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Well developed fictional cultures

GTC

GTC

cupcake
I had recently gotten the movie Demolition Man and was struck by the thought and care that went into developing the future culture of San Angeles. Residents have their own slang and a slightly different speaking pattern, that sounds a little more formal. Their culture also absconds from violence to the point that physical contact is seen as a social faux-pas.

This is quite the contrast to Star Treks stuffy old white prick culture used for every alien race, or just substituting an existing exotic culture. For example making the blue aliens in avatar out to a bunch of wagon burning injins.
 
Battlestar Galactica as rewritten by RJM. New words, old gods, even minute details down to how the books and paper are octagonal.

Robocop.

Are we limiting this to movies and TV? Because there's a few examples of some mainstream books that are wonderful, like Fahrenheit 451.
 
Soylent Green, the film adaptation of the book Make Room! Make Room!, by Harry Harrison. Both are great. Not really a fine-tuned alternate culture, but the dystopian scenario is fantastic.

Another interesting movie would be Romero's Land of the Dead. An entire society based around surviving in a post-apocalyptic zombie-ridden world. More on the zombies would be the book World War Z, which is about to be raped by Hollywood on the big screen.

The Giver, by Lois Lowry is another good dystopian culture book.

I'll have to dig through some of my bookshelf for some others that kind of match this... genre (if you will?).
 
Oh, please go on, CU. Explain the premise behind Canada as a well-thought out fictional culture. I'd love to hear your take on it.
 
No I totally understand. I'm also under the impression that you continuously change your handle, people keep calling you CU, and then you switch it back. When we met you were CU, so you will always be CU to me.
 
Because it's not worth mentioning. It generally follows the same line of Star Trek in that alien races, although interacted with, are something to be ogled, much like creatures in a zoo. Humans act and interact in much the same way as they do today - physical attraction between two people is met with the ever traditional kiss. Trading is the same. Food may not be the same as on Earth, but it is consumed in the same way. All idioms and turns of phrase are the same.

All that was created in Star Wars was this magical Force, and hyperspace, and crazy things that don't follow the laws of science. All this pretty much leads up to a movie you watch for fun - any in depth analysis of the Star Wars franchise will show that the series really makes no sense on a practical level.

For example, it can be said that most citizens of the Star Wars galaxy are probably totally illiterate.

I love Star Wars. It's a fun escape. But it really ends there - just a good popcorn flick about current day humans surviving in a made-up futuristic world. Not a properly thought out fictional culture.
 
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