Of course the movie can't address everything in its premise; but certain questions nag at me. For example:
Who works and who doesn't in this city? If you do work, do you get more perks?
Where is the food coming from? Why is the fish-farm deserted?
Where the hell does Box live? In a mountain ice-cave? And if he was a food supply worker, why isn't he sending the frozen runners back to the city?
Why does the Computer break down and the city blow up?
Why are the Cubs allowed to exist? Are delinquent youths the only criminals besides runners?
Why is Cathedral a ruin if the Computer maintains perfect balance?
Who maintains the power plant? Where are all these "servo-mechanisms" the opening credits mention.
Who calls Doc on the phone at the New You?
Wouldn't Computer need to be self-aware A.I. if she had to control an entire society and if she were, why would she go haywire upon finding out Sanctuary did not exist. Logan tells her all the runners were frozen.
Please feel free to address these queries and post any of your own!
I'm only talking about the 1976 movie here, not the book, tv show, etc.
>Who works and who doesn't in this city? If you do work, do you get more perks? I assume everyone of a certain age works. When Logan visits the nursery, they talk about certain babies being sandmen like it's a given so jobs must be assigned at birth. Doc has a job. Holly has a job. The guys who dispose of dead bodies have a job.
>Where is the food coming from? Why is the fish-farm deserted? No idea. Maybe they are eating fish though. Logan may talk about things in the movie but he can't know everything. He's just guessing. When Logan and Jessica start descending downward we definitely see fish in the tanks. Both Box and the old man talk of fish going away. Maybe these fish are not connected to the outside world but are still being farmed by the city's system.
>Where the hell does Box live? In a mountain ice-cave? And if he was a food supply worker, why isn't he sending the frozen runners back to the city? I don't think Box has anything to do with the city. For all questions Box, I quote Logan: "Everything made sense, until Box"
>Why does the Computer break down and the city blow up? All I see is the computer shut down Logan's surrogation. Then Logan and the sandmen start accidentally blasting the computer. So the computer didn't necessarily break down because of Logan's conclusion, it was destroyed in the shootout. I assume some process controlled by the computer overloaded and caused explosions since the computer could not limit it anymore.
>Why are the Cubs allowed to exist? Are delinquent youths the only criminals besides runners? I assume the computer doesn't have any code to care about the Cubs. Logan never talks about any crime. As far as we know, his only job is to hunt and terminate runners. At one point in the nursery, the computer says there is a break in but completely accepts Logan's statement of it being an accident. Maybe the computer would have some automated way of stopping the people breaking in?
>Why is Cathedral a ruin if the Computer maintains perfect balance? I guess the computer only balances the population? It's off grid?
>Who calls Doc on the phone at the New You? I think the deal is Logan tells Jessica basically he's gonna run and needs help. Jessica doesn't believe him and tells others in "the resistance". I don't know what to call them other than "the resistance". Some group of people are handing out ankhs keeping the idea of sanctuary alive. They want Logan dead so they have Jessica lure him to someplace where 2 guys attack him. That fails but the leaders of "the resistance" still want him dead so they call Doc.
Good answers however I think Logan directly aims his blaster at the computer at one point. So its destruction wasn’t completely accidental.
I also think it’s plausible that Box was flash freezing the runners he caught as an alternative food source for the inhabitants of the domed city after the fish stocks ran out. He notes that this new food source began to arrive after the old source gave out. It’s not clear if Box was merely stockpiling humans or making deliveries of this protein source. Shades of Soylent Green.
jamorse answered most but I have some slightly diff answers.
>Where is the food coming from? Why is the fish-farm deserted?
It seems that they are eating themselves to compensate for the dwindling fish.
>Where the hell does Box live? In a mountain ice-cave? And if he was a food supply worker, why isn't he sending the frozen runners back to the city?
Box is a robot. He doesn't "live," he performs a duty. I think it was implied that he freezes runners for the city food supply now in addition to plankton, sea greens, etc.
> Why are the Cubs allowed to exist? Are delinquent youths the only criminals besides runners?
>Why is Cathedral a ruin if the Computer maintains perfect balance?
>Who maintains the power plant? Where are all these "servo-mechanisms" the opening credits mention.
The computer is obviously NOT maintaining a perfect balance. Things are running down. Human life/freedom is straining an aging system.
>why would she go haywire upon finding out Sanctuary did not exist?
I never liked that part. Very dated trope of short circuiting a computer with information.
I've sometimes wondered if the cubs are allowed to exist as semi-feral in one specific area of the city because of adolescence & the natural streak of rebellion that arises then. They can live out their intense emotions & frustrations, then as they get just a little older, they return to the mainstream of the city.
Not insisting on this, just suggesting one possibility. :)
I wonder if it's a kind of "carousel training". The cubs kick out or kill anybody over the age of fifteen, right? (Or sixteen, anyway). If people lived like that, when the relatively peaceful carousel ceremony comes around (pun intended!) would they be more likely to accept it?