Why is it that so many films and novels set in the future are dystopian?
I thought about this after watching The Hunger Games last night, and tried to think of any stories of utopian futures. The only films I could think featuring non-dystopian futures of were Back to the Future II and Bicentennial Man. Can you think of any others?
The word dystopia combines the Ancient Greek δυσ (dus – bad), and τόπος (tópos – place, region) with the Latin/Ancient Greek suffix ia/ία (-ía). It was derived from the word utopia, which was coined by Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia. The u part of utopia comes from the Greek ou (οὐ – not) and by the 17th century was used to refer to a place or society that was considered perfect or ideal. The prefix ou possibly got confused with εὖ (eû, – well, good). Dystopia was first used by J. S. Mill in a parliamentary speech in 1868 [source].
