Escape to the Movies: Special: The Day After

[Jai Deliete]

I think apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic movies are popular not just because, as MovieBob stated, people want to see or imagine how their own character would fare in the harshest of "make-or-break" moments (Or simply given an empty world on a platter, like a real-life sandbox game), but also because people want to see humanity surviving against all odds. These movies are oddly comforting, because they all show humanity continuing to survive in one way or another despite horrible catastrophes and dismal odds. Very hopeful movies, these bleak world-catastrophe flicks. Even the stupidest and bleakest horror of The Mist ends with everything just turning out okay for humanity, right out of the blue. Sort of a common theme, actually... the less chance humanity has to make it through a movie crisis, the bigger the chance is that the filmmaker has a "AND THEN EVERYTHING TURNED OUT OKAY" resolution in mind (Despite it not making any sense). The Happening did the same thing. Terrible movie. Just terrible.

Natural disaster movies are all pretty universally dumb, but 2012 was mildly engaging with a couple of good cast choices and a staggering amount of money thrown into absolutely crazy, pants-wetting visuals. Plus, it didn't pull a "EVERYTHING ENDED UP WITH HUMANITY SURVIVING FOR NO REASON" card out of its ass; it had us really working at that shit to be able to make it. Still a sadly trite flick, with a host of very disappointing characters starring in a cadre of eye-rolling scenes. It's sad that the best natural disaster movie is probably Armageddon, but that's natural disaster for you. Give me weird disasters any day!

Yay more Movie Bob

OT:Has any one seen "A Boy and His Dog" it's a strange film with a telepathic dog set in some post-apocalyptic future. Had a quite creepy ending.

Creepy? No, it's a perfectly sensible ending, and given the film, completely fitting. I stand by my assertion that A Boy and His Dog is, fundamentally, a movie about love, which happens to be told in really awesome post-apocalyptic dark humour fashion. (I loved that movie.)

Six-String Samurai was disappointing. It wasn't bad; but it wasn't completely amazing like I was expecting it to be, given the premise (rock&roll + katanas + post-apocalyptic setting). It started well, and has good ideas, but doesn't execute them all that well. Most of the fights were pretty poor too (barring goofy shifting anamorphic intro and the bowling team fight); there's also only one guitar duel (one of the best ideas for guitarist-swordsman duality), and it's over in about 10 seconds. It was still alright, but don't go in thinking it will be one of the best movies you'll ever see (I am sad).

I agree with you on Six-String Samurai -- it was half terrible (Largely in execution), but half great (Largely in ideas). But I hated A Boy and His Dog, the thing became so pointlessly nonsensical when they went underground that the movie lost me completely. Plus, most of the acting is just shamefully bad. Sorry!

 

[anaphysik]

But I hated A Boy and His Dog, the thing became so pointlessly nonsensical when they went underground that the movie lost me completely.

I think that was the point: the closest place to civilization and 'normal' life is so crazy and fucked up that you see why Vik prefers his own animalistic lifestyle instead.

 

[Jai Deliete]

Right, definitely -- but I think there must be ways to do that which would make sense from a realistic point of view, too. Instead, it's so crazy and completely random that I can't IMAGINE how that shit is supposed to work (Much less find myself sucked further into the movie by it). Or maybe the real problem was my debilitating fear of face paint (God it's creepy! Why does anyone use it?! It must be the base reason behind the hate and fear of clowns, mimes, and blackface performers).

 

[Cookiemonster27]

Am i the only person in the world who really liked " I am Legend "?

 

[k-ossuburb]

Can't forget the zombies. Just sayin'.

 

[Enigma6667]

If you haven't seen it yet, I'd recommend The Mist. That also had an incredibly bleak ending. But yeah, The Birds is simply a classic.

 

[Aptspire]

Birthday card... cheesecake... jelly beans... bo-bomb...?

I'm sure it means something and someone will figure it out. I just don't have the mind to do it right now.

Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean boom
A line from "Its the end of the world as we know it (and i feel fine) by R.E.M

why thank you, kind sir
...
As for my favorite end of the world-esque tales, I like those unavoidables, let's try to survive types like 'The Red Death' by Poe, 'The Road' or 'My Dolly' by Derek Nikitas (that last one, as you'll find out, plays a huge irony on mankind)

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

The plants are also scary. Oh God the plants...

Responsible for MANY a nightmare.

 

[VanityGirl]

Love it! The birds is very eerie indeed.

 

[Elesar]

There didn't seem to be a huge amount of...well information here, just a listing of old Apocalypse movies. Your Bond and Oscar specials were much more informative.
And Robot Monster, at least according to wikipeida, is considered one of the worst films ever made. No really. Films Considered the Worst [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_considered_the_worst] It was that bad.

 

[Falseprophet]

Six-String Samurai was disappointing. It wasn't bad; but it wasn't completely amazing like I was expecting it to be, given the premise (rock&roll + katanas + post-apocalyptic setting). It started well, and has good ideas, but doesn't execute them all that well. Most of the fights were pretty poor too (barring goofy shifting anamorphic intro and the bowling team fight); there's also only one guitar duel (one of the best ideas for guitarist-swordsman duality), and it's over in about 10 seconds. It was still alright, but don't go in thinking it will be one of the best movies you'll ever see (I am sad).

Right on the money. I really wanted to like it, but the pacing is horrible and the kid is just annoying. That said, Buddy is a great character (I went as him for Halloween one year) with a few good lines:

DEATH: If I were you, I would run.

BUDDY: If you were me, you'd be good-looking.

Day of the Triffids is still one of my favourite novels. Like many post-war British SF authors, John Wyndham used apocalyptic settings frequently, because having your country's greatest cities pounded into rubble would inspire that. A lot Japanese sci-fi is apocalyptic for the same reason (Godzilla, any late 70s/early 80s space-opera anime, Evangelion...>).

Just a quick shoutout to a different kind of end-of-the-world movie, the low-budget Canadian indie flick Last Night [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0156729/], starring Sandra Oh before her Grey's Anatomy/Sideways fame (and David Cronenberg in a small role). Because it is a low-budget, Canadian indie flick, it is very low-key: the whole world's known the earth will be hit by fatal levels of solar radiation for several months, so any panicking and rioting is over and done with, and in the last six hours, people have just resigned themselves that the end is here, and spent their last night doing what they want to do.

One man has spent the last 3 months pursuing every sexual fantasy he had, a musician puts on a concert for the last day, the owner of a gas company resolves to call all his customers personally and ensure them their gas will be on until the end--a very different take on "what would you do if you knew the end was coming?", but it came slowly over months with no major upheavals.

 

[theamazingbean]

I'm still pitching my old world of darkness "time of judgement" movie. Seven different apocalypses going off at the same time, all of them unconnected with each other, except for when the resulting horrors begin getting in each other's way.

 

[wildcard9]

Where's Toy Story 3?! (Edit: oh, there it is...)

To be serious, though: I prefer my apocalypse films to be post-apocalypse. Fallout 3, Mad Max, etc. The reason being that during the apocalypse there's not much hope for anyone's survival during the cataclysmic events that may follow. After the Apocalypse is when we can rebuild, and that's where hope can foster.

This also comes from my deep-seated fear of Revelation. Go ahead and laugh, especially you Bob my Atheist friend (or Agnostic?) I was raised in a different church environment as a Seventh-Day Adventist (look us up: and no we're not a cult). I was raised to have respect for others beliefs and to this day I have a deep respect and maybe even fear of Christianity. Let's face it: Revelation is probably the most fucked-up of the apocalypses in that humanity itself is at it's throats while nature falls apart. It's chaos at its worst, and that's probably the crux of my intra-apocalypse fears: when it actually happens is nothing but chaos but after the event we actually have the opportunity to reestablish order.

Oh yeah: and as I've mentioned earlier, I can't stand Eva, and now you probably know why. Powerful beings conspiring for the destruction of humanity filling in a vacuum left by an absent higher power and our only hope lies in a shadowy organization that assigns batshit-crazy teens in mechs with psychosis and neuroses that would turn a psychiatrist insane? Pure. Mindfuck. Chaos. No thanks: I'm good.

 

[pfloriani]

I think apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic movies are popular not just because, as MovieBob stated, people want to see or imagine how their own character would fare in the harshest of "make-or-break" moments (Or simply given an empty world on a platter, like a real-life sandbox game), but also because people want to see humanity surviving against all odds.

John Varley wrote a short story/treatise called The Manhattan Phone Book (Abridged) in which he expresses the opinion that the reason that post-apocalyptic stories are popular is that people believe in their heart of hearts that when the apocalypse comes, they will survive it, presumably because they are just that capable or lucky or special, and that the situation where they make their own destiny picking through whatever is left behind has a certain appeal.

...

An end of the world movie without the special effects: Testament [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086429/].

Nuclear war happens off-camera. A small town is cut off from the outside world but is otherwise unaffected. The residents try to carry on from there, then are confronted with the reality of the situation. Very understated approach.

 

[lokiduck]

Funny enough I just watched 2012 the other night XD I wanted to show it to my mom and even though we were pointing out all the flaws with it (especially now that I'm took Astronomy this quarter and the first day was talking about 2012 and the mayan calender. But we loved it. I mean it has every single type of distruction in it. Please note that she doens't like disaster films and that I myself only saw it because of your review actually.

I noticed you didn't talk about zombie films, but 28 Days Later is one of my favorites. It's just so different from those other films and I how how it's a kind of Character development piece.

Also thank you so much for clarifying what Revalation and Apocalypse means. It's like how people need to learn that the Mayan calender just ran out of room, and that they didn't say it wasn't the end of the world.

Speaking of which, the Mayan procephy is that on 12, 21, 2012 (the winter solstice) the sun will enter a "Dark road" Astronomers have discovered that on that exact date, the Sun will in fact look like it's crossing over a Dark mass in space which looks like a Dark road. Freaky huh?

 

[Jaebird]

Yeah; I think I feel the same way about this, too. I mean, I've seen too many of these natural disaster and astronomical disaster films, that they seem less likely to happen, in my opinion. Bring on the freaky monsters and demons, I say.

 

[theultimateend]

B..b..but I liked the Will Smith one...

What about the world being destroyed to make room for a hyperspace bypass?

You sir, are awesome.

I thought the scene where smith is looking for his dog when it runs into that building was one of the most powerful moments in acting that I personally know of.

He really WAS someone in utter terror as the possibility that their last friend in the entire world was going to die or already be dead, that from that day forward he would find himself utterly alone.

There is no better way to destroy someone cognitively than to leave them completely alone, I thought his terror of that scenario was perfectly portrayed and it made the entire movie enjoyable for me. Since I rode off that scene for the rest of the film.