History Main / FalseUtopia

* [[spoiler:Inverted with]] The Sistar System in ''WesternAnimation/TheLEGOMovie2TheSecondPart''. The people are friendly and everyone is treated well, but Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi is transparently AffablyEvil, there are {{Stepford Suburbia}}s filled with unnervingly cheerful minidolls and abducted minifigs, and everyone sings an in-universe EarWorm that Wyldstyle is certain is a brainwashing technique. [[spoiler: Turns out it's a False Dystopia: the people really are happy, the song is harmless, and Whatevra was telling the truth; they're just really bad at communicating. And [[BitchInSheepsClothing Rex]], ''knowing this'', amost got Emmet to trash it.]]

* [[spoiler:Inverted with]] The Sistar System in ''WesternAnimation/TheLegoMovie2TheSecondPart''. The people are friendly and everyone is treated well, but Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi is transparently AffablyEvil, there are {{Stepford Suburbia}}s filled with unnervingly cheerful minidolls and abducted minifigs, and everyone sings an in-universe EarWorm that Wyldstyle is certain is a brainwashing technique. [[spoiler: Turns out it's a False Dystopia: the people really are happy, the song is harmless, and Whatevra was telling the truth; they're just really bad at communicating. And [[BitchInSheepsClothing Rex]], ''knowing this'', amost got Emmet to trash it.]]

* Disney/{{Bambi}}'s forest. Seriously. At first it seems like it is a wonderful dream land: all the animals are cute and nice and nature looks like a paradise. Then the humans arrive. Bambi's mom dies. And as the fawn grows up he fights more and more for survival.

* The world of ''Sugar Rush'' in Disney/WreckItRalph. This CrapsaccharineWorld is full of sugar... too bad all its inhabitants apart from Vanellope are jerks [[spoiler:and the King is outright evil, and his machinations are a major reason ''why'' the other inhabitants are jerks]]. Plus, all the sweetness TastesLikeDiabetes.

* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' story ''Discworld/{{Witches Abroad}}'', Lilith has made Genua into a fairy-tale kingdom with herself as the Good Fairy Godmother - except she does this by forcing Genua's people into their stereotyped roles. Cooks who are not plump and cheerful and toymakers who don't whistle and tell the children stories are either imprisoned and "re-educated" or simply disappear.

* ''Disney/{{Pinocchio}}'' has Pleasure Island, where children can go crazy: smoking, drinking, vandalism, everything is allowed. The Coachman simply "forgot" to mention that acting as a jackass on this island turns you into an actual donkey. Then you go serve in the salt mines, with no hope of going back to your family.

* ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3'' has Sunny Side. Lotso presents it like the best place any toy would dream of, where they will be played with forever. What he didn't say is that some unfortunate toys are forced to get chewed, brutalized and put in pieces by children too young to know better. And whether you like Sunny Side or not, [[TheAlcatraz Lotso and his minions make sure you stay forever]].

* At the beginning of the fifth season of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' the main cast heads to a small town in the middle of nowhere where everyone everyone is sincerely happy and the community is welcoming and kind, despite their creepy smiles and conformist attitude. However, in order to live there they've all had their special talents stripped away and have been brainwashed into thinking that this is a good thing. A few ponies miss what they've given up, but are too conditioned to accepting this as the One True Proper Path To Friendship that they don't seriously consider doing anything about it. The town's ruler seems to genuinely believe in what she's doing, but she's paranoid, unstable and hides that she's kept her own cutie mark so that she can continue forcing more and more new ponies to join.

* ComicBook/DoctorDoom has created Latveria, among other False Utopias, through the years. He often makes his people trust and worship him, even though he is an outright dictator. Note that he does try to bring peace, but with force.It may be played with, as well... When he actually gets to take over the world, he does a pretty good job of it!... By robbing people of their free will and making them slavishly devoted to him.

* ''Film/DemolitionMan'': The futuristic [[CityState city-state]] shown in the movie has its people think they are safe from harm, that violence has been erased from the world, and the tiniest thing like swearing is forbidden, but you barely get tickets for that. Apart from the fact that this world is completely ''boring'' to live in, it is anything but safe: a single psycho is enough to ruin its peace. And he was thawed out to take out a small community of people who wouldn't comply to the city's standards. [[TooDumbToLive And why the hell did these people keep working weapons and ammo in a museum with nothing but glass to keep them out of the wrong hands?]]

* ''Film/DemolitionMan'': The futuristic town shown in the movie has its people think they are safe from harm, that violence has been erased from the world, and the tiniest thing like swearing is forbidden, but you barely get tickets for that. Apart from the fact that this world is completely ''boring'' to live in, it is anything but safe: a single psycho is enough to ruin its peace. And he was thawed out to take out a small community of people who wouldn't comply to the city's standards. [[TooDumbToLive And why the hell did these people keep working weapons and ammo in a museum with nothing but glass to keep them out of the wrong hands?]]

* ComicBook/DoctorDoom has created Latveria, among other False Utopias, through the years. He often makes his people trust and worship him, even though he is an outright dictator. Note that he does try to bring peace, but with force.
** It may be played with, as well...when he actually gets to take over the world, he does a pretty good job of it!...by robbing people of their free will and making them slavishly devoted to him.
* Genosha, another fictional Marvel state that appears mainly in the ComicBook/XMen comics, is a rare subversion of this trope. When they first appear, they are presented as a little model democracy with a super-advanced economy and public health care, like a stereotypical Sweden on steroids. Then, however, it [[TheReveal turns out]] that the country secretly implements a super-harsh SuperRegistrationAct that basically reduces its [[FantasticRacism mutants]] to state slavery. But ''then'' the story takes pains to explain that the country ''really is'' a paradise for everyone else ''except'' the mutants--And with a few hundred of them in a country of ten million, this makes them [[CrapsackOnlyByComparison easily the smallest oppressed underclass in history]]. The Genoshan government also get to justify their harsh measures by appeals to national security, arguing that if not kept under strict control, the super-powered mutants will quickly [[BewareTheSuperman destroy their democratic way of life]]. And they are actually [[TheExtremistWasRight proved right]] by the story, as the X-Men, not buying this, free the mutants--Who then proceed to turn Genosha into a SuperSupremacist PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny that purges the majority population and is [[NiceJobBreakingItHero objectively far worse than the old regime in just about every way]].

* ''Literature/TheHanSoloTrilogy'': Ylesia turns out to be one for Pilgrims who settle there. While they have hard work, the Exultation gives them a feeling of intense pleasure and makes them feel united to the One. Unbeknownst for them though, in reality the Exultation is not divine or spiritual at all, it's just a natural mating call t'landa Til males use which if used on other species will affect them in this way. Han sees through it right away, but he isn't a believer. Worse, in the end they're all sold as slaves, and sent to mines or the Imperials' military brothels. Since the Exultation is very addictive though, most of them don't want liberation (they're not aware of the rest).

* ''VideoGame/BackToTheFuture'': In the alternate 1986, Doc Brown became the leader of Hill Valley and turned it into a totalitarian place, closed from the world, with people dressed in identical suits, forced or even brainwashed to be good, and watched 24 hours on 24. Doc actually wants his citizens to be happy, but his wife, Edna, is so obsessed with discipline that she makes him annihilate all freedom in the town.

* The Wizarding World of Literature/HarryPotter has some elements of this in general. Having spent his first ten years with the [[AbusiveParents Dursleys]], he is more than happy to attend Hogwarts and is amazed by the magic world. At first, it appears that everything there is better than the Muggle world. However, as the books grow DarkerAndEdgier, the Wizarding World's flaws become more and more apparent. The second book shows that it has racism and slavery. The third that it has horrible creatures like the [[EmotionEater Dementors]] in it and they're used by the government to run the HellholePrison. The fourth gives us a racial supremacist cult and [[KnightTemplar Barty Crouch]]. The fifth has Umbridge, who turns the school into a dictatorship. Looks less magical now, doesn't it?
** Talking about the fifth book, Cornelius Fudge tells everyone that Harry and Dumbledore lied about Voldemort's return. Nothing is wrong.

* ''Literature/OracleOfTao'' (only in the [[AdaptationExpansion book]]), the [[CosyCatastrophe New Earth]] has no income tax, no housing rent, small government, and alot of things about the universe that are fundamentally changed thanks to intervention from God. These tend to be mostly positive, although each town manages to be perverse (Opening charges a toll to ''leave'' town with guards literally cutting down people who can't pay... before being talked into funding the town by making the guards prostitutes, Shoten forces much of its male inhabitants wanting to visit Delphi to crossdress, Ghobli has a robust street-vendor economy yet charges excessive merchant's taxes, Zuran is ruled by whoever is the largest, and so on). Actually, what makes this world a false utopia is [[spoiler: the entire world isn't real]].

* ''Franchise/FactionParadox'' has the City of the Saved: a galaxy-sized city at the end of time where every human and human-descended individual is resurrected in immortal invulnerable bodies and can live forever in the closest thing the setting has to paradise... unless they're only part-human, [[FantasticRacism in which case they're second-class citizens and are generally thought of as lucky to have got in]]. In addition, humans and posthumans with non-human friends and lovers tend to be tragically disappointed when they realise their loved ones didn't make it into this human-supremacist heaven. House Halfling, the pressure group for part-human rights, explicitly pointed out that the City's culture will stagnate much faster with only human influences and that it is at present a rather unsatisfactory endpoint of history. [[SarcasmMode Fortunately that probably won't matter any more, as someone figured out a way to turn off the immortality, a civil war broke out, and one group's attempt to end it summoned an]] EldritchAbomination [[SarcasmMode from the universe after this one. So that's alright then]].

* The Community from ''Literature/TheGiver'' is a society of perfect order. Except when someone decides not to follow it, then they get killed. Also, there are no emotions or colours.

* MagiLabyrinthOfMagic: The University. It's an elitist culture where you have to be strong in ALL stats, but contains many caring individuals and cooperative guilds. Then Aladdin finds the slave pens, who the headmaster declares "are in their place, and even better off than before". And later on the slaves are used to create a titanic EldritchAbomination made of black Rukh, which is basically hate in the form of sprit ravens.

* In ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'', you have a near-magical place that produces the best candy in the world, and being its owner ''would'' be a HappyEnding. But if you’re too careless or greedy on the path towards that ending, you might drown in chocolate, get turned into a giant blueberry, be thrown into trash, or be shrunk -- then elongated. While the bad kids are at least implied to survive in '''most''' versions (an exception is the [[Theatre/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory 2013 stage musical]]), they certainly aren't the same people they were when they went in. This factory manages to be both SweetDreamsFuel and terrifying. It was worse in the original draft of the book, where Willy Wonka outright admits that '''[[HumanResources the bad kids are actually part of the candy recipes]]'''! Not too surprising this was edited out for the final version...