![]() ![]() ![]() The adult authority figures wear drab outfits with too many buttons and fret about the spread of personal expression in the form of unnatural hair colors. The performances are all bright and overstated, and there's no romantic chemistry in any of the various character pairings. The plot of Utopia Falls is really driven by basic YA-dystopia nonsense about New Babyl's secrets, plus some dull romantic intrigue among the flatly characterized teens. Later on, the candidates introduce step-style dancing into the mix, which is meant to be equally shocking, but in practice it's often hard to tell the difference between this society's "acceptable" music and movement and the transgressive hip-hop elements.Īll of the hip-hop stuff is mostly just window dressing anyway. Bodhi shocks the powers that be by freestyling over standard New Babyl beats during an Exemplar performance, speaking truth to power and then literally dropping the mic. He feels that it speaks to his life in Reform Sector, which is a poorly defined district that includes criminals as well as their families and other undesirables of some kind (New Babyl has no racial or ethnic divides, but the Sectors form a sort of caste system). ![]() Hearing the kids argue over who's the best MC in hip-hop is like listening to your high school history teacher desperately trying to sound cool.īodhi is the Exemplar candidate who forms the strongest connection to the newly discovered music. The producers obviously want to connect the rebellious spirit of hip-hop with the burgeoning rebelliousness of their characters, but there's no sense of the fire and creativity of great rappers in these hopelessly square teens. Inside the Archive, Bodhi, Aliyah and their fellow Exemplar candidates discover the wonders of hip-hop, which is just about the only piece of cultural history they bother paying attention to, even though the room is also full of books and Snoop's computer voice offering access to the entirety of popular music and visual media. ![]()
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