It has become clear, in these last decades of decadence, decline, towering institutional violence, and rampant bad taste, that American life is stuck somewhere inside the Paul Verhoeven cinematic universe. In the bloody, satirical sci-fi films that made his name with American audiences, Verhoeven dealt in a singularly unappealing vision of the future, one both luridly inventive and careful about where not to be imaginative. "RoboCop," from 1987, set in a futuristic Detroit, is a gleeful exaggeration of the anxieties of Reagan-era urban life: the office towers are even more isolated, and their boardrooms more brazenly sociopathic; the popular culture is a tick or two more savage and leering; the police are more overmatched and the streets more ungovernable. "Total Recall," released in 1990 and adapted from a short story by Philip K. Dick, does feature humans living on Mars, a private company that implants bespoke memories in its clients, and a brassy three-breasted space prostitute, but its vision of 2084 is in other respects familiar. Mars is dirty, violent, and unequal, and the colony is overseen by the private security force of a capitalist who has staked out a monopoly on oxygen itself.

Star Trek turned 50 in 2016. In its half-century of existence -- on TV, on the big screen, and in the worldwide community of its fans -- Star Trek has become an integral part of our everyday lives. Even casual viewers know the pointed ears, the Vulcan salute, and the meaning of "beam me up, Scotty." Yet, Star Trek does not owe its enduring popularity and its place in our collective imagination to its aliens or to its technological speculations. What makes it so unique, and so exciting, is its radical optimism about humanity's future as a society: in other words, utopia.