Voyagers (2021)
Directed by Neil Burger
No — Voyagers is not woke, scoring 18 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
Voyagers arrives with a premise that could carry a dozen films and squanders most of them.
Consciousness Markers
The young ensemble is notably diverse, including Black, South Asian, and mixed-race performers (Chanté Adams, Viveik Kalra, Archie Madekwe, Quintessa Swindell), though the film never comments on this and treats it as an unremarkable future norm.
Runaway climate change and a dying Earth are the stated backdrop motivating the colonization mission, but the film uses this purely as setup and never engages climate as a message or crusade.
Sela is a capable medical officer who ultimately becomes chief officer, and a sexual assault subplot is treated with some gravity, but the film offers no explicit feminist thesis and largely frames its women through the male-driven descent into chaos.
The film is a Lord of the Flies-style descent into savagery rather than a sermon; it gestures at themes of control and freedom but never stops to lecture the audience.
No LGBTQ+ characters, relationships, or themes appear anywhere in the film.
Race is never addressed, thematized, or made a subject of the narrative.
There is no critique of capitalism, wealth, or class anywhere in the story.
No body-positivity themes or messaging are present.
The suppression of emotion and libido is a plot device about social control, not a depiction or advocacy of neurodivergence.
The film is a fictional future narrative with no historical revisionism.
Why it received this score
Voyagers arrives with a premise that could carry a dozen films and squanders most of them. Neil Burger sends thirty genetically engineered teenagers toward a distant planet in 2063, the Earth behind them cooked by runaway climate change. That detail is the film's only nod to the world outside the hull, and it functions as a launch pad, never as a message. The ship's real cargo is a chemical that dulls the libido and the pleasure response, keeping the crew docile. Once two of them stop taking it, the mission collapses into paranoia, lust, and a power struggle that plays like Lord of the Flies with better lighting.
The cast is a genuinely mixed group, Black, South Asian, and mixed-race performers sharing the frame with the pale leads, and the film treats this as unremarkable. That is either admirable restraint or simple indifference. Nothing in the script comments on race, and nothing comments on sexuality either. The women fare slightly better. Sela trains as chief medical officer, survives an assault that the film handles with unexpected gravity, and ends up running the ship. This is progress of a modest, almost accidental kind, unaccompanied by any thesis.
What we get instead is a study in control, freedom, and the mess that follows when a leash is cut. The film gestures at these ideas without ever stopping to explain them, which keeps the sermonizing to a minimum and the interesting questions largely unasked. Colin Farrell lends brief gravity before the plot discards him. The whole affair is competent, chilly, and incurious about its own best material. A sommelier might call it a vintage with promise and no finish.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Synopsis
With the future of the human race at stake, a group of young men and women -- bred for intelligence and obedience -- embark on an expedition to colonize a distant planet. When they uncover disturbing secrets about the mission, they defy their training and begin to explore their most primitive natures. As life on the ship descends into chaos, they soon become consumed by fear, lust and an insatiable hunger for power.
Questions about Voyagers
Is Voyagers woke?
No — Voyagers is not woke, scoring 18 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Ultra Based.
Does Voyagers have any woke elements?
1 of the 10 markers register at 30 or above, led by Representation Casting (45). On Representation Casting: The young ensemble is notably diverse, including Black, South Asian, and mixed-race performers (Chanté Adams, Viveik Kalra, Archie Madekwe, Quintessa Swindell), though the film never comments on this and treats it as an unremarkable future norm.
How does Voyagers compare to other 2021 movies?
It ranks #114 of the 242 films from 2021 we've scored; their average is 23. The wokest is The Forever Purge (83).
How is the Woke Score calculated?
An AI-assisted process researches the film and its reception, scores it 0–100 on ten markers, then combines those into one 0–100 Woke Score. It measures a specific set of 2020s cultural themes, not film quality.