90s Science: Demolition Man vs. Judge Dredd

Science fiction movies in the 90s were all over the map. One year you might see gloriously well-presented dinosaur melodrama, the next year you might give up in distress and learn to appreciate art or literature. In many ways, the inconsistency of the past carried into the future. Some people talked about how the 'movies these days' were full of 'special effects', except in that time special effects were something rare and spectacular that tended to be applauded. That or they were incredibly shitty and overused. In many ways, nearly two decades later, things are similar.

90s movies had a certain quality that no longer really exists in the medium. Many of them were totally unwatchable wrecks, many of them aged horribly, and there was much lazy writing and gnashing of directorial teeth. Such is life. I post here today to summarize my experience with two Sylvester Stallone, marginal, action/sci-fi movies from the 90s. Abandon all logic and subtlety, ye who would be so foolish as to follow me. The movies are Demolition Man (1993) and Judge Dredd (1995).

Demolition Man is an insane movie. Stallone jumps out of a helicopter and explodes an entire building before the title sequence. Everything else after that is awesome, but muddled in a stupid, obtuse, poorly-written version of the future. But none of that matters because that future exists only so Wesley Snipes, playing a gleefully violent criminal, can fight Sylvester Stallone, who accidentally killed 20 children when he exploded the building from the beginning of the movie. Both of them were frozen in time because that's how sentencing worked in 1993's idea of 1996.

Demolition Man has an agenda so broad, and so stolen, that even dogs raise their eyebrows when they see it. The future is a utopia, peace and calm reign, but society atrophies because there is no aggression, no uncertainty, no explosions, and no action. Death is by natural causes, spicy foods are outlawed, and people get fined for swearing. It's the original Campy Darwinism. Sandra Bullock and company say shit in the opening half hour that sounds so hideously, hilariously, clumsily out of place that the only explanation is that a computer was given the scenario and two hours to write it. Apparently only intellectual-sounding words would make the future enough of a gutless wimp for two 90s badasses to thoroughly work it over.  "Info assimilated." "Mellow greetings."

In this future, which exists out of sheer laziness, society is childish, naive, and inherited by total fucking infantile eunuchs with too-large vocabularies. But it's still fun. Things get shot up. Wesley Snipes taunts everyone and shoots everything. The whole plot is a weird mixture of old utopia/dystopia books such as 1984, The Time Machine, and Brave New World mixed with basically every science fiction/action film up to its point. It's not particularly smart, or achingly funny, and the satire is dull, but nobody cares. Ten minutes in you know this movie doesn't care. You shouldn't, the movie told you not to. And there's just enough quality action, gun-play, and insanity that you feel okay when you watch it. This was the model for mediocrity. These days it seems awesome only because our current mediocrity is even more slick and bland than the future proposed in Demolition Man. The future-colloquial dialogue is feeble and stupid while trying to make a point about how weakness, pacifism, submission, and herd intelligence are related. Wesley Snipes' awesome action kicks, dozens of quality explosions, at least ten snappy one-liners, and all the swearing make this movie worth it. 1993 was probably just a simpler time.

RIP BTJUNKIE

The biggest news of the day, perhaps even the week, in the context of the internet is that BT Junkie shut down. Sure, it was a torrent site, but it was one of the few non-private torrent sites that was reliable and somewhat trustworthy. Now there are even less options, and even higher odds of some kind of meta-torrent site that will infect all users with some unimaginable bot-net-rootkit abortion and destroy the free internet anyway, before infecting all unprotected (AKA disconnected) government/corporate computers.

These are just the wild observations and speculations of a heartbroken supporter. Doubtless, BTJunkie made the right decision and defended themselves against future legal action/apocalyptic lawyering. They had a great thing, and no doubt were in the crosshairs of the repressive new copyright monster, and I will miss using their handy, responsive, and resourceful site. Now the internet is a colder place, and the individual's freedom to steal things is impacted, possibly severely. Probably not, as this is the internet, and no amount of hyperbole will change the truth about it.

Meanwhile TPB is still in existence as, well what exactly? A zombie platform, mildly trustworthy and the final remaining high-profile, semi-legit torrent site. For those of us with entertainment appetites bigger than our wallets, we may have to go hungry for a while or pray that private solutions find and accept us.

Ultimately, for a daily surprise this is a pretty bad one. RIP BTJunkie – thanks for the good times, and for being one of the good guys while you could.