It's a dark and foreboding world where the sun never shines. Perpetual rain, endless darkness, cities turned into rubble. The helicopters always are hovering, seeking out small bands of humans who are fighting to stay alive following a nuclear catastrophe caused by intelligent computers that decided to put an end to humankind.

Or, on the surface, we see a beautiful world. Sunny skies, tree-lined streets, a crime-free society where every good thing is available in abundance, every bad thing banished from the globe. But beneath the veneer are dark secrets. Individuals are forbidden to have families; they reproduce through carefully monitored test tubes that screen out genetic imperfections. There are no freedoms, no rights. Individuals must plod along, ever-mindful of the watchful eye of the state.

Perhaps the world seems much like our own, but that world isn't for real. It is a computer-created construct, and the real people live out their lives in pods, serving as glorified batteries to provide energy for the advanced computer beings that control things.

These are typical themes in "dystopian" movies, the popular stories about what could happen if some current trend is taken to an extreme conclusion. Utopia, says Webster, is "a place of ideal perfection, especially in laws, government and social conditions." Dystopia is its opposite - a future where something fundamental has gone wrong, often at the hands of those who are trying to create a utopia.

Nothing I hate more than utopian ideas. Man is a sinful creature, and Heaven will not be on this Earth. Yet political planners have always wanted to create the perfect here-and-now, a place where there is no suffering, no want, no needs, and everything works like clockwork. In history, those who have gained enough power to implement utopian ideas have ended up creating the most stunning real-life horrors, such as Stalin's Russia, Hitler's Germany, Mao's China.

In Pol Pot's Cambodia, ideologues undertook a mind-boggling experiment to remake all of society. As the "Black Book of Communism" explains, "Money was abolished in a week; total collectivization was achieved in less than two years; social distinctions were suppressed by the elimination of entire classes of property owners, intellectuals and businessmen; and the ancient antagonism between urban and rural areas was solved by emptying the cities in a single week." The result: Corpses piled mountain-high.

Too bad it wasn't merely a horror movie.

It takes a strong constitution to hear the stories of 20th century totalitarianism. But there are few things I enjoy more than the fictional stories of what might happen to our world if eugenics, or cryogenics, or artificial intelligence, or certain trends in government continue. They serve as warning signs about the results if men like Pol Pot take charge, reminders of what happens when government becomes too powerful, with current events providing fodder for such stories.

Not all science fiction is dystopian. Some popular movies, such as "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" are based on utopian ideas - on the notion that the state will ultimately prove beneficent and that mankind can solve every problem if only the bad guys get out of the way.

But dystopian stories abound. Despite Hollywood's liberal bent, such movies are inherently libertarian. No matter the specifics, they focus on individuals who refuse to give up their humanity in the face of all-controlling computers, government authorities or some other totalitarian, dehumanizing force. Here's a list of my favorite dystopian movies, in no particular order:

"Minority Report": This most recent of dystopian movies features a world in which crimes are solved before they happen, thanks to a Department of Precrime, which dispatches officers to the site based on the psychic predictions of three "precogs" - humans born with amazing abilities to predict the future. Its release, during the debate about homeland security, was well-timed and viewers surely could relate to the plight of the precrime officer, played by Tom Cruise, who runs for his life after being identified as a murderer in a precog's vision.

"The Matrix": My all-time favorite movie features the story line from the third paragraph of this column. Nothing is what it seems. The real world is a computer program. Keanu Reeves - yes, he acts well in this role - plays a computer hacker who is given a choice: Take the blue pill and live in the fantasy world, or take the red pill and face up to a dismal totalitarian reality. He takes the red pill, recognizing that the first step to creating a free world, without limits or controls, is to face up to the truth. It's a good lesson for us, one I hope is reiterated in the two sequels.

"Blade Runner": Harrison Ford hunts down genetically engineered replicants who want nothing more than to live past their four-year predetermined lifespans. The 1982 film is a dystopian classic about what it means to be alive.

"Brazil": Here's a story about bureaucracy run amok, with a key character (Robert DeNiro) who is an outlaw because he repairs the byzantine network of HVAC ducts without a license. In a world of bleak government housing complexes, drab bureaucracies and surly government workers, one low-level official fights to right a wrong, and gets crushed by a system more intent on self-protection than justice. Written and directed by Monty Python's Terry Gilliam, the movie is, surprisingly, a comedy.

"Road Warrior": This post-nuclear holocaust story is like a futuristic western, with Mel Gibson playing a loner who helps a small community of civilized people fight off the punk-rock barbarians who seek nothing more than the settlers' oil.

"Terminator": Arnold Schwarzenegger as an evil cyborg sent from the future to kill a woman who is destined to give birth to a man who will lead a rebellion against the post-apocalypse computers that run society.

"Terminator II": Arnold Schwarzenegger as a good cyborg sent from the future to protect, from a more advanced evil cyborg, the woman's child. Both movies are fabulous, and it's a rare instance where the sequel is as good as the original.

"Gattaca": The most realistic dystopian movie I've seen, "Gattaca" is a slow-paced character drama in which a man born naturally rather than in a genetically engineered test tube seeks to excel in a world where his kind are relegated to lowly tasks.

"Impostor": An interesting Philip Dick story ("Minority Report," "Total Recall," "Blade Runner" also are based on this former Fullerton resident's futuristic novels and short stories) about a world pre-occupied by fear of alien invaders. A respected scientist has his life turned upside-down when he is accused of being an alien who has taken the body and mannerisms of the real scientist. Another "what does it mean to be alive" story with a great plot twist - never mind the bad reviews.

"Total Recall": A classic "is it real or is it fake" drama in which Arnold Schwarzenegger either is having the dream of his life thanks to a computer-generated memory implant, or is a spy who goes to Mars and saves a colony from its evil tormentors.

"Dark City": Why is it always dark? Why can't the main character remember who he is? Why can't anyone remember the way to Shell Beach? Perhaps it's because this retro-looking city is actually a reconstructed city on a space ship, run by space aliens who rearrange individual lives, telekinetically change the streetscape and rearrange families and memories as an experiment to learn about humanity.

Some other dystopian movies worth watching: "Running Man," "Clockwork Orange," "Demolition Man," "Fahrenheit 451," "1984," "The Truman Show," "THX 1138," "Metropolis" and "Soylent Green." Go to the video store and rent them, unless of course a nuclear holocaust, intelligent but surly computers, futuristic androids, evil aliens or nasty government officials get to you first.