It’s interesting to see what each person is capable of creating from their own imagination and with the type of imagery that some might call bleak and even hopeless. The Desert, by Michael Dockery, is a short movie that shows a barren wasteland that was once obviously a thriving world but is now little more than a ruin that’s slowly being dismantled and hidden away by an encroaching expanse of sand that apparently gets closer and closer to erasing the signs of civilization as things go along. There are only a few signs of life, meaning the robotic figures, one of whom appears ready to plunge a knife into its companion. There is some form of life, however, since apart from the tile-headed automaton that is apparently searching through the archives to discover what happened to the humans, or perhaps to remember that their downfall was their own doing. It is kind of a dark bit of animation, especially since the robots are doing just what humans once did, which is fight each other to the death, though for what isn’t known.
The luminescent being that appears at one point and draws the slate-headed robot away from its studies is interesting since it would appear to be something that can change things around, perhaps for the better. One thing about futuristic movies of any type is that if humanity is usually out of luck and their fate is almost always tied to their, or our, poor decisions. Whether it be by war, famine, or some other global disaster, humans in the future of pop culture don’t always have an easy time of it. And if aliens or self-aware machinery is involved, then we’re just kind of out of luck. The idea that humans can push through pretty much anything and everything isn’t how some stories go, and those that are the most interesting tell a rather bleak story of how humanity will bring about our own downfall, and how something will spring from the ashes that weren’t expected.
It’s always a guess as to when humanity’s expiration date will come due if it ever does, and what will happen when that time comes around. With a pandemic that not a lot of people saw coming having hit just last year, the question of our mortality definitely came into question once again for a lot of people, especially since it’s something that’s always in question. But people can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen when the rule of humanity is at an end and the world is left for who, or whatever is left to come and claim it. The dystopian landscapes that so many people enjoy coming up with and drawing out are amazing since everyone has roughly the same idea, but it’s expressed in such different ways that one can’t help but think that we’re all following the same path, just in different ways. When it comes to the end of the world as humans know it, the future definitely looks like something that we wouldn’t want to live through, but it’s hard not to see this happening given the decline of the human race over the years and the fact that no matter how hopeful we want to be, staying optimistic in the face of everything we worry about is kind of difficult.
When looking forward, a lot of people don’t know what they’re seeing, nor do they really want to see what might be in their heads, but filmmakers, writers, and those of this ilk tend to put it down just to get it out of their heads so that other people can see it. That sounds a little pretentious, doesn’t it? But the truth is that whether it’s a hobby, a passion, or for money, those that have visions of what the future could be like do have the habit of putting it out where people can see it, and it’s up to the audience to make of it what they will. The visions of the world as a wasteland where humanity has ceased to exist, or exist in very few low numbers, tends to be a vision that people are drawn to over and over again, no matter how much people might not want to believe that it might ever come to pass.
People want to believe in a bright future, but they know that deep down there’s always the possibility that we’re bound to destroy ourselves simply because we can’t get along no matter how hard we try. The wasteland of so many stories tends to be different when being presented by each person, but the overriding theme is that humans will write their own end at one point and it won’t be pretty, nor will it be something that we can avoid. That’s bleak, but it could be the truth.
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