Burning Questions - Demolition Man

I know what you're saying. "Surely you're joking, Fletch. How could have anyone have any burning questions relating to Demolition Man, of all films?

Well, what can I say? In the halls of my guilty pleasure flicks, Demo Man is high up there. It probably shouldn't be - it's cheesy, full of overacting, is home to quite possibly the most egregious bit of product placement put on film ("All restaurants are Taco Bell"), and features Rob Schneider, amongst other people. But it's just so damned appealing: the aforementioned cheesiness, a kickass Denis Leary (playing himself...with a beard), a creative futuristic society ("He doesn't know how to use the three seashells!"), gratuitous nudity, a solid, deep cast - it's got it all!

In case you're unaware (or have just blocked it from your memory), here's the solid premise: habitual cat-and-mouse play until the cat eventually catches the mouse, but at a cost (he implicates himself and gets sent to prison as well). As it just so happens, each are sent to the latest in prison technologies: a cryo-prison. Each is frozen, case closed. OR NOT!!! Fast forward some years later when the mouse somehow escapes/thaws/whathaveyou. Cat is then thawed as well, as he is THE ONLY MAN ALIVE THAT CAN CATCH THE EVIL MOUSE.


There's actually a lot more to it than that, believe it or not. I might typically spare you that "more," but that's where my burning question comes into play. See, the mouse and cat (Wesley Snipes and Sly Stallone, respectively) were initially frozen in 1996. Over the next few decades, there was a massive earthquake and god-knows-what-else that led all of society away from crime and a myriad of other things deemed "bad for you," like sexual intercourse, fatty foods, and cursing. Basically, society is now more or less all a part of one massive cult, led by a Dr. Raymond Cocteau (Nigel Hawthorne).

Just one problem - the bulk of the film (the futuristic part) is set in 2032, some 36 years after the opening sequences. Ignoring many of the technological hurdles that were apparently not hurdles at all, are we really supposed to believe that an entirely new form of civilization (government, culture, architecture, etc.) sprung up in less than four decades? But here's the worst part:

Dr. Cocteau (and, to a lesser extent, the police chief played by Shawshank warden Bob Gunton) repeatedly refers to Stallone's John Spartan and Snipes' Simon Phoenix as if they were primitive cavemen, from a time so long ago that it's a wonder they understand the same language. You'd think they were the lead character from The Time Machine, gone forward in time some 800,000 years or so. Now, we already know the whole 36-year thing makes such thinking a stretch for anyone, but Cocteau and the police chief are each well older than 36 years old, meaning each should recall (and probably not with disdain) the culture (and the events) around the time of Spartan's/Phoenix's freezing.

So, what happened to these yahoos that made them forget their past so completely? And more importantly, why do I care?