and Morpheus looking for a man named Keymaker, who is property of a powerful Matrix's program called Merovingian, to discover the origin of The Matrix and the way to win the war against the machines, while the former Agent Smith has resurrected and he lives obsessed to kill Neo again.
The Matrix Revolutions. Neo, Trinity and Morpheus try to save Zion from The Matrix, that it launched a mass invasion of machines against the underground city to annihilate all human being, while Neo must face to an out-of-control Agent Smith, who is duplicating himself in any other people in his attempt to conquer The Matrix. Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future. A television reporter trying to expose corruption and greed discovers that his employer, Network 23, has created a new form of subliminal advertising called "blipverts" that can be fatal to certain viewers.
The Maze Runner. Thomas is deposited in a community of boys after his memory is erased, soon learning they're all trapped in a maze that will require him to join forces with fellow "Runners" for a shot at escape. Maze Runner: The Death Cure. Animation set in a future Europe where the world is running out of oil. A gigantic underground network is created by joining all the undergrounds together beneath Europe. A German expressionist epic science-fiction film directed by Fritz Lang.
A man living an ideal life in a big city discovers the truth about why his city seems so ideal. Animated film based on the manga by Osamu Tezuka. By Michael Anderson director. Time travelers are visiting the present day and stealing passengers from doomed aircraft, due to the future being doomed by global pollution, and the human population is no longer able to reproduce. Minority Report. Based on Philip K. Dick 's short story of the same name. A police officer oversees a department that prevents crime with the help of beings who can predict it, but then he becomes a target. In the future, the "sixty-minute war" led humanity to the brink of extinction.
Digital and other modern technology was lost and now only 19th-century technology is used. Under the philosophy of Municipal Darwinism, massive engines were implanted to cities such as London to make then movable in order to hunt down any smaller settlements and consume their resources. Opponents of this way of life are stigmatized and wanted as criminals. Based on the novel by Philip Reeve. Never Let Me Go. Based on Kazuo Ishiguro 's novel of the same name. Based on Isaac Asimov 's story of the same name. In a distant planet with three suns where its inhabitants live in a perpetual daylight, two factions of the planet lead by rational scientist Aton and frantic religious Sor face each other when an incoming eclipse will cause the arrival of the night, threatening to collapse its civilization.
Nineteen Eighty-Four. Based on George Orwell 's novel of the same name. A successful computer game designer finds that his latest product has been infected by a virus which has given consciousness to the main character of the game. He begins a search for people who can help him to discover what happened to his fled girlfriend and to delete his game before it is released. No Blade of Grass. The film is based on Samuel Youd 's novel The Death of Grass and highlights the terrifying effects of environmental pollution. Based on Joseph Kosinski 's unpublished graphic novel of the same name. In , Jack Harper is a future repairman that patrols a wasteland to repair failed drones from Tet a giant space station where humanity awaits to move Jupiter 's moon Titan after Earth was invaded by alien race that sixty years ago destroyed the Moon and caused several alterations in Earth's surface.
Jack finds a hibernation capsule with a woman inside it and she makes him doubt the truth of the alien invasion. In a world collapsed after a worldwide disease, Robert Neville is a scientist immune to the plague in permanent searching for a cure for the infected, turned in an religious cult of albino mutants named The Family and lead by demented Matthias, who is obsessed to destroy Neville and all trace of technology he believes blame of the world downfall. On the Beach. Based on Nevil Shute 's novel of the same name depicting the aftermath of a nuclear war. Based on Nevil Shute 's novel of the same name depicting the aftermath of a nuclear war, TV re-make of the version. Set on Jupiter's moon Io, it has been described as a space Western, and bears thematic resemblances to the classic film High Noon.
Paranoia 1. The film is a Kafkaesque nightmare in which a young computer programmer is an unwitting guinea pig in a corporate experiment to test a new advertising scheme. Planet of the Apes original series. Most of humanity is extinguished in a thermonuclear war. In the course of the two following millennia, intelligent apes chimpanzees , gorillas and orangutans become the dominant species and establish an organized society. During the 40th century, an ultra-powerful nuclear bomb is launched as a last resort in a conflict between mutant humans and gorillas, ultimately destroying the entire planet. Planet of the Apes reboot series.
A colony of apes in a sanctuary is affected by a viral gas which enhances their intelligence. As a result, they flee the sanctuary and form an organized society apart from humans. Ten years later, that same virus causes a massive pandemic disease called the Simian flu, which ultimately wipes out all humans with the exception of those genetically immune to the virus. A group of immune human survivors form a colony and eventually engage in a war with the apes. A brother and sister get zapped into an idealistic TV show from the s, but they realize that it's a sexually repressed society. After an unspecified "Doomwar", society has collapsed and technology is stagnant.
People live in small communities, terrorized by a militia. Wearing an old postman's uniform he found on a corpse, a wanderer tells townspeople that the postal service and centralized government have been restored. The lie gives the people hope to stand up to the militia. Centuries later of a post-apocalyptic war between vampires and humans that isolated the planet, Priest is a warrior in a theocratic future lead by The Church who abandons the city to enter in the outer wastelands after his brother and sister-in-law are killed and his niece is kidnapped, discovering that the vampires still alive.
Le Prix du danger. French movie very similar to The Running Man , made four years earlier. A pseudo documentary of a British and West German film crew following National Guard soldiers and police as they pursue members of a counterculture group across a desert. In a futuristic world where America is plagued by crime, the government sanctions a hour period once a year in which all criminal activity is legal.
The Sandin family is in danger after their younger son Charlie saves a stranger, only to be killed just before he got close to the house, causing the killers to surround it to get into the home and kill everybody. During the hour period once a year in which all criminal activity is legal, LAPD Sargeant Leo Barnes is looking for revenge after the death of his son, at the same time that the married couple formed by Shane and Liz are trapped in the streets to be killed by urban biker gangs and that a man named Carmelo Johns leads a revolution against The Purge. The Purge: Election Year. Charlene Roan is a senator campaigning for the presidency who is subject of a conspiracy in order to prevent that she can win the elections by her plan to abrogate The Purge if she turns in President.
Left her in the streets during The Purge by her politic rival New Founding Fathers of America, Roan tries to survive with the help of the former Sargeant Leo Barnes, now turned in part of her personal security team. A post apocalyptic film starring Paul Newman where 6 people play a deadly game in a dystopian future. Radio Free Albemuth. The film based on Philip K. Dick 's novel of the same name posthumously published in is set in an alternate reality America circa under authoritarian control.
Ready Player One. In the year , much of Earth's population centers have become slum-like cities due to overpopulation , pollution , corruption , and climate change. To escape their desolation, people engage in the virtual reality world of the OASIS Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation , where they can engage in numerous activities for work, education, and entertainment. Also known as Paris Renaissance, is a animation which concerns a French policeman investigating the kidnapping of a scientist who may hold the key to eternal life in a futuristic and slightly dystopian Paris.
The Genetic Opera. This rock opera musical horror film takes place in the year where an epidemic of organ failures has devastated the planet. The mega-corporation GeneCo provides organ transplants on a payment plan. Clients who default on payments are hunted down by Repo Men: skilled assassins contracted by GeneCo to repossess organs, usually killing the clients in the process. Resident Evil series. Science fiction horror franchise written and directed by Paul W. Anderson , based on the video game of the same name. Rise of the Planet of the Apes. ALZ is given to a chimp named Bright Eyes, greatly increasing her intelligence. But then, during Will's presentation for the drug, Bright Eyes is forced from her cage, goes on a rampage, and is shot to death.
Will's boss Steven Jacobs terminates the project and has the chimps slaughtered. However, Will's assistant Robert Franklin discovers that the reason for Bright Eyes' rampage was that she had recently given birth to an infant chimp. Will reluctantly agrees to take in the chimp, who is named Caesar. Will learns that Caesar has inherited his mother's intelligence and decides to raise him. Meanwhile, Will treats his dementia -suffering father Charles with ALZ, which seems to restore his cognitive ability. A man and his young son struggle to survive after a global cataclysm has caused an extinction event. They scavenge for supplies and avoid roaming gangs as they travel on a road to the coast in the hope it will be warmer.
In , Detroit is a city besieged by crime. Remake of the film of the same name. In a where there are police robots in entire world but the United States, Alex Murphy is a police officer killed in the line of duty. The company Omnicorp, trying to validate a law to approve the use of police robots in the country with it as prime supplier , saves the Murphy's brain and face to fuse with a robotic body, creating a cyborg named Robocop. A future society uses an ultra-violent game as entertainment, with the condition that no one player turns for the public more important than the game.
The contemporary western takes place in the Australian outback , ten years after a global economic collapse. The Running Man. Loosely adapted from Stephen King 's novel of the same name. After an economical collapse that ruined the world, USA government and a TV channel join forces to create the TV show The Running Man, where the criminals are sent for dying to hands of the "gladiators" of the program. Ben Richards, a former member of the police turned in criminal after to reject an order to shot unarmed civilians during a riot, is forced to participate in the show with a woman named Amber Mendez after she discovered that TV news falsify them to keep deceived the people and summit it.
A Scanner Darkly. Adapted from Philip K. Dick 's novel of the same name. A dangerous new drug causes the users to begin to lose their own identity. Set in an alternate near-future in which a pregnancy sedative called ephemerol has caused children called "Scanners" to be born with uncontrollable psychic abilities. The private military company ConSec tries to recruit and weaponize them to stop a malevolent ring led by a Scanner seeking to distributing ephemerol to create a new generation of Scanners to conquer the world. Based on a novel by David Ely of the same name, Seconds is a mystery dealing with the obsession with eternal youth and a mysterious organization which gives people a second chance in life.
A continuation of Joss Whedon's short-lived Fox television series Firefly. Starring the same cast, it take place after the events of the final episode. Polish cult classic about two male volunteers who wake up from a botched hibernation experiment to discover they are living in a matriarchy. The men discover that men are blamed for all the evils in the past and have since become extinct, and written out of history.
Sexual desire is removed through medication and women reproduce via parthenogenesis with all offspring being female. In the future, Earth has eliminated all disease by paving over the natural world. An astronaut who keeps some forests inside giant space greenhouses hoping to restore Earth's environment receive the order to burn them after the project is abandoned, tracing a secret plan to preserve them before his job partners can stop him. A fortified wall has ended unauthorized Mexico-US immigration, but migrant workers are replaced by robots, remotely controlled by the same class of would-be emigrants. Their life force is inevitably used up, and they are discarded without medical compensation.
Awakened years after an experiment gone bad, a nebbish finds it hard to survive in the weird future. A plan to reverse global warming inadvertently freezes the entire planet. The survivors now live in an unstoppable train that time and time again traverses the globe, but separated in different wagons according to their social status, motivating that a worker-class man from the last wagons leads a riot to arrive the first wagons where are the upper-class. After a worldwide nuclear war, the world is ruled by Eco Protectorate, a fascist and paramilitary organization that keeps all the remaining water of the planet imprisoned after the evaporation of a large part of the oceans.
Solarbabies, a team of teen rollers raised in one of the Protectorate's orphanages where all children and teens are trained to serve the system , must save Protectorate from an alien shining ball named Bodhi sent to planet Earth to free the water. Set in the then-near future of , as part of an alternate history, the film is a portrait of Los Angeles, and a satiric commentary on the military—industrial complex and the infotainment industry.
Based on Harry Harrison 's novel Make Room! Make Room! It centers around the issue of overpopulation. The Stand. Based on Stephen King's novel of the same name. A mega-virus wipes out most of humanity, and the few people who are immune congregate to try and form a new society. With the help of Vader, Palpatine a. In a post-World War III world, an unnamed warrior nicknamed "Nomad", arrives at the town of Meridian looking to avenge his mentor's murder. Joining Kasha, her child Jux, and Kasha's foreman Tarka to protect the town from a local landowner named Damnil, who is convinced that Meridian's citizens are capable of producing pure water, the most valuable substance in a desert world.
Set in the last two days of in a dystopian and crime-ridden Los Angeles, it follows a black marketeer of SQUID disks which allows its users to relive the memories of a person and experience their physical sensations who attempts to solve the murder of a prostitute. Based on the — comic book series The Surrogates, the movie follows an FBI agent who ventures out into the real world to investigate the murder of surrogates humanoid remote controlled robots.
Based on the British comic series of the same name , a tank-riding, anti-heroine fights a mega-corporation which controls the world's water supply. Based on the fighting game series started in of the same name. The film follows a man in his attempts to enter the Iron Fist Tournament in order to avenge the loss of his mother by confronting his father and grandfather, the latter of whom he believes to be responsible for his mother's death. He reveals to her that in the future the computer system Skynet will cause a nuclear war in order to allow machines to take over the world, and reveals that she will be the mother of the future resistance leader against the machines.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day. John Connor is a teenager who learns his true fate as future leader of the resistance against Skynet, when a reprogrammed T is sent back in time to save him from the T , a liquid metal model Terminator, sent back in time to kill him. An adult John Connor lives as a transient worker, when he meets by chance a former friend, vet Kate Brewster. When a second T is sent back in time to protect them from T-X , a new model of Terminator sent to kill not only John Connor, but all of Connor's deputies in the war against Skynet.
Terminator Salvation. In a world consumed by a nuclear holocaust, an adult John Connor who leads the war against machines is looking for a young Kyle Reese among the Terminators' prisoners so that someday Reese can travel back in time and meet his mother, Sarah Connor. A man who finds a pair of sunglasses that shows the world as it really is, discovers that an alien race live disguised as human beings, putting subliminal messages in all kind of books and advertising posters to submit the human race. Things To Come. It is 30—40 years in the future, in the s and 70s, and society has broken down after years of war.
A contagious disease spreads throughout the globe. Brutal warlords rule with an iron fist. Technology stagnates. But a brotherhood of engineers and mechanics works to restore civilization. Set in a dystopian future in which population control is enforced through a school aptitude test. Those who fail it are executed. Two high school students learn, to their horror, that the tests are rigged. They face many challenges and eventually make the ultimate sacrifice. Directed by Michael Gallagher. Controversial docudrama detailing the likely outcome of a nuclear war, set in Sheffield , England. After a lengthy international conflict involving the Middle-East , a young, pregnant woman survives a nuclear war which kills millions, renders most technology useless and drastically effects the Earth's climate.
The film graphically depicts the effects of nuclear winter and fallout over a thirteen-year period, during which there is a major and consistent deterioration of Britain's society, agriculture, sanitation and education. The Time Machine. Film adoption of H. Wells ' novel The Time Machine Looking to test his time travel device, a scientist travels by mistake to AD to find a neo-primitive primitive world divided between two races: the pacific but totally insensitive Eloi , and the brutal and savage Morlocks , degenerate mutants who live in caves, raising Eloi as livestock for food.
Remake of the movie. Don't explain things to the reader and leave them in a state of wonder. In this way, everything will seem interesting, intriguing, and worth exploring. This is a good plan for start If there are no wrong answers, can we really say that something has any meaning? This is a good plan for starting a science fiction story.
Lots of science fiction stories begin in this way. I also thought of China, because I immediately grasped that this had to be a culture which was designed to gently crash its population. There were many clues that the world was heavily overpopulated and the primary goal of the culture so described was to crash the population without descending into society destroying anarchy - the highly regulated birthrate, which was insufficient to sustain the population. The replacement rate for a society is about 2. Clearly, infants can't be meaningfully banished, so clearly release was euthanasia. So I was intrigued by the story. I wanted to see what happened to Jonas and his naive family who had so poised themselves on the edge of a great family wrecking tragedy in just the first few dozen pages of the story.
I wanted to receive from the storyteller answers to the questions that the story was poising, if not some great profound message then at least some story that followed from what she began. But it was not to be. This shocked me, because in the context of the setting it was virtually impossible that he and everyone else did not know. We know that the society is life affirming, both because we are told how pained and shocked they are by loss and by the fact that Jonas responds to scenes of death with pity and anger.
No society like that can long endure. Some technological explanation would be required to explain how the society managed to hide the truth from itself. If release took place in some conscious state of mind, then surely the dispensers of Justice, the Nurturers, the Caregivers, and the sanitation workers would all know the lie, and all suspect — as Jonas did — that they were being lied to as well. Surely all of these would suspect what their own future release would actually entail, and surely at least some of them would reject it. Surely some not inconsequential number of new children, reared to value precision of language and to affirm the value of life, would rebel at the audacity of the lie if nothing else. Even in a society that knew nothing of love, even if only the society had as much feeling as the members of the family displayed, and even if people only valued others as much as the Community was shown to value others, surely some level of attachment would exist between people.
Soma or not, the seeds of pain, tragedy, conflict and rebellion are present if ever the truth is known to anyone. Nothing about the story makes any sense. None of it bears any amount of scrutiny at all. The more seriously you consider it, the more stupid and illogical the whole thing becomes. We are given to believe that all wild animals are unknown to the community, yet we are also given to believe that potential pest species like squirrels and birds are not in fact extinct. How do you possibly keep them out of the community if they exist in any numbers elsewhere?
We are given to believe that technology exists sufficient to fill in the oceans and control the weather and replace the natural biosphere with something capable of sustaining humanity, but that technological innovation continues in primitive culture. We are given to believe that this is a fully industrial society, yet the community at most has a few thousands of people. Surely thousands of such communities must exist to maintain an aerospace industry, to say nothing of weather controllers.
Why is no thought given to the hundreds of other Receivers of Memory which must exist in their own small circles of communities in the larger Community? Surely any plan which ignores the small communities place in the larger is foredoomed to failure? Surely the Receiver of Memory knows what a purge or a pogrom is? I can only conclude, just as I can only conclude about the illogical fact that no one knows what release is, that everything is plastic within the dictates of the plot.
Every single thing when held up to the light falls apart. There is not one page which is even as substantial as tissue paper. It is almost impossible to draw meaning from nonsense, so it is no wonder that people have wondered at the ending. What happens? The great virtue of the story as far as modern educators are probably concerned is that there are no wrong answers. What ever you wish to imagine is true is every bit as good of answer as any other. Perhaps he lives. Perhaps he finds a community which lives in the old ways, knowing choice — and war and conflict which probably explains why the community needs anti-aircraft defenses. But more likely from the context he dies. Perhaps he is delusional. Perhaps he gets to the bottom and lies down in the deepening snow which the runners can no longer be pushed through and he dies.
Perhaps he dies and goes to heaven, maybe even the heaven of the one whose birthday is celebrated by the implied Holiday. Perhaps it is even the case that he was sent to his death by the cynical Giver, who knew his death was necessary to release the memories he contained by to the community. For my entry in the meaningless answers contest, I propose that the whole thing was just a dream. This seems the easiest way to explain the contradictions. And the biggest clue that it is a dream is of course that Jonas sees the world in black and white, with only the occasional flashes of recognized color around important colorful things as is typical of that sort of black and white dream.
Perhaps Jonas will wake up and engage in dream sharing with his family, and they will laugh at the silliness and then go to the ceremony of twelves. Or perhaps the whole community is only a dream, and Jonas will wake up and go downstairs and open his Christmas presents with his family. I thought there was only now. It simplifies existence when a person can convince themselves of this. No need to learn about the past, no need to think about tomorrow, they just react to what they have to do today. I insist on being a more complicated creature. What I learn about the past helps me make decisions about the present. The dreams I have for the future influence my decisions in the NOW. The past, the NOW, and the future all mingle together with very little delineation.
Reading this novel, experiencing this future society, my nerves were as jangled as if Freddy was running his metal tipped fingers down a chalkboard over and over again. He is delegated to the ancient, wise, old man called The Receiver. He is the vault, the keeper of memories, the only person in the community that knows there was a past. Jonas is understandably confused, overwhelmed with the concept of anything other than NOW. Jonas is seeing red. In a monochrome society devoid of color, it is the equivalent of seeing a UFO or a Yeti. Color changes everything.
As The Giver lays hands on him, transferring more and more memories to Jonas, he starts to see the world as so much more. Color creates depth, not only visually, but also mentally. He wants everybody to know what he knows, but of course that is impossible, most assuredly dangerous. And he was angry at himself, that he could not change that for them. To eliminate bad things also requires an equal measure of a loss of good things.
In making this society the holes in the strainer were just too small. Your mate is really just a partner, someone to schedule your life with. Children are assigned to you. They are nurtured by others until they are walking, and then like the stork of old they are plopped into a family unit. Two children only per couple. Women are assigned for childbearing, but only for three children, and then they are relegated as laborers for the rest of their lives. Childbearing is looked on as one of the lowest assignments a woman can be given. No decisions necessary He needs to speed up the process of passing some of that distress to Jonas. For the first time in his life Jonas feels real discomfort. Pills in the past had always taken away any pain he felt, from a skinned knee or even a broken arm.
As The Receiver he has to understand the source of the pain, and to do so he must feel it. There was another Receiver. She had asked to be Released. A more than niggling concern to young Jonas. Even though the rule for The Receiver, You May Lie, bothers Jonas, it becomes readily apparent the more he learns the more imperative that rule becomes. The veil has been lifted from his eyes, and it is impossible to put the genie back in the bottle. The Giver has had to be so courageous, staying, holding memories for everyone, bearing the annoyance of only being consulted in moments of desperation, knowing so much that could be so helpful, and yet, made to feel like a dusty museum piece with the placard stating: Only Break Glass in Case of Fire.
The conclusion really bothers people, but I consider the ambiguous ending as one of my most favorite parts of the book. Pessimists and optimists seem to choose according to their natural preference for a glass half empty or a glass half full. I was struck by an odd parallel between the ending of Ethan Frome and the ending of this book. Only, being an optimist, I of course chose a very different result than the finale of Ethan Frome. If your children have read this book or are currently reading this book, do read it. The language is by design simplistic.
The concepts though are much larger, and you will enjoy your discussions with your children. This is a perfect opportunity to slip in some of your own brainwashing by including some of your own views of our current society into the dialogue. In an attempt to make Eden they produced a Hell. I kept thinking as I read it of the culling and the brutality that had to occur to gain this much control over human beings. With all our issues, we still have choice. We have color. We have desire. We have ambition. We have a past, a future, and a present. We are not drugged zombies well most of us, well some of us. We can choose our mate, as dicey as that seems for most people.
We can have a child, if we choose, who will be The Receiver of our collective memories and in the process we gain another generation of immortality. Regardless of how everyone feels about this book, I would hope that most people come away from reading it feeling a little better about life as it is now, and also realize the importance of a remembered past and a hopeful future. View all 62 comments.
Nov 05, Emma Giordano rated it liked it Shelves: audiobooks. I read this book previously in middle school for English class and was still able to appreciate it almost a decade later. The Giver is a story that sticks with many of us as it is often a part of required reading in school. I consider it one of the most impactful academic reads from my adolescence as it was one of the first stories to feel targeted towards me. I think the concept is fantastic and appreciate it's method of tackling serious issues through the lens of a teen.
Though it 3. Though it was published after many famous dystopian stories of similar nature, I feel The Giver succeeds in resonating with younger readers and challenging them to think critically about society in a way many others cannot. Reading as an adult though, I do feel I enjoyed it less. I felt it was lacking in characterization as I did not feel much attachment to the characters. View all 8 comments.
Aug 20, Jj rated it it was amazing Shelves: must-possess. Upon finishing this book, not 20 minutes ago, I'm left with several thoughts: 1. This book should be required reading for everyone with the emotional maturity to handle it! I believe that blindly labeling The Giver as a children's book is neither realistic nor necessarily wise, in some instances. Parents would be well advised to thoroughly screen it before offering it to an emotionally sensitive child to read. Very few things leave me mentally stuttering as I struggle to put my thoughts into Upon finishing this book, not 20 minutes ago, I'm left with several thoughts: 1.
Very few things leave me mentally stuttering as I struggle to put my thoughts into words, but, somehow, The Giver has done just that. It will take me a while to be able to make sense of, not the story, but my response to it. The Giver is a deftly crafted work, both stunningly beautiful and deeply disturbing Finding myself being imperceptibly lulled by the peace, order, safety and serenity of Jonas's world; being awakened by the sickening thud of reality's steel-toed boot in the gut, leaving both him and me breathless and disoriented in the aftermath. This story is haunting and powerful. It's a raw portrayal of the presumed moral sacrifices that man would have to make in order to create and maintain a Utopian society, and the acceptable naivety of the horrors that would accompany it.
Perhaps what is most frightening to me is the way I so easily assumed, at first, that Jonas saw the world as I do.. The realization that his newly deposited knowledge gives him is almost terrifying, definitely unnerving. The depth of my emotional response still has me reeling! This is NOT a happy-ending, feel-good read I'm glad I read it, as it's made me think about things in a way I wouldn't have otherwise, and I appreciate that.
I don't know that I would have read it had I known how real Jonas's and the Giver's pain would be to me. View all 24 comments. View all 13 comments. It is set in a society which at first appears to be utopian but is revealed to be dystopian as the story progresses. The novel follows a year-old boy named Jonas. The society has taken away pain and strife by converting to "Sameness", a plan that has also eradicated emotional depth from their lives.
Jonas is selected to inherit the position of Receiver of Memory, the person who stores all the past memories of the time before Sameness, as there may be times where one must draw upon the wisdom gained from history to aid the community's decision making. Jonas struggles with concepts of all the new emotions and things introduced to him: whether they are inherently good, evil, or in between, and whether it is even possible to have one without the other.
The Community lacks any color, memory, climate, or terrain, all in an effort to preserve structure, order, and a true sense of equality beyond personal individuality. Yesterday, I took a road trip with my two daughters to get pick up my 88 year-old grandmother, who will be staying with us through the holiday season. At 5 and 9 years-old, my usual audiobook choices were clearly not an option. So, I found myself listening to some books that definitely are not my usual type, yet again. By pure coincidence, they both ended up being authored by Lois Lowry. I have n Yesterday, I took a road trip with my two daughters to get pick up my 88 year-old grandmother, who will be staying with us through the holiday season.
I have never been more engaged in a children's book than I was during this road trip. I was completely lost in these stories, as were my children. The first book that we listened to was 'The Giver'. What a captivating, albeit bleak, fictional world Ms. Lowry has created! I was absolutely spellbound by her storytelling. Set in the future, Jonas lives in a community that has traded their humanity for the illusion of safety. They block anything that would trigger the emotional highs and lows that define a person's life as we now know it. They don't experience the heartache of loss, but they never give in to the joys of life either. They are shells, robotic in their day to day existence and devoid of emotion.
Although this is a children's book, it had a feeling eerily similar to George Orwell's ''. Independent thinking was non-existent. People "confessed" their thoughts, dreams and rule violations. The presence of the omnipresent leaders in their homes, ruling their lives, was pervasive and all-powerful. Jonas is getting ready to experience the ceremony of This particular ceremony is an important one in the community, a rite of passage into adulthood. It is at this ceremony that each child is assigned their job within the community.
They will remain in their assigned role until they are no longer productive and they are "released". Unlike the other children, Jonas is unsure of his calling within the community. He doesn't feel a clear draw to one occupation or another. He is worried of what the future holds for him and he is beginning to notice some unusual things that others do not. Jonas is ultimately assigned a very prestigious role within the community. It is perhaps the most important role in the community, but comes with a tremendous burden. He cannot share his experiences with anyone other than the man that he will be replacing, the current "receiver".
As his training progresses, Jonas comes to question everything that he has ever been taught. From beginning to end, this book held my rapt attention. It was beautifully written and thought provoking. There was plenty of action and suspense along the way. It was also a much more emotional read than I had anticipated. I'll never forget the look on my 9 year-old's face when some of the true meanings of different phrases, like "released", truly sunk in. Don't even get me going on baby Gabe! Luckily, I think most of that went over the head of my 5 year-old. Overall, I thought that this was a spectacular book! It is one that I would not have normally read, but I'm so glad that I did.
I can only hope that the lessons learned will resonate with my daughter and the other children that read it. An all-around great story! I'll probably download the next books in the series for our next road-trip to take "Nana" home after the holidays. See more of my reviews at www. View all 42 comments. Dec 23, Nataliya rated it really liked it Shelves: for-my-future-hypothetical-daughter , reads.
After a re-read, I can no longer think of The Giver as simply a childish sci-fi tale with heavy moralistic leanings. What I see now is a story about growing up and confronting the world outside of the safe haven of childhood. But let's focus on the other aspects first, and worry about this later. Because that's not how I choose to see this book now. The way I do choose to see it after this reread is a story of a child learning to see past the happy and safe confines of childhood into the bigger world and realizing that the wonderful security of childhood, the rules and foundations of that world no longer apply in the adult universe.
Remember how small and secure the world was for most of us when we were children? There were rules designed to keep the world simple and predictable, and to keep us safe. There were adults who had fascinating jobs and were in charge of keeping our world safe and protected. There was a valid concept of 'that's not fair! At least it's how I remember it through the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia. In this book, I see the realization that people's lives are very different from what you perceive as a child, and that it's going to happen to you, too.
That those who were the core of your world not so long ago - family and childhood friends - may drift away and become distant as you make your way through adulthood and form new unexpected and vitally important relationships that overturn the world you are used to. And you will learn that the world may not be the stable place you know - that there is unexpected beauty just as there is unexpected cruelty and pain. That your feelings will change, will intensify until they reach the peak only possible in the early youth. The onslaught of powerful emotions, the feeling of loneliness and not fitting in with the world you grew up in, the sudden knowledge that the world is not what you thought it to be - it's what we all go through when growing up, and that's where the strength of this book lies.
The wave of nostalgia combined with the red sled on the snow - of course it's red. I guess we all need some allusions to Citizen Kane's Rosebud hidden in children's literature? So that children can grow up, realize the allusion and say, "oh, hey there Like the taking-it-for-granted Western culture emphasis on the importance of individualism over collectivism and, written just a few years after the Cold War, this book of course would have these sentiments of the culture that prevailed.
We are conditioned to perceive individuality as a bright alternative to the grey and drab Sameness - but, when you read into it, this book decries this world of Sameness only superficially. The life without color, pain, or past. One of the motifs here is that pain is important, that pain helps shape us into full human beings with full emotional range - but isn't it often a fairy tale we, adults, tell ourselves, thus making us feel better about our imperfect world full of pain and suffering and senseless wars and hunger?
These are what makes our human experience full, we say; this is the price of being able to let our individualities shine. I think it would seem a little easier if the memories were shared. You and I wouldn't have to bear so much by ourselves, if everybody took a part. They don't want that. And that's the real reason The Receiver is so vital to them, and so honored. They selected me - and you - to lift that burden from themselves.
Superficially, this book seems to suggest that it may be - but the fact that it made me think past what's on the surface suggests otherwise. Written for children, it does have something for adults to ponder about. For ten-year-olds reading this book, it's probably Jonas and Gabriel finally reaching the idyllic place of love and warmth and the happy exhilaration of that first memory of red sled on a hill becoming reality. For adults, it's the happiness of the final dream of red sled - Rosebud? However you choose to see the ending is up to you.
To me, it's the final sacrifice of Jonas for the sake of the others - individuality that makes the sacrifice for the good of community. It's touching and powerful, and is the perfect way to end the story. View all 14 comments. Oct 20, Joyzi rated it it was ok Recommends it for: YA. Shelves: ya-books , books-tfg , disappointing-books , political-intrigue , banned , classics , own , dystopia , fiction , book-series. The book is boring.
The book is weird. I don't feel any emotions at all towards the character. I don't really understand the book. I don't really understand the ending. I don't really understand why the children at age whatever should be given ribbons, what's the purpose of that? I don't really understand why the characters should tell about their dreams to their parents. I don't understand why Johnas has to take medications because he was having Stirrings. So stirrings for those who haven't read the book is somewhat closer to wet dreams. I don't understand why the memories of war, loss etc. I know that life is imperfect but it seems that the characters have no backbone, like idk I don't buy the logic of that one. In short I don't really understand this at all! If you're wondering whether I've read this one because it's a school requirement, the answer is NO.
I buy this book because I've seen it on the list of best YA book here on Goodreads so many times. At one point I wrote a review for this book. That review was very well written and could have won awards! Sadly, when I went to submit it was one of the times that the Goodreads server crashed and the review was lost for the ages. On to a new review that will be much shorter and definitely inferior to the original. This is one of the granddaddies of the YA dystopian genre. I enjoyed this book. I believe the fact that I was a new father at the time of reading made the subject matter difficult - I swear you will hug your kids right after finishing this.
Twice while reading I threw this book across the room - that is not an exaggeration. I was so shocked by what I read that the book was propelled as far away from me as possible. As an adult this book was hard to read and I cannot imagine reading it as a young adult. If my kids read this when they are teenagers, it is one I will definitely have to talk to them about before and after. I did finish the series, and overall it is very enjoyable - and the other books are not quite as shocking as this one! View all 43 comments. Reread just in time for the new movie! I've been meaning to come back to The Giver and write a better review for some time now and the soon-to-be-released movie seemed like as good an excuse as any.
My rating remains the same even though it's been several years and many badly-written YA dystopias since I last picked this up. I still think it's a good book, with an interesting concept and sophisticated writing For one thing, the protagonist and narrator has just turn Reread just in time for the new movie! For one thing, the protagonist and narrator has just turned twelve years old. While I'm glad that authors are writing thought-provoking books for younger children, there is a lack of depth in the narrative which was necessary in order for it to be a realistic portrait of a child's mind.
The society and themes explored by the novel might have been more effective through the eyes of someone older, in my opinion. In the story, citizens of this society are united by a "sameness" that fosters peace, cooperation and general well-being. Everyone is equal and everything is chosen for you As the novel opens, it appears to be a utopian world. But things are not all as they first seem. When Jonas is selected to be the Receiver of Memory, his mind is opened to the dark secrets of the society he was born into. He learns that harmony has a price and it might just be more than he's willing to pay. This book gradually explores and perhaps challenges the notion that ignorance is bliss. How much is it worth to live peaceful - if empty - lives? I like the idea of it far more than I like the novel itself.
The strength of the novel is not in the plot, writing or characters I understand why readers of Matched felt compelled to compare the two - the functioning of the societies is almost identical and the MCs experience some similar dilemmas, though Matched is far more romantic. I suppose it is further evidence of how influential this little book has been on the genre. The concepts are, for me, definitely stronger than the characters. And the ambiguous ending pleased me in the way it was crafted, rather than causing me to fret over Jonas' fate. View all 12 comments. Oct 16, mark monday rated it really liked it Shelves: after-the-fall , inbetweenworld.
The Giver accomplishes its goals with ease. View all 68 comments. Jul 02, Luffy rated it it was amazing Shelves: 5-star. The style of the wording pleased me very much. So much that it threatened to engulf my perception of the story. I liked the book's plot, but what made me rate the book 5 stars was the presentation of the characters. I thought the Giver would be someone who is the main character Jonas, as a special and precocious boy, is the classic hero in this book. I think many people have read The Giver. If you haven't, then there's no hurry. The story will remain actual at any time of The style of the wording pleased me very much.
The story will remain actual at any time of the future. It's a timeless tale, well told. And in the end, we all take something small, and personal, from the book. Mar 28, Stacey rated it it was amazing Recommended to Stacey by: Lisa. How have I missed out on this book for so many years? The premise of living a life without agency is something to think about. I can't tell you how often I have wished prayed for a world filled with only peace and happiness, where no one feels pain, hunger or sadness. This book made me seriously rethink that wish and realize - once and for all - that without feeling the depths of sadness, we can never know happiness.
What an amazing story! View all 6 comments. Mar 20, Fergus rated it it was amazing. Hang on to your books In these days when memories, and indeed history, are being overwritten by bland sameness we still think of Lois Lowry. We have indeed come much too far to regress, and I think - now that all Givers are segregated from the heap, and pretty well left to their own devices - that we are all forced to cut our losses and smile wistfully at our lost pasts. Our pasts seem, more and more now, jagged and uneven - but my own past I am not willing to sever from my soul.
For: We who Give must still give optimally. We must share our Memories with Anyone willing to listen. We must LIVE. I only hope I personally will always choose the second option. Jun 25, Lisa rated it it was amazing Shelves: children , newbery-medal-and-honor. Like not being allowed to choose your profession. Later, when I arrived at school, I changed an introductory lesson plan for my mentor class to include a discussion on the validity of certain rules like school rules, for example , and the importance of distinguishing them from oppressive ones. Reading and talking about books with my children has a major effect on my professional choices. In the evening, my daughter came back into my room, looking sad and bewildered.
She had figured out what "release"stands for, and she was confused. This is her first encounter with dystopian fiction, and she was shocked by the power of euphemisms without knowing the term itself. My middle son joined the discussion and reprimanded me for telling his sister what the word means. Since they were deliberately held outside history and memory, and were taught limited facts, how much understanding could they possibly have gained?
And still he released the baby. It is horrible if you are alone! I listened to my children, communicating their thoughts, reflecting on a society so scared of passionate emotions and painful memories that they have abolished them, and I felt grateful that we aren't there just yet. We still read books, talk about them, communicate our worries, reflect on the good and bad aspects of highly regulated societies, and we all see the different colours in the world. We may not like them, and we may be scared of both colours and sounds and emotions that we aren't familiar with, but we have not turned into complacent, numb non-thinkers like the people in the world of The Giver.
We still care enough to have all those scary feelings: fear, anger, frustration, passionate love and longing. Let us keep reading and talking and communicating with the next generation to prevent our world from becoming careless and resistant to human emotions. Let us practice the skill of giving and receiving knowledge of the world and help each other carry the pain it brings, so that joy is not lost along with sorrow. The Giver is a perfect novel to introduce the great questions of our time to a young and curious audience! View all 27 comments.
Aug 21, Cecily rated it really liked it Shelves: ya , dystopian , bildungsroman. I read this dystopian YA novel in two sittings, at the urging of a real-life friend. He said I should try to imagine my year old self reading it, which would have been at boarding school, where I was in a house of 34 girls aged It was a really interesting way to read it.
A couple of girls had birthdays last term I read this dystopian YA novel in two sittings, at the urging of a real-life friend. Nothing is really, but mostly I quite like it here. In the book, Jonas is going to be Jonas lives with his parents and sister, but everyone and everything is very samey and there are lots of rules. The children have to wear uniforms according to their age. Every evening, every family discusses their feelings and every morning they discuss their dreams.
After school each day, he goes to the old man who is now The Giver and gets memories by a sort of touching telepathy. The memories change Jonas. Knowing the memories makes Jonas want to make the community fairer and better. So then the book changes almost to a different one, but with the same character. I enjoyed the book. Some of my friends would enjoy it too, but not all of them. Image : Apple, with glimpse of red, by Spudwaka Source. Yes, I know the last of those is a high bar for dystopias. I doubt the issue of sameness protecting people from making the wrong choice would interest her much, and certainly any extrapolation to racism and integration would not occur to her.
To borrow a point from creationists! Children and YA tend to prefer protagonists slightly older than they are, but not all ten-year olds would fully appreciate this. Image : Cover art by Ashley Barlow Source. View all 32 comments. Aug 04, Fabian rated it it was amazing. Thoroughly impressed by "The Giver," a two-decade old gem in a genre that basically always leaves me wanting more. Because we were on the topic of the Holocaust, we were given to read "Number the Stars" also exemplary so I never got to experience this. Perhaps I would've become a bigger fan of sci-fi or YA novels well into adulthood?
Jul 23, Clumsy Storyteller rated it it was amazing Shelves: re-reading , reading-assingment , favorites , the-power-of-love , children-s-books , the-movie-was-better , definitely-worth-reading. I Loved it, I remember reading it on the beach :D, Major worldbuilding, a chilling and exciting story line, a very interesting dystopian novel. In this book everyone is identical, choices are very limited. Every aspect of life is controlled and decided by elders of the community, everyone is content simply because they don't know any different, but Jonas the hero is different, he sees things no one else can see. Everything is under control. There is no war or fear I Loved it, I remember reading it on the beach :D, Major worldbuilding, a chilling and exciting story line, a very interesting dystopian novel.
There is no war or fear or pain. There are no choices. Every person is assigned a role in the Community. When Jonas turns twelve, he is singled out to receive special training from The Giver. The Giver alone holds the memories of the true pain and pleasure of life. Now, it is time for Jonas to receive the truth. There is no turning back. View all 18 comments. In times of anguish, I always turn to The Giver. It reminds me that feelings, no matter how painful, are vital to our humanity. Apr 25, Jeanette Ms. Feisty rated it really liked it Shelves: all-fiction , science-fiction , four-star-fiction , young-adult-books. I was a little creeped out when I first started reading this story.
In fact, I almost didn't continue. It seemed like some kind of freaky propaganda for a fundamentalist society where everyone obeys without question and acts all fake nicey-nice and pretends everything is fine when it's not. I kept reading just to find out why the book is so popular. I really liked it once I found out what was going on. It's the opposite of what I thought at first. Conformity and uniformity are traps that rob us I was a little creeped out when I first started reading this story.
Conformity and uniformity are traps that rob us of life's riches. Jonas shows the courage it takes to step out of society's box of expectations and reach for something finer. For those who do, it's usually a lonely path. I'm very glad I didn't read any of the "anal"ytical reviews here until after I'd read the book. It's a young adult book, for crying out loud! These people who pick it apart and assign it all kinds of evil intent and religious meaning really should not read fictionespecially not teen fiction.
Yeah, I could have picked it apart too, but my junior high self would not have done so, and I tried to read it in that spirit. Feb 07, Dan Schwent rated it it was amazing Shelves: books , , young-adultery , homework-from-the-ladies. Jonas' world seems like a utopia of peace and harmony with little conflict and everyone doing their job. That is, until Jonas is selected to be the new Receiver of Memories and learns utopia isn't all it's cracked up to be Once upon a time, sometime in the nebulous nineties when the only things I read were Star Wars and Anne Rice, my brother was assigned to read this in school. My mom read it after him and assigned it to me. Now, years later, my wife and I read it together.
It still holds up. T Jonas' world seems like a utopia of peace and harmony with little conflict and everyone doing their job. The world Jonas lives in is one largely free of choices and free of strong emotions. People are assigned jobs, assigned families, and largely assigned lives. No one remembers the past or even realizes they're being denied freedom by no being able to decide things for themselves.
No one except The Receiver of Memories, that is. As Jonas studies under the previous Receiver of Memories, the titular Giver, he sees all the things lurking under the surface of his perfect world. It's written as a YA book but I was an adult both times I read and enjoyed it. The book explores such themes as family, the value of choice, the importance of history, the dangers of blind conformity, and things of that nature. It's also a great story. Two decades after I first read it, The Giver is still a great read. Once my wife recovers, we'll probably attack the other books set in the same world. View all 9 comments.
Dec 01, Riku Sayuj rated it it was ok Shelves: books-about-books , pop-phil , r-r-rs. Plato sans Philosophy I liked the set-up and the basic concept, but just basing it on Plato's Republic does not make something deeply philosophical. That is Plato sans Philosophy I liked the set-up and the basic concept, but just basing it on Plato's Republic does not make something deeply philosophical. That is not anywhere close to Plato's conception of the Forms and the Cave.
In any case, the whole construct around memory was just too far fetched and flimsy and the execution almost lazy. And it is not just 'memory' I am talking about, even the blandness, the lack of colors, lack of music, the 'sameness' -- these are Lowry's twisted presentations of Plato's very practical appeal against rote poetry. Lowry's core message might be that human beings will always create a dystopia in the quest for a fully controlled utopia, and doing that by adopting the greatest utopia myth yet would have been a good argument, but only if she stuck to the core tenets of it. The whole of Plato's argument was directed towards showcasing the need for philosophy in Athens' public life -- how do you counter that with an example sans philosophy?
I accept that man might always reach dystopia searching for utopia, but Lowry's world is a very poor illustration of that depressing possibility. The Republic was meant to regulate the administrators and the soldiers only, not the whole of the society, the only control espoused was in the letting-go of control over various segments at various ages, at which point they become free agents, unless selected for their aptitude into the administration. That is a far cry from Lowry's community where only robots are allowed.
Even the administrator-rulers are not philosopher-kings, who in The Republic can be assumed to have the wisdom to understand and modify founding laws if they compromise our humanity. Lowry's dystopia is possible only in a community run by robots, and that is a very poor argument for a cause that deserves much better arguments. Also the book was boring and long-winded, to be really honest Readers also enjoyed.
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