Setting
The film portrays the future in a quirky, satirical manner. Most people speak in an odd formal dialect with sanitized euphemisms, such as "joy-joy." Profanity is outlawed and its use triggers automatically dispensed citation. All restaurants are Taco Bells, which "won the franchise wars" and evolved into fine-dining establishments that serve nouvelle cuisine. Twentieth-century advertising jingles are heard as popular music. Sexual intercourse and french kisses are illegal. In addition, it is stated there are no "non-natural caused deaths" since 2016; when Phoenix murders the CryoPrison warden and officers in order to escape, the police are notified with a "1–8–7" (Murder-Death-Kill), a code none of them can remember. Firearms can only be found at a museum and officers carry stun batons that act like tasers. In terms of police training, virtually none is given towards physical combat. As one policeman states, "We're police officers! We're not trained to handle this kind of violence!" Furthermore, they are highly dependent on handheld computers to instruct them on how to handle volatile situations, rather than using their own judgement.
By 2032, toilet paper has fallen out of use; a set of three seashells is provided in every toilet stall. Though their method of use is left unexplained in the movie and is instead left to the viewer's imagination, Stallone later suggested a possible method in an interview as told to him by one of the film's writers involving extraction with two and scraping with one.
A passing reference is made to the political era, including the U.S. Presidency of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Huxley explains to Spartan that the Constitution had been amended to allow Schwarzenegger to be elected despite his foreign birth. In the 1990s, Schwarzenegger had been mentioned as a potential candidate for political office, although at the time the movie he had an honorary posting as chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, and he did run successfully for Governor of California ten years later. Schwarzenegger and Stallone often make tongue-in-cheek references to one another in their films, notably in Last Action Hero which was released the same year as Demolition Man.
Read more about this topic: Demolition Man (film)
Famous quotes containing the word setting:
“Many working mothers feel guilty about not being at home. And when they are there, they wish it could be perfect.... This pressure to make every minute happy puts working parents in a bind when it comes to setting limits and modifying behavior.”
—Cathy Rindner Tempelsman (20th century)
““Oh, let’s go up the hill and scare ourselves,
As reckless as the best of them tonight,
By setting fire to all the brush we piled
With pitchy hands to wait for rain or snow....””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Like plowing, housework makes the ground ready for the germination of family life. The kids will not invite a teacher home if beer cans litter the living room. The family isn’t likely to have breakfast together if somebody didn’t remember to buy eggs, milk, or muffins. Housework maintains an orderly setting in which family life can flourish.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)