Idiocracy (movie)

Last modified: 2009-04-24 by marc pasquin
Keywords: film | movie | idiocracy | united states of america |
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• Introduction
• United States of America
• Courtroom's Flags

• Fictional flags
• Fictional flags in films

At IMDB.com, the 2006 movie Idiocracy is presented thus:

Private Joe Bauers, the definition of "average American", is selected by the Pentagon to be the guinea pig for a top-secret hibernation program. Forgotten, he awakes 500 years in the future. He discovers a society so incredibly dumbed-down that he's easily the most intelligent person alive.

by António Martins-Tuválkin, 5 August 2007
(ed. note: the text is only shown to give an idea. some samples seem to indicate the words are actualy a list of companies. )

Film director Mike Judge (or who ever responsible for flag props in this movie) included a hardly changed US flag. This screen capture (at the Internet Movie Database) is a bit overexposed: I suppose usual Old Glory (dark) shades for red and blue. The design is a bit unstandard, with 3:5 ratio, and 18 yellow (five-pointed, regular, upright) stars in a staggered pattern (3×4+2×3); then there are the 13 usual stripes.

I suppose that this variant is within the expected range even by today standards, so this may not be *the* U.S. flag of 2506 in the fictional setting of this story, but it is there.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 5 August 2007

Actually, your flag has 11 stripes. The screen capture seems to have 10, but the uppermost red stripe may be obscured. Either way the "13 usual stripes" seem to have gone the way of the "usual white stars"
David Kendall, 5 August 2007

The stripes are definitely not usual - if you look closer you'll see they are actually rows of red letters. Can't see what's written there, probably some brand names, in the Idiocracy world everything is commercialized, so I guess it's even possible to buy ad space on the national flag...
Mariusz Borkowski, 5 August 2007

Indeed my image shows 11 because I also assumed that an upper red stripe is obscured in the screenshot. Anyone who watch this movie please pay attention for us.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 5 August 2007

I hunted for better images on line but found only many (many!) instances of the same few images — none of them was clear enough to confirm this. See here, the largest copy of the one already mentioned, at the IMDb site. Mariusz, did you watch this movie? Could you provide a better picture with these letters showing? (Even if not readable.)

Anyway this yellow-star (and red-letter-stripe?) flag is seen in the bike scene, but other flags displayed in this movie do not share these features -- adding to the idea that in this year 2506 flag manufacture is not at an all time best, which agrees with the setting. So, we can say that this is *an* erroneous US flag shown in the movie, but not *the* US national flag as per the movie's plot.

• Here's what seem to be regular US flags printed on shirts: Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, Image 4, Image 5
• And also an apparently regular US flag (in a T-rex uniform…): Image 1
• More from the bike scene, front photo (all the same): Image 1, Image 2, Image 3
• More from the bike scene, bus close up: Image 1
• More from the bike scene, bike close up: Image 1
• And lots of copies of the same image as at the IMDb site: Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, Image 4, Image 5, Image 6, Image 7, Image 8, Image 9, Image 10,

I tried, but can't find anything better than these: Image 1, Image 2. However, I'm pretty sure the first row below the canton is: CARL'S JR - COSTCO - ... Also, sure the T-rex uniform's one is regular, as this one is from 1939, not 2506.
Mariusz Borkowski, 8 August 2007

The large flag hanging behind the speaker's desk is definitely 11-stripped, the red stripes consisting lines of text sent in a very bold and typgraphically dark face, slightly slanted; its stars are indeed yellow, perhaps a bit denser than regular, and 25 in number, arranged in seven staggered rows of four and three stars each.

The settings of its use (presidential bike, its armoured bus escort, and the Senate(?) speaker's desk backwall) imply that this is *the* 2506 U.S. national in this movie, after all.

Gotta watch this movie to find the motive for the number 25 (a half-brain version of the current US?) and need a very good flat image, or a detailed description, of the text making the red stripes.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 9 August 2007

I recently saw this, and have a few observations: The names of the businesses that make up the stripes on the flag seem to be ones that are mentioned (parodied) in the movie; by 2506, Costco's [a warehouse store] apparently function as small cities, Starbucks are whorehouses and Carls Jr. [burger joint] operates robotic kiosks that spurt tranquilizing gas. (I'm thinking there weren't a lot of commercial tie-ins.) There is at least one exceptionto the strip text, though; the third red stripe reads "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA." I could not discern the other names on my TV, but it was close enough that it should be easy for someone with a bettter one (or we can wait until someone gets their hands on the actual props, or the movie comes out on Blu-Ray). But in the meantime, I thought Antonio's version had one fault, being excessively bolded. The font seemed much lighter to me.
Eugene Ipavec, 10 January 2008