The Unoriginality of 'Equilibrium'

Last time we covered one of the most well known pieces of science fiction of the past few decades, 'The Matrix', and what lead to its inception. I did my best to cover everything I could think of in that analysis, but one thing I forgot to mention was the impact that the film itself had on pop culture. Amongst countless parodies and ripoffs, there are a few cases that stand adequately on their own. One of which is the film 'Equilibrium', released in 2002. Highly reminiscent of 'The Matrix', Kurt Wimmer's sci-fi epic is more on the low budget side of things, but in my opinion it's still a good movie with a lot of ambition. This time the influences are a little less plentiful, but all the more obvious.

Contrary to what some people might think, 'Equilibrium' and 'The Matrix' actually don't share that much in common. It's just that some people believe that anything even remotely similar to 'The Matrix' is an automatic ripoff. Now I won't deny it's similarities to 'The Matrix'. The action sequences bear some resemblance, the characters have the same fashion sense, the films look very similar (minus the green tinting), and it's difficult to say if the latter film would have been made at all if not for the impact that 'The Matrix' had on audiences in the early 2000's (I have no intentions of determining which is better between the two, because once again this is a constructive analysis).

'Equilibrium' actually contains a lot more references to classic science fiction stories such as 'Fahrenheit 451' and '1984', as it's a film about a dystopian future as opposed to an alternate reality. As far as '1984' is concerned, the concepts are basically identical: A society in which people are given no freedom to express themselves due to the watchful eye of a dictator. Big Brother in '1984' and Father in 'Equilibrium' share the same role of manipulating the way people think and feel. The only difference is that the citizens of Libria (the fictional society in 'Equilibrium') are given a pill that prevents them from feeling any emotion, while in Oceania (the fictional society in '1984') people keep in line through reverence of Big Brother and what he represents. There is a lot of political allegory behind this that I won't get into, but you can see how the two are similar.

As for 'Fahrenheit 451', it's less about the story itself and more about how it plays out. The protagonists in both stories support the system at first, but soon realise what they are really contributing to and rebel against it in the end. John Preston in 'Equilibrium' is an elite law enforcer who seeks out any form of art and destroys it before it can be exposed to the people of Libria. Guy Montag in 'Fahrenheit 451' stands for the same purpose, though his main prerogative is to burn any form of literature that hasn't already been destroyed. Both characters have something to hide: Preston is intentionally missing his pill every morning, while Montag is secretly reading books despite there being a law against it. Even one of the characters in 'Equilibrium' is executed for reading poetry at the hands of Preston himself.

Like the Wachowski's, Wimmer also paid a lot of homage to Philip K Dick. This time with more of a connection to 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep' and it's film adaptation 'Blade Runner'. The detective style storyline is similar in both films, and the infamous eye shot from 'Blade Runner' is repeated at the end of 'Equilibrium' as well. Minor connections can be made to Dick's other works as well, but these are very minor, so I won't touch upon them.

Above all I believe the main influence for 'Equilibrium' is human history, particularly the reign of the Nazi's in World War II. I'm no historian, nor one to take interest in making such comparisons, so I'll leave it at just that.

Consider this a follow-up to my last article that I wrote for 'The Matrix'. I very much enjoyed writing both, so I might just continue to do these into the future.