2. “Few other cities on earth – if any –
have been celebrated more widely or
memorably onscreen than New York.”
(Michael R.
Bloomberg, Mayor of
New York City.)
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3. “What’s
happened to
the American
Dream?”
“It came true.
You’re lookin’
at it.”
(Watchmen, 2009.)
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5. “If heaven is a ‘happy place’ then that ‘other’ place,
hell, the place of ‘the evil other,’ cannot be far away.
The figure of the city as a fulcrum of social disorder,
moral breakdown, and unmitigated evil – from
Babylon and Sodom and Gomorrah to Gotham – also
has its place in the freight of metaphorical meanings
that the word ‘city’ carries across our cultural
universe.”
(David Harvey, Spaces of Hope, 2000. pg 157.)
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6. “Gotham is New York’s noirish
side... whereas Superman’s
Metropolis presents New York’s
cheerier face.”
(New York Public Library)
"Metropolis is New York in
the daytime; Gotham City is
New York at night.”
(Frank Miller, writer of graphic novels Sin
City and 300)
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7. “Mother City.”
“City of Tomorrow.”
“…at the forefront of
industrial and
technological progress.”
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8. The World Trade Centre,
LexCorp, Metropolis.
New York.
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10. “…founded upon the
swampy soils of slow and
inexorable moral decay,
despite the best of
intentions.”
“…a rampant per capita crime rate.”
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11. “…the optimism of utopia and the pessimism of
dystopia represent opposite sides of the same coin.”
(Ruth Levitas, The Concept of Utopia, 1990, pg 139.)
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12. “It’s [utopia’s]
vigour and
popularity [that]
stimulated the
life of the
dystopia or anti-
utopia, its alter-
ego.”
(Krishan Kumar,
Utopianism, 1991, pg
47.)
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14. “I can help. I can save you.
I can save everybody!”
“God didn't
do this. We
did! ” I Am Legend (2007)
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15. Independence Day (1996)
“They're like locusts. They're
moving from planet to planet...
their whole civilization. After
they've consumed every
natural resource they move
on... and we're next.”
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16. “Everything I've ever
“We will fail to acknowledge that there cared about,
are forces at work beyond our everything I've
understanding.” worked for... has all
been preparation for a
future that no longer
exists.”
The Day After Tomorrow
The Happening (2008) (2004)
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17. “A world united in
peace... there had
to be sacrifice. ”
“This city's afraid of
me... I've seen its true
face.”
Watchmen (2009)
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18. “…fears of a global catastrophe brought on by environmental
destruction have swollen the anti-utopian currents. World society,
it has appeared to many, is being prepared not for… utopia…
but… dystopia or anti-utopia.”
(Krishan Kumar, Utopianism, 1991, pg 91.)
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19. “Dystopia (or Anti-utopia)
represents the fear of what the
future may hold if we do not act
to avert catastrophe, whereas
utopia encapsulates the hope of
what might be.”
(Ruth Levitas, The Concept of Utopia,
1990, pg 165)
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20. “…the concept of utopia is not a Hellenic
speculative fantasy, but a derivation from a
historic event: that indeed the first utopia
was the city itself.”
(Lewis Mumford, Utopia, The City and The
Machine in Utopias and Utopian Thought
edited by Frank E. Manuel, 1975, pg 3.)
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