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Demolition Man Plot

Demolition Man is an American science fiction-action film released in 1993. It was directed by Marco Brambilla, written by Peter M. Lenkov, Robert Reneau and Daniel Waters, and produced by Joel Silver and Howard Kazanjian. It stars Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, Nigel Hawthorne and Sandra Bullock. Some aspects of the movie allude to Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel, Brave New World.

The film is a story about two men, one an evil crime lord and the other a risk-taking police officer, who are cryonically frozen in the year 1996 and reawakened to face each other in 2032, by which point Los Angeles has become part of a utopian planned city.

Demolition Man grossed $58,055,768 by the end of its run at the North American box office.

John Spartan is the 21st Century's most dangerous cop.
Simon Phoenix is its most ruthless criminal.
THE FUTURE ISN'T BIG ENOUGH FOR BOTH OF THEM.
—tagline

Although the initial scenes are set in a dystopian version of Los Angeles, circa 1996, most of the film is set in the year 2032, where San Angeles, California has become a peaceful, sanitized paradise. In the film, San Angeles has been created from the joining of Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Diego and the surrounding metropolitan regions following a massive earthquake.

Simon Phoenix (played by Wesley Snipes) is incarcerated in a "cryoprison" that keeps its prisoners cryonically frozen in suspended animation as a sentence for his activities as a crime lord in 1990s Los Angeles. He escapes during a parole hearing and soon embarks on a reign of terror throughout the city of San Angeles. Because police officers no longer know how to deal with violent criminals, supercop John Spartan (Sylvester Stallone), aka "The Demolition Man", is paroled from the cryoprison for the purpose of apprehending Phoenix. Spartan owes his 36-year term in the cryoprison to Phoenix - while trying to capture Phoenix in 1996, Spartan destroyed his headquarters and allegedly killed a busload of passengers Phoenix was holding as hostages. Phoenix lied to the police and said that he had warned Spartan about the hostages, while in reality (as Phoenix later revealed) they were already dead and cold, thus rendering them invisible to Spartan's thermoscan. The authorities chose to believe Phoenix's rendition of events, and Spartan was made the scapegoat.

It is revealed that the ruler of San Angeles, Dr. Raymond Cocteau (Sir Nigel Hawthorne), engineered the escape of Simon Phoenix in order to have him kill resistance leader Edgar Friendly (Denis Leary) and allow Dr. Cocteau to assert even stronger control over his citizens. Friendly's resistance movement, dubbed "The Scraps", is made up of homeless people and refugees living on the margin of society in the underground ruins of the old city, periodically raiding the surface for food. Unfortunately for Cocteau, he did not anticipate that the SAPD would revive Spartan in order to try to stop Phoenix. Cocteau also underestimates the criminal genius of Phoenix (much as Spartan had) and is killed. Phoenix takes control of the cryoprison and begins to reanimate every violent criminal in the facility to create an elite street gang and form a new base of power.

Spartan and his partner, Lenina Huxley (Sandra Bullock), attempt to stop Phoenix from rebuilding his criminal empire in a San Angeles ill-equipped to resist it. Spartan tracks down Phoenix in the Cryoprison and finished him for good. With Cocteau dead, the city is in disarray as their planned city is unprepared for a more chaotic future, and Friendly wants to celebrate his death with a wave of anarchy. Spartan advises that the police chief and the surface dwellers get "a little dirtier" while Friendly and the scraps get "a lot cleaner", before leaving with Huxley.

The film depicts a future society in which crime and violence are rare and seen as remnants of the 20th century.

Hints are dropped throughout the movie that the United States underwent a period of anarcho-capitalism before it was stabilized. In particular, Taco Bell is the only restaurant available, because it won the "Franchise Wars". (In the Australian and some European versions of the film, this was changed to Pizza Hut. In some television edits, the restaurant name was removed altogether.)

Several distinctive euphemisms and neologisms are used in the film: homicide is referred to as a "non-sanctioned life termination" and as "Murder Death Kill" or "MDK." Homicide has not happened in over 20 years, and has almost been forgotten. In addition, even the mildest profanity is a violation of the Verbal Morality Statute, and punishable by a fine of one half to one credit per violation, which is automatically deducted from a citizen's finances. The perpetrator is dispensed a ticket by a machine.

Physical contact was recognized as causing the spread of disease and is now seen as unusual. "Sex" is no longer a physical act for the same reasons, and even kissing is not condoned. Instead, 'Vir-Sex' is performed by using sex simulators worn on the participants' heads to replace physical intercourse. Procreation is done in a laboratory when granted a license.

It is explained that anything deemed "bad for you" is now illegal, including:
Abortion
Alcohol
Caffeine
Contact sports
Gasoline
Meat and unhealthy food
Non-educational toys
Obscenity
Pregnancy without a license
Spicy food
Table salt
Tobacco

As with other films set in the future, many new technologies are shown. Some of these have subsequently been invented and a few are even widespread.

The addition of skills to the brain during the cryogenic process in order to aid rehabilitation

Profanity Sensors which automatically print out tickets and fines whenever a person utters out a swear word. The typical responses include: '(name), You are fined one credit for a violation of the Verbal Morality Statute.', '(name), You are fined one half credit for a sotto voce violation of the Verbal Morality Statue.', 'Your repeated violation of the Verbal Morality Statute has caused me to notify the San Angeles Police Department, please remain where you are for your reprimand."

"Laser defibrillation" to remove people from their frozen state.

Retinal scan

CCTV (including audio) covering every location except the underground areas.

Video conferencing and videophones

Toilet paper replaced by "three seashells", a concept unexplained in the film.

Electronic tagging of the population, coupled with GPS

"Auto drive" mode for cars

Automatic inflation of car tires after puncture

"Secure Foam" crash protection

Robotic paint sprinklers that spray complicated graffiti in seconds, countered by walls that remove it and disable the bots even quicker

Police officers have stun batons referred to as 'glow rods', with guns being relegated to museums

Voice-activated computers

Magnetic Accelerator gun (Acc-Mag), a firearm in a museum exhibit noted as being one of the most efficient rifles ever invented, although when used by Simon Phoenix it appears rather unwieldy and impractical, and takes an extremely long time to reload. This may, however, be attributable to Phoenix's unfamiliarity with the futuristic weapon.

Sex simulators worn on the participants' heads replace physical intercourse. These appear to function by influencing brain activity to replicate sexual arousal.

Many of these systems are linked together and used in the central headquarters of the police.

In the film's future society, the most popular music on the radio is based on television commercials (including the "Jolly Green Giant" jingle).

Props:
The particle weapon carried by Simon is actually a Heckler & Koch G11.
The futuristic police cars used by the SAPD are General Motors Ultralites.

Jack Black played one of the "Wasteland Scraps" in the underground scene. He's the Scrap that flinches when Spartan shoves the gun out of his face and says "And Cocteau's an asshole!"

Jesse Ventura, former WWE wrestler and later Governor of Minnesota, played one of Simon Phoenix's Cryocon allies.

An uncredited Rob Schneider played Erwin, one of the operators in the San Angeles Police control room; he would also play opposite Stallone in the 1995 movie Judge Dredd.

Sandra Bullock replaced original actress Lori Petty in the role of Lt Lenina Huxley after a few days filming.

Former professional wrestling superstar Bill Goldberg appears in the film in a cameo.

The future world portrayed in the movie, in which human reproduction has been entirely relegated to medical science, and society is free from crime and violence, is reminiscent of Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World (1932). The name of Bullock's character, Lenina Huxley, combines Huxley's name with that of Lenina Crowne, a major character in the novel. Additionally, both Chief Earle and Huxley refer to John Spartan as a "savage" - making him "John the Savage" (another character from Brave New World). In one scene, Phoenix comments that it is a "brave new world". In addition, the "Wasteland" is an underground community diametrically opposed to the sterility of the above ground society, similar to the "Savage Reservation" of Brave New World.

The Taco Bell reference noted above proved controversial; when the TBS network first screened the film, references to Taco Bell were edited out of dialogue during the relevant scene. In more recent broadcasts on TBS, the references to Taco Bell have been restored.

General Motors allowed the movie's producers to use many of their prototype automobiles such as Ultralite on the condition that the movie feature their Oldsmobile brand. This was requested to show that the brand had a future - which was in question even in 1993. In fact, the Oldsmobile marque was indeed retired eleven years later, long before the movie's fictional 2032 setting. The movie also featured an Oldsmobile 442 muscle car, which was used in the high-speed chase scene.

An "oldies" radio channel plays the music from television commercials, with one scene prominently promoting Armour hot dogs.

The theme song to the film is titled "Demolition Man" and is played over the end credits. It is a remix (heavier version) of the song originally written by Sting and recorded during his time as frontman for The Police. The song was first released in 1981, as the fifth track on the band's fourth album, Ghost in the Machine. Sting released an EP featuring this song and other live tracks, entitled Demolition Man.

Acclaimed composer Elliot Goldenthal scored the film, it was his second big hollywood film score after the Alien³ soundtrack; See also Demolition Man soundtrack.

Virgin Interactive released Demolition Man on various home video game systems. The 16-bit versions were distributed by Acclaim. The 3D0 version of the game was a first-person shooter that incorporated Full Motion Video scenes, with both Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes reprising their roles as their characters.

In April 1994, Williams released a widebody pinball game, Demolition Man (based on the movie). It is designed by Dennis Nordman. This game features sound clips from the movie, as well as original speech by Stallone and Snipes. This game was part of WMS' SuperPin series (Twilight Zone, Indiana Jones, etc.).