Product Details

• Format: Color, NTSC
• Studio: Simitar Video
• VHS Release Date: May 3, 1995
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: B0000063XQ
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #452,657 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two powerful, progressive visions of the future, July 23, 2003

By 

OAKSHAMAN "oakshaman" (Algoma, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Metropolis and Things to Come [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Here, on one tape, are two of the greatest futuristic visions of the first half of the 20th century.

METROPOLIS (1927), is the legendary German director Fritz Lang's silent vision of the troubled year 2000. The design work is stunning and far beyond its time. The art deco look of this film would go on to influence such later classics as Blade Runner and even Star Wars. Yet, it goes far beyond mere appearences, for this is a powerful tale of class struggle and transcendence. The ruling class of mighty Metropolis live lives of leisure, high in the sunlight in their ivory towers. The working class live hellish, regimented lives deep underground, serving the machines that are the city's heart and bones. Meanwhile the evil scientist, Rotwang, develops human-like androids to keep the workers enslaved- if not eliminate them entirely. Freder, son of the city's high administrator, cannot live with this situation and abandons his life of privalege to aid Maria, the saint-like comforter of the oppressed.

THINGS TO COME (1936), is H.G. Well's epic story of the destruction and rebuilding of human civilization. Released just three years before the start of the second world war, it prophecises the coming of a time of perpetual warfare where civilization is almost extinguished by chemical and bacteriological weapons. Mankind is thrown into a new dark age where the secrets of science and technology are all but lost. Enter the great John Cabel and his organization of united airmen and engineers, Wings Over the World. Cabel and his comrades win back the world from the warlords and bosses while putting an end to the twin evils of war and private property forever. They build a world where their descendents go on to conquer space- yet, even that is just the beginning.

These are two stirring tales from a time when men had a vision of a better future for everyone, not just for a privaleged few.