Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century (1999)
November 26, 2024 1:28 PM - Subscribe
An inquisitive teenager pries into suspected dodgy dealings on her space station home - and ends up being sent down to Earth.
Zenon Kar is a trouble-prone 13-year-old girl who lives on a space station with her family in the year 2049 AD. When she runs afoul of the station's owner, Parker Windom, she is judged to be "incorrigible" and punished by being exiled to the worst place imaginable: the planet Earth. After several painful weeks of adjustment to her new surroundings, Zenon enlists the aid of her earthbound pals to return to her "real" home with evidence that the "respectable" Mr. Windom is up to no good.
Joyelle Ronan: With the exceptions of big cities like L.A. and New York City, Earth is way behind the times. Where Aunt Judy lives they still eat hamburgers and pizza while Zenon is used to hydroponically grown food with no artificial preservatives or colors. The future predicted by this movie is all about efficiency and practicality. The idea of eating food for enjoyment is foreign to Zenon, as are flowers. Aunt Judy tells her, “Down here not everything has to have a purpose, some things are just good for your soul.” Fulger plays her role of the fun, single aunt so well. She’s perky, stylish, and drives a yellow punch buggy, the dream car of almost every girl in the early 2000s, including myself. More importantly though, she’s vulnerable with Zenon which helps to establish their bond early on. Aunt Judy expresses to her that her whole life she’s been afraid to put herself out there and take risks. She appreciates how fearless her niece is and that makes Zenon her hero. There’s a great parallel with Zenon and her aunt as one learns to grapple with the past as the other faces the future.
Alex Rudolph: I liked that the slang was different between Earth and the space station. Zenon's home has only been in orbit for less than ten years, but the vernacular has totally forked in that time. In space, the kids throw "major" and "minor" behind words, i.e. "Wyndham would have to be a scrooge major to shut us down!" The kids dream of "adult interference minor." At one point, Zenon says "You'd totally blow an o-ring if we had to return to Earth, right, Mom?" but maybe "blowing out an o-ring" didn't mean the same thing in 1999 that it does now. People include spacey words like "plunarious" whenever possible, which implies most of the slang we say is based on the things around us, which is hardly the cheesesteakin' case.
Elena Square Eyes: Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century was made at the end of the twentieth century and it’s kind of fascinating seeing what they thought the future might be like in 50 years then – especially as it was in a pre-9/11 world, an event which shaped a lot of (American) media afterwards. There is still corporate greed but there’s also a lot more monorails, people living and conducting scientific experiments in space, and self-driving cars – that last one is becoming more of a reality at least.
Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century features what I think would count as the first song especially for a Disney Channel Original Movie and “Supernova Girl” is a bop! It’s nice to see that these DCOM songs have been great from the very outset. It’s really fun, simple, and catchy though I’m pretty sure the band was called a rock band at one point and I guess the definition of rock music chances by the time we hit the 2040’s because that is a pop boyband.
Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century is a good time and a pretty fun little sci-fi. The ideas it has about the future were interesting and I especially liked the slang phrases – haven’t really seen a futuristic sci-fi film in a while where language has evolved and new words exist for things and are scattered through every characters dialogue.
Trailer
Zenon Kar is a trouble-prone 13-year-old girl who lives on a space station with her family in the year 2049 AD. When she runs afoul of the station's owner, Parker Windom, she is judged to be "incorrigible" and punished by being exiled to the worst place imaginable: the planet Earth. After several painful weeks of adjustment to her new surroundings, Zenon enlists the aid of her earthbound pals to return to her "real" home with evidence that the "respectable" Mr. Windom is up to no good.
Joyelle Ronan: With the exceptions of big cities like L.A. and New York City, Earth is way behind the times. Where Aunt Judy lives they still eat hamburgers and pizza while Zenon is used to hydroponically grown food with no artificial preservatives or colors. The future predicted by this movie is all about efficiency and practicality. The idea of eating food for enjoyment is foreign to Zenon, as are flowers. Aunt Judy tells her, “Down here not everything has to have a purpose, some things are just good for your soul.” Fulger plays her role of the fun, single aunt so well. She’s perky, stylish, and drives a yellow punch buggy, the dream car of almost every girl in the early 2000s, including myself. More importantly though, she’s vulnerable with Zenon which helps to establish their bond early on. Aunt Judy expresses to her that her whole life she’s been afraid to put herself out there and take risks. She appreciates how fearless her niece is and that makes Zenon her hero. There’s a great parallel with Zenon and her aunt as one learns to grapple with the past as the other faces the future.
Alex Rudolph: I liked that the slang was different between Earth and the space station. Zenon's home has only been in orbit for less than ten years, but the vernacular has totally forked in that time. In space, the kids throw "major" and "minor" behind words, i.e. "Wyndham would have to be a scrooge major to shut us down!" The kids dream of "adult interference minor." At one point, Zenon says "You'd totally blow an o-ring if we had to return to Earth, right, Mom?" but maybe "blowing out an o-ring" didn't mean the same thing in 1999 that it does now. People include spacey words like "plunarious" whenever possible, which implies most of the slang we say is based on the things around us, which is hardly the cheesesteakin' case.
Elena Square Eyes: Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century was made at the end of the twentieth century and it’s kind of fascinating seeing what they thought the future might be like in 50 years then – especially as it was in a pre-9/11 world, an event which shaped a lot of (American) media afterwards. There is still corporate greed but there’s also a lot more monorails, people living and conducting scientific experiments in space, and self-driving cars – that last one is becoming more of a reality at least.
Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century features what I think would count as the first song especially for a Disney Channel Original Movie and “Supernova Girl” is a bop! It’s nice to see that these DCOM songs have been great from the very outset. It’s really fun, simple, and catchy though I’m pretty sure the band was called a rock band at one point and I guess the definition of rock music chances by the time we hit the 2040’s because that is a pop boyband.
Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century is a good time and a pretty fun little sci-fi. The ideas it has about the future were interesting and I especially liked the slang phrases – haven’t really seen a futuristic sci-fi film in a while where language has evolved and new words exist for things and are scattered through every characters dialogue.
Trailer
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posted by Carillon at 1:30 PM on November 26