Future Technology in Iranian Science-Fiction Cinema: Technophilia or Technophobia

The study of future images is one of the topics of interest in the interdisciplinary field of futures studies. Some of the world's leading futurists, including Fred Polak, Jim Dator, Wendell Bell, Sohail Inayatullah, and others, have focused on studying future images. Cinema is one of the main sources of future images. In this article, the technology image that has been constructed in animated film "Tehran 2121" will be analyzed, that show Iran a century later.

The method used is discourse analysis, applying its critical aspect in an attempt to deconstruct future images.

Discourse analysis showed that this film is a reproduction of the discourse of Technophilia and even Technologism that has a long history in Western science-fiction cinema. Therefore, by borrowing the concept of "used future" from Sohail Inayatullah, it can be claimed that the film, suggests the “used future” of the West cities for the future of Tehran. This used future in the past decades considered as the future of major cities in the world, especially in USA and other leading countries. At the same time, an attempt has been made to cover up this fundamental imitation by giving Islamic-Iranian appearance to the film.

In such films, only the aspects of technical, attractive special effects and advanced cinematic techniques are not important, and beyond that, we should pay attention to the images that can be created in the audience.