If you were hoping for a future full of tech-driven conveniences without life-altering strings attached, Incorporated wants you to know you’re shit out of luck. The future is corporate, and being a company man might be pretty damn deadly.
A new trailer for the upcoming Syfy show gives us a good look at one of the corporate overlords dictating the lives of future humans: Spiga Biotechnics.
In Incorporated’s 2074 future, corporations are all-powerful. Following disasters both natural and economical, governments all of the world collapsed. Corporations took on the role of government, and in just under 50 years, genetic engineering, self-driving cars, and many, many HUDs are all a part of everyday life. Company employees live in “Green Zones” — little pockets of luxury provided by corporations — in exchange for one’s soul.
Outside of the Green Zones are the Red Zones, which, as their name might suggest, are not as nice as the Green Zones. Whereas Green Zones are filled with luxury and safety, Red Zones exist outside of corporate purview and don’t enjoy the same cushy safety and pleasure that Green Zones provide inhabitants. In this world, they’re called “have-nots”; a not-so-subtle nod to the classist future of the H.G. Well sci-fi classic, The Time Machine.
Incorporated follows Ben Larson (Sean Teale), who — much like Ethan Hawke’s Vincent in the bleak future of Gattaca — is committed to living a lie in order to gain access to a Green Zone and the company which controls it. But unlike Vincent in Gattaca, Ben is doing all of this for love.
In a world where company loyalty dictates quality of life and everything from your morning coffee to your commute is controlled by some kind of big business, what does freewill look like and what’s the price? If your choices are living in a high-tech paradise in exchange for the surrender of conscience and total autonomy or having total freedom but living in danger under very poor conditions, is there a way that anybody outside of the corporations can come out on top? All of this makes Incorporated look like the a cautionary sci-fi epic with an Occupy Wall Street bent.
From Executive Producers Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, Incorporated premieres on Syfy on November 30.
