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Raygun Gothic
aka: Atom Punk
Tom Swift Jr. in The Race to the Moon. That is one beautifully hideous spaceship.
The future was a chrome-trimmed triangular window in the front of dad's car, and it had its own knob to open it up. The future was a hamburger under a light fixture that looked like an atom. The future was going to be awesome.
James Lileks, The Bleat, October 31, 2008

"Welcome to THE WORLD OF TOMORROW!"

Raygun Gothic is an ubiquitous aesthetic of early- and mid-20th century Science Fiction, roughly from Metropolis to Star Trek: The Original Series. Raygun Gothic architecture is modeled after Art Deco, Streamline Moderne, and/or Populuxe (aka Googie). Everything is slick and streamlined, with geometric shapes and clean parallel lines constructed of shiny metal and glass, lit prominently by neon. Sweeping curves, parabolas, and acute angles are used to suggest movement — movement into The Future.

And of course, futuristic fancy-pants technology of the future is ubiquitous. Ray Guns, jet packs, flying cars, Video Phones, Space Clothes, atomic-powered everything, cigar-shaped Retro Rockets and other Shiny Looking Spaceships, and "electronic brains" capable of calculating complex equations in mere minutes, all decorated with little blinking lights that don't really serve any purpose (but they sure look futuristic!).

This is the bright, optimistic vision of The Future that, until sometime in the mid-60's, the Western world believed was just around the corner. Our failure to make these dreams a reality means that works featuring Raygun Gothic are highly prone to Zeerust. Retro-Futurism is a George Lucas Throwback to this vision. Stick "Atomic Power" logos on everything, and you've got Atom Punk.

The Mad Scientist Laboratory and Spaceship are among the most commonly used locations in a Raygun Gothic setting. The most commonly used monsters tend to be nuclear mutants and aliens in general.

The only thing that could possibly look more futuristic is Crystal Spires and Togas. See also Zeerust, Weird Science, and Retro Rocket. Contrast with Diesel Punk, Used Future, and Everything Is An iPod In The Future.

Not to be confused with Warhammer 40,000, which is just Gothic with rayguns.

Examples

    open/close all folders 

    Anime and Manga 

    Comic Books 
  • Zot, who lives in the far-flung future year of 1965. Note that Zot! began publication in 1984.
  • Several DC Comics characters who live in between the present era and the Crystal Spires and Togas era of the Legion Of Super-Heroes, including Tommy Tomorrow and the Planeteers, the Knights of the Galaxy, Ultra the Multi-Alien, Space Ranger, and Space Cabbie. Adam Strange does this in present time.
    • Adam Strange appeared in some Starman comics and fit in very well because the title already had a certain Raygun Gothic aesthetic.
  • Warren Ellis's Ignition City.
  • Dan Dare.
  • Weird Science by EC Comics had a lot of streamlined rocketships and cool futuristic tech, espacially Wally Wood's work.
  • Flashbacks to Krypton in the Superman comics from the Golden Age through most of the Bronze Age maintained this look.

    Film 
  • Fritz Lang's Metropolis may be the Ur Example.
  • Too many '50s sci-fi movies to list.
  • Buck Rogers
  • The Fifth Element is a weird fusion of this trupe and Cyber Punk.
  • Used in the Star Wars prequel trilogy: The Naboo space fleet and the architecture of Coruscant are modeled after this, while the Republic space fleet morphs over time into the blocky, Used Future Imperial fleet.
  • The Necromonger fleet from The Chronicles of Riddick is a much darker interpretation of this aesthetic.
  • Star Trek was always very much this way, although the new movie combines it with the aesthetics of an iPod. (That's not an insult; it still looks cool.)
  • Robot Monster.
  • Anton Furst's designs for Gotham City for the 1989 Batman film have some elements of this.
  • Like the source material, the Flash Gordon movie is full of this. Of note is that the Cool Airship Ajax is referred to by the delightfully old-timey title of "war rocket".
  • Zathura takes place in more or less present day, but the magical board game of the same name is most definitely Raygun Gothic.
  • Forbidden Planet.
  • Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a funny corner case. It's set in an alternate-universe version of the 1930's, so it's often cited as an example of Diesel Punk, but the aesthetics and optimistic worldview are much closer to Raygun Gothic.
  • The villains in J-Men Forever are all about this, especially the Lightning Bug baby!

    Literature 

    Live Action TV 

    Music 
  • Doctor Steel plays with this aesthetic in his music and interactive Fandom community.
  • Stereolab played "Space Age Bachelor Pad Music".
  • "IGY," the first track on Donald Fagen's 1982 album The Nightfly, is pretty much this trope in a nutshell. He describes a world where there's a train running undersea from New York to Paris every 90 minutes, everyone gets their own Spandex jacket, weather is controlled and solar power is plentiful - and it's all run by computers programmed "with compassion and vision." The liner notes describe the album as "certain fantasies that might have been entertained by a young man growing up [...] during the late fifties and early sixties, i.e., one of my general height, weight and build."
    • The title is a reference to the International Geophysical Year, a scientific event in 1957-8 that was the USSR's excuse to launch Sputnik into space, thus kicking off the "rocket age" for real.

    Newspaper Comics 

    Tabletop Games 
  • GURPS Alternate Earths explored the alternate history of Gernsback, which was 1930's science fiction stories come to life.
  • GURPS Tales of the Solar Patrol is a more fleshed out version of the concept, set in a universe consciously modeled after Flash Gordon and 50's era Young Adult science fiction stories.
  • One of the styles used by Mad Scientists in Genius The Transgression.
  • Many, many Sons of Ether made use of this aesthetic, their greatest triumph being their alternate dimensional laboratory city - and perfect example of this trope - the Gernsback Continuum. Occasionally an eccentric Technocrat, usually a Void Engineer, would do something similar, particularly if they'd been around for a while.
  • Spaceship Zero featured a retro-Space Opera setting where, for instance, there was no miniaturization, and bigger computers were always better. Partially deconstructed as well, as there were definite indications that underneath all that chrome was a decent amount of grit, causing one reviewer to refer to it as "pulp—with bathrooms."
  • Realms of Mars from Exile Game Studio promises to be this for sword and planet, much as Hollow Earth Expedition harkened back to adventure pulps.

    Video Games 
  • The Fallout series is set in a post apocalyptic Raygun Gothic, world.
  • Blasto falls neatly into this trope.
  • X-Com: Apocalypse.
  • The Covenant in Halo are modeled after a version of this, as everything they design has a very sleek design. As do most things on the titular halo rings, which are designed by the Forerunner. Understandable, as the Covenant just copied everything they have from the Forerunner.
  • Rapture in BioShock has strong elements of this in its design.
  • The character designs for Disgaea's EDF soldiers, particularly Flash Captain Gordon, Defender of Earth!.
  • The Zombie missions in Call of Duty 5 qualify.
  • In Star Control II, the Syreen had this aesthetic — their ships were old-fashioned rockets, and what you saw of the Syreen themselves and their ship controls would look right at home illustrating some 1920s sci-fi pulp about Amazon princesses in space or what-have-you. Appropriate, as the Syreen were a species of good old-fashioned Blue Skinned Space Babes in a game otherwise populated by Starfish Aliens and Eldritch Abominations; their pulpy style helped lampshade this fact.
  • The Soldier of Team Fortress 2 has several retro rayguns modeled after Weta's "Dr. Grordbort's" line.
    • As have the Engineer and Pyro now, and the medic and scout are next in line.
  • SpaceChannel5 uses more of a 60's and 70's take on this design.

    Webcomics 
  • In Gunnerkrigg Court, the plot inside the simulator features a spaceship, a Death Ray, and Latex Spacesuits straight out of 1950's pulp sci-fi.
  • One of the characters in Andrew Kepple's Goodbye Cruel World! accidentally turns the entire world into this by activating a non-Y2K-compliant VCR and triggering the bug.
  • Zap! has a lot of aspects of this, especially in the spaceship design.
  • Let's not forget Buck Godot - Zap Gun For Hire, which has a lovely Zeerust feel to it, and was published "late in the 20th century".
  • Dresden Codak is in love with this trope, married it, and now has a house in the suburbs with two kids and a dog with it.

     New Media and Web 

    Western Animation 

    Real Life 

Rain of BloodSpectacleRing of Fire
Patrick Stewart SpeechRomanticism Versus EnlightenmentReasonable Authority Figure
Ray GunSpeculative Fiction TropesReactionless Drive
Ray GunWe Are Not Alone IndexRed Herring
Exty Years From NowHollywood HistoryEverything Is an iPod in the Future

alternative title(s): Atom Punk
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