Science fiction and animation are creative abilities that make people think again. The world is changing, and possibilities are becoming reality. What cannot be done precisely in real life can be investigated through animation.
Akira (1988)
Akira is set in a cyberpunk post-war Japan in the year 2019. War has devastated Neo-Tokyo. What is left is ruled by a corrupt administration, with restless demonstrators and murderous gangs constantly at odds. One among the gang members finds a hidden laboratory where espers, people with psychic powers, are being experimented on. They unleash another cataclysmic catastrophe that reshapes time and space while conspiring to topple the Japanese government using the untapped power of the espers.
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001)
The Movie is a film adaptation of the same-named space Western anime. Mars has been colonised in the year 2071. A strange terrorist gang is threatening to expose the human population to an unknown virus. Bounty hunters onboard the spacecraft Bebop confront the terrorist danger by tracking out the source of the virus in order to avoid their strike.
Fantastic Planet (1973)
Fantastic Planet is an avant-garde adult animated science fiction film about human rights. Humans are their animals on a weird world controlled by blue humanoid giants. Some are tamed, while others are murdered to manage population.
Ghost in the Shell (1995)
Ghost in the Shell is set in 2029 Japan, when society’s cybernetic advances threaten who individuals are and who they become. The human body is gradually being replaced by Internet-connected robot components, notably a cyberbrain encasement.
Memories (1995)
Memories is a Japanese science fiction anthology constructed around three manga stories written by Akira creator Katsuhiro Otomo. The first narrative, Magnetic Rose, depicts a rescue team responding to a distress call onboard a space station, unaware that they are the source of the station’s disarray.
Paprika (2006)
Paprika is a psychological science fiction thriller that depicts a future in which people are entitled to other people’s dreams. In the bizarre narrative, a study psychologist cures people’s nightmares by transforming into her dream world alter ego, dream detective Paprika. As Paprika struggles to balance each plane of existence, reality and dreams gradually merge.
The Iron Giant (1999)
The film The Iron Giant is based on Ted Hughes’ 1968 science fiction novel The Iron Man: A Children’s Story in Five Nights. During the Cold War, a young kid called Hogarth Hughes had a near encounter with a massive extraterrestrial robot. He conceals the crash-landed robot to prevent it from being annihilated by the US military, and he teaches it morality and character traits.
The Transformers: The Movie (1986)
The 1968 science fiction book The Iron Man: A Children’s Story in Five Nights by Ted Hughes served as the inspiration for the film The Iron Giant. A little kid called Hogarth Hughes and a massive extraterrestrial robot have a near encounter in the Cold War-era dramatisation. In order to prevent the U.S. military from destroying the crash-landed robot, he conceals it and teaches it values and character-building skills.
Treasure Planet (2002)
The science fiction version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s adventure book Treasure Island is called Treasure Planet. Pirate spacecraft fuelled by solar energy swoop over space and take its treasures. Jim Hawkins, a novice skysurfer, is fascinated by the legends of the disdainful space pirate Captain Flint.
WALL-E (2008)
In the movie WALL-E, a garbage compactor robot is abandoned on a filthy and desolate Earth for 700 years. With his pet cockroach, WALL-E kills time in the year 29th century by saving spare parts and trinkets. Through the human artefacts he gathers, he shapes his individuality. He also encounters EVE, an excavating robot looking for a sustainable way of life.
