John Scalzi - Why We Love Our Post-Apocalyptic Flicks
Before I begin this week's column, I'd like to mention something which I don't think I've mentioned before, which is: Hey, kids, I take requests! If there's something you'd like me to address here on AMC, involving science fiction and fantasy movies, why not shoot me an e-mail asking me about it? I'm always happy to take suggestions from the audience, since it means a) it's a topic I know at least one of you is interested in, and b) it means I don't have come up with a topic on my own. Everybody wins!
The reason I mention this today is that, in fact, I have a request, from Liz R., who writes:
My sweetie and I decided to have a Mad Max marathon over the weekend, and while we were watching got into a conversation about post-apocalyptic science fiction, and why it seems so popular in film. We both had different theories and wondered if you had any thoughts on the matter.
Why, yes, Liz, indeed, I do. Post-apocalyptic science fiction film has been popular for decades, going back at the very least to 1959's On the Beach (a somewhat high-minded film about the last bit of humanity awaiting nuclear war fallout in Australia) through the Mad Max films and up until last Christmas' I Am Legend remake and this year's upcoming adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. The end of the world never goes out of style, at least as far as film is concerned. And why is this?
1. Because it's cheap and easy drama: Since I wrote a military science fiction novel, I often sit on panels where I'm asked what makes war so interesting to write about. It's simple: War is a convenient crucible for human character, and thus, for drama. Lots of stuff is going on, almost all of it stressful and all of it dangerous, so you have an extreme circumstance in which to show off your character's personality.
The post-apocalyptic setting is very much the same sort of thing. People in these movies are almost always at loose ends one way or another, and in a savage setting that closely resembles war -- watch The Road Warrior or I Am Legend for confirmation of that -- and the main character is almost being tested in some way. The extremity of situation makes it exciting and gives you sympathy for the character -- if you don't sympathize with Will Smith's lonely predicament in I Am Legend, there's something a little wrong with you.
Also -- and here's where the Mad Max angle comes in -- it makes it easy to get away with a lot of action you would have to explain away in something approximating the real world. Mad Max isn't going to be Mad Max in a normal world, or even in one approximating it -- note how long it takes in the very first film, in which civilization is still hanging on by its fingernails, for Max to really get mad. But the automotive rage in The Road Warrior? Just another post-apocalyptic day at the office, folks.
2. Because they speak to our fears: Every generation of filmgoer gets the post-apocalyptic world they fear the most. In the '70s and particularly the '80s, the apocalypse that fueled our fears was nuclear; we dropped the bomb and now everything's gone to hell. Waterworld (which was more financially successful than people remember) addressed the idea of an ecological apocalypse -- badly, yes, but even so.
These days, our apocalypses seem to be more biologically-oriented than anything else: See 28 Days Later or Doomsday or I Am Legend, in which viruses and plagues wipe us off the face of the earth. In both cases, filmmakers are letting audiences engage in a little bit of play-acting, which is to say, getting a little of the experience of what it would be like to live in a world where the missiles flew, or disease killed off everyone we knew. Whether these imagined futures are at all accurate is of course beside the point (they almost certainly aren't, any more than action films are an accurate portrayal of day-to-day life right now); they're still visceral run-throughs for moviegoers.
3. Because happy futures are boring: Seriously, the future in which humanity survives and lives happily ever after? Nice to live in, but would you want to watch it for two hours? It's not for nothing that in the best example of a "happily ever after" science fiction scenario we have -- Star Trek and its largely peaceful United Federation of Planets -- we spend most of our time on the fringes of the universe, in spaceships that are exploring "strange new worlds" -- that is, places that the "happily ever after" hasn't got to yet. You probably wouldn't want to live in the future of Mad Max, or Waterworld, or I Am Legend, but watching them for a couple of hours, popcorn in hand and the apocalypse safely on the other side of the screen? That's entertainment, my friends. Better them than us.
I hope that answers your question, Liz. Thoughts on post-apocalyptic flicks? Put 'em in the comment thread. Requests for topics? Send me an e-mail.
Winner of the Hugo Award and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, John Scalzi is the author of The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies as well as the novels Old Man's War and Zoe's Tale, which was released this week. His column appears every Thursday.
Ahh, and we love our pre-post-apocalyptic flicks like the Terminator series also.
My favorite sci-fi to read or watch is that which only takes short hops in time. I find it is easier to imagine what might be just over the time horizon. Love that Road Warrior.
Battlestar Galactica is a good example, and is able to take a leisurely approach at examining what happens after an apocalyptic event, looking at the complicity of the victims in the event, and also the real-politic of survival.
I think the cockroaches in Las Vegas in Damnation Alley is the only thing that ever gave me nightmares.
John: what's your optinion of WALL E in this context?
It's certainly post-apocalyptic, albeit in a different direction. And unlike most of these films, in the end it's optimistic regarding what happens next (although in this case "next" is after several centuries of toxic cleanup).
Don't forget the lawlessness aspect. Much like Westerns, post-apocalyptic stories often feature a lone stranger, beholden to none, fighting against a world without order and the laws of man.
There's also a little bit of, "now we're free to make the society/life we want, without the old ways to hold us back." The ultimate freedom, if you're willing to fight for it.
And, post-apocalyptica is probably a good way to make people appreciate what they've got. Who doesn't get weepy and nostalgic at a broken and battered Statue of Liberty?
I don't know Kerry, The Paper Chase guy attempting to suck off Persis Khambatta's face in Warrior of the Lost World was pretty terrifying as well. Albeit in a different way.
I didn't realize Damnation Alley was that old. It actually predates Mad Max. I thought it was one of the post-Road Warrior pieces of drek (like WotLW) that were so common in the mid 80s.
I think you hit the nail on the head with this one =)
I particularly identify with point number 2... I love a futuristic film that scares me not because of monsters or other unrealistic happenings, but because I see in it vestiges of today's society.
And there's #4: Schadenfreude Is Fun! (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying About My Own Moral Decay and Love Reality Television) Or as Stephen King said about his own post-apocalyptic epic, The Stand: ""I love to burn things up, It's the werewolf in me, I guess.... The Stand was particularly fulfilling, because there I got a chance to scrub the whole human race, and man, it was fun! ... Much of the compulsive, driven feeling I had while I worked on The Stand came from the vicarious thrill of imagining an entire entrenched social order destroyed in one stroke."
And it's not only the idea of imagining everything and everyone that ever got up your nose being wiped out, but the satisfaction of knowing (in most cases) that it's the infinite hubris of the human race that will get us in the end. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but in earlier drafts of Mark Protosevich's I Am Legend wasn't the lethal virus (originally developed as a cure for cancer) being marketed as a weight loss product -- a pill that would literally eat up those unsightly pounds. Problem is, it didn't turn itself off...
My favorite post apocolyptic movie has to be "A Boy and His Dog."
Not only is it funny but it is brilliantly written (based on a story by the late great Harlin Ellison) and a young Don Johnson delivers a knock out performance.
"Late great"? As far as I know, Harlan Ellison isn't dead.
I actually prefer "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome" to "The Road Warrior," mainly due to the presence of *ohmygod* TINA TURNER and her wig. I also have a little-known camp classic called "Hell Comes to Frogtown" in my collection, boasting the charms of Rowdy Roddy Piper. There's a lot of crap in the postapocalyptic genre, but the gems are there if you look for them.
There are many films representing apocalypse, and a lot of films representing characters who survived apocalypse. What aren't made very often are films that have both sides of the coin given significant screen-time. I think these are most commonly zombie films, but I don't know if they quite count as apocalypse films, they're more of a genre in themselves.