6 Things Dystopian YA Blockbusters Have Taught Us

Stop me if you’ve heard it before: an alternate timeline, a future government where things are not quite right, and a young hero who rises to the challenge to change the world. Whether that future societal structure is desirable or not, there is always something that upsets the world order (or lack of order), and the protagonist becomes the catalyst of that. A steady trend of young adult blockbusters today is all about what happens in a world that’s not quite like our own but where current themes of society still remain.  If there’s one thing that the success of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games has proven, it’s that audiences everywhere—the youth or not—have a taste for the post-apocalyptic, and that the lessons we can learn from them are applicable even today.

The Feels: How Pixar Makes Us Cry Every Single Time

If you’ve never cried in a Pixar movie, you are not human. Admit it—those animated characters can go on the wildest of adventures and give you the biggest of laughs, but they somehow always know how to tug at just the right heartstring. Haven’t we learned by now that Pixar knows what it’s doing, and that we should expect that a depressing scene is coming? Apparently not, because we still always leave the theater bawling like a baby. Oh, Pixar; what have you done to us?