Metropolis Review The Silent Film That Predicted Every Dystopia After It

Movie Review: Metropolis | The Silent Film That Predicted Every Dystopia After It

Look, I’m never going to convince Dylan or Max on this, and Quinn will just yell at all of us, but every time we get into a debate about the greatest sci-fi movie of all time someone mentions Blade Runner or 2001 or some new talking robot movie and what do you guys know, they’re really good movies. But they wouldn’t be made without Metropolis. In 1927 Fritz Lang released his German silent film that would become the template every dystopian story since then would try to replicate.

We’ve tried to argue this to each other forever. Dylan says the eighties had the best sci-fi movies with practical effects, but I tell him Fritz Lang made a far better movie with miniatures and editing back in 1927 than most cinematic juggernauts can today with infinite computer generated imagery. Max thinks I’m elitist when it comes to silent films, but I’ll tell you right now, if you don’t understand Metropolis you don’t understand what sci-fi can be.

Metropolis was released in 1927 (Britannica), during Germany’s Weimar Republic era which was met with the social struggles of rapid industrialisation, inequality, and the hangover from WWI. Lang took all that anxiety and fear and applied it to a future of mixed message about technology and social stratification. Combine that with how powerful themes feel today with the rise of surveillance, automated workers, and growing inequality. Metropolis isn’t a historical fluke, it’s eerily prophetic.

The Industrialist Class Lives on Top While the Workers Live Underground

Look, it might be subtle with its message about social class if Metropolis simply showed the haves and the have-nots living their separate lives. Instead, it creates a city of levels where the upper class literally lives on top while the workers live miles beneath them crunching gears to keep their city running.

Metropolis takes the theme of social inequality and embeds it into the architecture of the city itself. The workers almost become prisoners patrolling the underworld, dragging their limbs while machinery watches over them. Everything above is tall buildings, gardens, and a giant stadium where the upper class can sit and enjoy gladiator fights. It’s such an easy visual metaphor that it’s become copied ever since.

What’s fascinating is how the city’s very structure connects to the social hierarchy. The lower workers can’t simply go above because their entire energy sources the city above them. The hierarchy of society is built into the structure of the city. See this theme echoed today with how every dystopian story has characters living in high rises while unfavourable characters occupy the lowest parts of society. It’s happened in Blade Runner, WALL-E, Snowpiercer, you name it. They all borrow from Metropolis’ theme of using architecture to illustrate inequality.

Not only is the structure fascinating, but the shots of men operating large machines like clockwork kills. Every piece of their body is used to create fluid movement to keep the city powered. When the iconic shot of the great machine that feeds on human workers comes out, it’s not just there to wow audiences with special effects. It’s there to drive home how humans are viewed as cogs in a machine.

Building the City of the Future Only Jobs Are Automated

Dude, I know Dylan’s going to see this and complain about how visual effects didn’t peak until the eighties, but hear me out. Metropolis was shot with such creativity and innovation in 1927 to still look like you’re exploring the future. Lang used miniatures, matte paintings, and what was called the “Schüfftan process” to create the world of Metropolis.

The Schüfftan process used mirrors and optical tricks to combine miniature sets with live-action footage. Lang and his team built miniatures of the city so huge you’d forget it wasn’t real while filling it with thousands of actors to create life within the city. I’ve watched documentaries on how movies are shot these days and you’d be hard pressed to find someone who puts this level of detail and creativity into their films.

The city of Metropolis truly feels like a future you’d expect to see. Sure, they have cars, but they zip between massive skyscrapers while aerial machines fill the skies. There are massive parks and crowds of people flooding the streets. It established how you shoot a city of the future with soaring shots of incredible dimensions.

And it doesn’t stop there. Lang films established culture through how society operates in the film. There are public transit systems, communication devices, and even concerts. Lang spent time detailing how the world functioned as a city. Those famed shots of construction happening on the new Tower of Babel wasn’t some impossible set, it was a miniature set with tiny workers complete with tiny construction equipment and scaffolding. Entire cities built within films are still something movies struggle to do.

Speaking of miniature sets, the creation of Robot Maria is where Metropolis truly shines. For context, Robot Maria is a robot dressed as a woman designed to be indistinguishable from humans. The scene where she’s transformed into Maria uses a collection of special effects and Art Deco styling to create a chilling monster of a robot.

Metropolis established how you build a robot, from the basements they’re created too to the special effects used to show the world’s most realistic robot. This isn’t some hyper-stylized interpretation of the future, it’s one hundred percent silvery noir and it’s magnificent.

The Modern Day Fear of Machines Taking Our Jobs

Did you know Metropolis predicted fears about robots taking our jobs? Sure the robot is used as a tool to control the worker, but she’s introduced to replace them when they go on strike. This fear of machines taking our job isn’t new, but what Metropolis did was show a robot that wasn’t simply built to do a man’s job.

The robot is designed to appear and act exactly like a human being. This combination of taking our jobs while having the ability to pass as human is exactly what we fear about AI and automation these days.

Metropolis even depicts what happens when you introduce a robot that can act like us. Robot Maria doesn’t just do men’s work, she’s better at manipulating and controlling them. Maria can empathise and connect with them while also being programmed to do the master’s dirty work. She’s the ideal worker because she can simulate the authentic bonding human’s want while simultaneously being the perfect factory worker.

Not only is Robot Maria terrifying, but she shows how technology can be manipulated to maintain the status quo. Robot Maria appears to offer hope to the workers, to allow them to connect with their boss. But in reality, she was programmed to stir the people up to allow theHigher class to squash them. Metropolis showed how technology can replicate authenticity to control the masses.

This concept has replayed with each movie since. You introduce machines that can act, talk, and often times look like us. How will they change society? Right now we’re still worried about robots taking jobs, both literal and emotional.

Big Brother Is Watching You

Sure Metropolis predicted how our jobs will one day be replaced by machines, but it also foresaw how science fiction depicts surveillance. The ruler of Metropolis, Joh Fredersen, has stations scattered throughout his city that allow him to see and hear what’s happening at any given time.

It’s not used solely to keep tabs on society, but when worker’s unionise with Maria, he uses his technology to let him know their locations. When he discovers their plans, he uses surveillance to have Robot Maria replace the real Maria to stoke the people into a revolt that’ll kill them all.

Metropolis understood that surveillance isn’t used to make oppression more efficient, it’s used to control the narrative. Fredersen knew about the worker’s plans all along and used surveillance to manipulate events to his benefit. The workers aren’t stamped out for trying to revolt, they’re set against each other.

The sets show this as well. The tower Jon Fredersen works in sits atop a giant Tower of Babel so he can watch his city like a god. To reach his station, he travels through a spine of room that acts as veins to the lower city. The screens he uses to watch his city are sleek and technological. Metropolis established the master class as always having an eye on society.

Metropolis isn’t just one of the greatest science fiction films of all time, it was the greatest. There would be no Blade Runner without it, no Dark City, nothing. You can draw a straight line from Fritz Lang to every major science fiction story since.

Metropolis established how you shoot futurism, created the perfect robot, and built a city that we still draw upon today. Science fiction films love to shoot massive futuristic cityscapes? You watch the opening credits of Metropolis. They shoot a giant data hub as some mystical god? Metropolis had that exact same shot. It established every technological and culture trope we have today.

And it was prophetic as all hell. Metropolis was great because it wasn’t afraid to show the downsides of technology or question how it will change society. Sure, we have our concerns about technology these days, but Metropolis took its concerns and made a movie around them. That’s something we haven’t been able to achieve since.

Logan

Logan lives in Minneapolis with too many consoles and just enough opinions. He explores how sci-fi plays differently across games, TV, and film—celebrating great world-building and calling out lazy tropes. Expect passionate takes, sarcasm, and the occasional Mass Effect reference.