Four Great Dystopian Novels that Made it to the Big Screen

Although they can be deeply unsettling, I do love a good dystopian novel. They pinpoint the ways in which seemingly innocuous conveniences and safety measures can become a menace to us all, and pose important and compelling ethical questions. Plus, they’re some of the most imaginative fiction around. Film adaptations of dystopian books are often just good as the novels, and if the popularity of The Hunger Games and the highly anticipated Divergent movie are any indication, we all enjoy watching them. There are so many great ones to choose from—but here are four of my favorites.

1. Technology Run Amok

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick (Film adaptation: Blade Runner)
One dystopian possibility that seems increasingly real is the technological takeover, in which machines that are supposed to make life easier ultimately become too efficient, and intelligent, and start making scary and unexpected demands on (or even threatening) their former masters. In the truly horrific scenario of Dick’s novel, the company that manufactures this out-of-control technology refuses to stop development out of concern that competing companies will encroach on their profit margin. Unfortunately, in this case, the technology happens to be highly realistic androids that have a pesky habit of murdering their owners and passing as human in order to escape slavery.

The story’s central questions—when does being a machine end and being a human begin, and which one is ultimately more dangerous?—are illustrated in Dick’s novel by complicated characters who share similar traits with their android counterparts, even though they are sworn enemies. The ambiguity of good and evil is very similar to that found in noir films, which is exactly the style director Ridley Scott and screenwriter Hampton Francher decided to adopt when bringing Dick’s story to the silver screen.

As a result, Blade Runner is a good example of an adaptation really going off the rails—in the best way possible. Scott takes some huge liberties with the story in order to blend the hard sci-fi and droid-era ethics of the novel with classic film noir elements: hard-talking cops, smoke-haloed vixens, and a complex and powerful syndicate. One of the best things about Scott’s film is that the novel’s many doubles are streamlined down to one amazing doppelgänger pair: Deckard and Baty, each trying to preserve the community they believe to be the safer one.

2. Thought Control To Go

A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess (Film adaptation: A Clockwork Orange)
A Clockwork Orange is narrated by Alex, a self-involved and violent psychopath. Even though we get an uneasy sense that the world in which these bands of exotically costumed gangs roam is not quite right, we don’t necessarily see the extent of their dystopia in either Burgess’ novel or Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation until Alex, abandoned after a particularly heinous crime by fellow gang members who resent his iron fist, is introduced into the penal system.

Due to an overflowing prison population, an experimental brainwashing method is being developed for violent offenders, forcing them to have a debilitating physical response every time it occurs to them to behave violently. Once the method has been effectively administered to Alex, he is sent back out into the world no less compelled to behave as he always has, but physically unable to: his prison sentence has been melded into his physiology via thought control. Unable to fight back against the violence that awaits him (and everyone) on the outside, he becomes a victim of both random acts of violence and calculated revenge.

Kubrick’s adaptation is very true to Burgess’ text (you’ll need a slang glossary to fully understand what’s being said in both), up until the end of the story, when the two diverge. I won’t tell you what happens in each, but it’s worth experiencing both.

3. What Medical Ethics?

Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro (Film adaptation: Never Let Me Go)
Ishiguro’s novel asks a question similar to that in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?: at what point is a piece of technology human enough to require the ethical treatment that is (ideally) offered to humans? The technology in question here is cloning: complete human clones have been developed for organ harvesting. The dystopian elements of this society are hidden beneath a seeming utopia for the human population, since illness has become a thing of the past. But for the clones, who are still very much human, it is a dystopic nightmare in which they are, essentially, medical livestock.

Never Let Me Go is told from the point of view of Cathy H., a clone who reminisces about her school days, young adult life, and complex interpersonal relationships as her donation date nears. Cathy’s tone is eerily calm and rife with euphemism (“completion” is the chilling word used for the death of a clone who has finally donated too much or too vital an organ to survive). She is also heartbreakingly obedient: even though humans do not consider the clones human, they do take the precaution of training them to be true to their horrible tasks in special institutions that seem, for all intents and purposes, like boarding schools.

Mark Romanek’s film adaptation is very true to this tone. Muted colors, idyllic country landscapes, and quiet hospital corridors lead viewers to horrifying images (Kiera Knightley’s final scene is particularly jarring), and Alex Garland’s script preserves the book’s most important scenes. Both the film and the book are a somber reminder that one man’s utopia will almost always be another man’s (or clone’s) dystopia.

4. The Opiate Of The Masses

A Scanner Darkly, by Philip K. Dick (Film adaptation: A Scanner Darkly)
In this dystopia, nearly the entire population has become addicted to a powerful narcotic called “Substance D,” or “Death.” No one knows where the drug comes from or how to stop the supply, so numerous undercover agents infiltrate California’s seedy underbelly to try to find out. One of them, Agent Robert Arctor, who reports to his superiors in disguise under the codename “Fred,” has accidentally become addicted to D himself. When Fred is asked to focus his investigation on Robert Arctor, surveillance over his home, friends, and even himself gives him crippling paranoia.

Richard Linklater’s 2006 animated film adaptation is not a perfect movie, but it’s still one of my favorite dystopian adaptations. The casting is great—nobody can play a fried cop like Keanu Reeves as Arctor, and nobody can play an agitated know-it-all like Robert Downey, Jr., as Arctor’s paranoid roommate, Barris—and the slippery animation style forces the viewer to feel, well, drugged. I’d always recommend reading the book before seeing the movie, but in this case doubly so: the novel is very complex and the movie works as an illustration of that complex story, even if it doesn’t necessarily succeed in telling the story on its own.

What are your favorite dystopian novels (and film adaptations)?