Screen Robot
  • Movie News
  • TV News
  • Gaming
    • Xbox Games
  • Streaming
    • Netflix
    • Amazon Prime
    • Now TV
    • Disney Plus
  • Trailers
  • Screen News
  • Login
No Result
View All Result
Screen Robot
  • Movie News
  • TV News
  • Gaming
    • Xbox Games
  • Streaming
    • Netflix
    • Amazon Prime
    • Now TV
    • Disney Plus
  • Trailers
  • Screen News
No Result
View All Result
Screen Robot
No Result
View All Result

The End is nigh: The rising popularity of the apocalypse in modern cinema

Rachel Carlyon by Rachel Carlyon
14th August 2014
in Movie News
27 1
0
The End is nigh: The rising popularity of the apocalypse in modern cinema
54
SHARES
217
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

As our world finds itself in crisis, apocalyptic cinema begins its rise once again.

Are we approaching the end times? I am not talking in a Book of Revelation, fire and brimstone way, but in some kind of accumulation of events that will result in a diminished population scrabbling for the last remaining resources on the planet. I could be mistaken for thinking so, considering the current popularity in apocalyptic science fiction rising up in the cinema this past year. So far we have seen Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Edge of Tomorrow, Divergent, Noah and most recently The Rover. Still to come is a new Mad Max film and the next Hunger Games instalment. If a film is not being released, it is being announced for the not-too-distant future and it makes one wonder; why now?

It takes a certain climate to cultivate the kind of flood we have been seeing lately, a flood not encountered since the 1970s

Apocalyptic science fiction films are not an anomaly, only rare commodities. It takes a certain socio-political climate to cultivate the kind of flood we have been seeing lately, a flood we have not encountered since the 1970s. It takes a collective public awareness of our own mortality as a species to engender the kind of fascination that would increase the prevalence of this sub-genre in cinemas, and for the first time in 40 years, the climate has once again well and truly changed.

The 1970s were a time of global upheaval. The Vietnam War would last another half decade, broadcasting its horrors across the globe in prime time. The oil embargo of 1973 shook the foundations of the global markets and proved how dangerous our dependency on fossil fuels really was. Simmering conflicts in the Middle East came to the boil, with the kidnap of the Israeli Olympic team in Munich and the hostage crisis in Iran. Plus, the founding of Greenpeace at the beginning of the decade proved a growing determination to improve the environment of our planet. Many films of the decade followed suit.

stalker film

Logan’s Run and Soylent Green dealt with concerns of over-population, with the former positing a future where you’re put to death by the age of 30 and the latter positing that society may one day be driven to cannibalism to overcome food shortages. Silent Running featured its hero stealing the last remaining rainforests on Earth for preservation, after his superiors order their destruction, while in The Andromeda Strain scientists must work against the clock to contain a space born pathogen from infecting the world and ending all life as we know it.

Films like these come when we start reflecting on our progress as a species and look toward the future of the world we live in

Mad Max showed a society that has all but collapsed due to a crisis over fuel, so the population takes to the desert highways, creating a new order of vehicular malpractice and borderline anarchy. The protagonists of Stalker find themselves in the Zone, a strange area within a world ravaged by nuclear fallout where the natural laws of the planet no longer apply. It is films like these that rose out of the tumult that occurred through the 1970s, where we started reflecting on our progress as a species and looked toward the future of the world we were living in, and cast an eye toward the worst case scenario of the future of humanity.

Now, in the 21st Century, the cataclysms that we foresaw 40 years ago seem all the more near. Climate change is all but a matter of fact, with changing weather patterns causing havoc across the globe. The concept of ‘peak oil’ warns of a demise of a lot of the world’s infrastructure. Diseases such as the bird and swine flus, not to mention the current Ebola outbreak, reinforce our mortality and the rise of China as a superpower will result in a monumental paradigm shift in the coming decades.

mad max fury road desert chase

Once again we’re in a period of insecurity about the future, so we turn to a pessimistic view of where we are headed as a species. Look at films like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, where our evolutionary ancestors begin to re-take the planet from us because we no longer deserve the supremacy we previously enjoyed, or the Hunger Games, where a society fractured into a clearer divide between the poor and the elite results in oppression, and exploitation being normalised to the point where it becomes entertainment to keep the masses in line and quell any thought of dissent.

Now, our future seems much darker, and to think we could fulfil the promise of a utopian idyll is considered to be naïve

In Australia, there is a rich vein of apocalyptic miserablism, with The Rover, released today, set in a post-collapse world that closely resembles the Mad Max films. There is also the upcoming Mad Max: Fury Road, which furthers the mythology of the Road Warrior himself. There is also a low budget feature film that has just come out of Western Australia called These Final Hours, which chronicles the last days of Earth before an inevitable catastrophe.

Science fiction is at its best when it is using the future to talk about the present, and sci-fi films always reflect what is happening in the world at the time they made. 2001: A Space Odyssey was made in the late 1960s, when humanity looked to the heavens and saw a future where the world could find peace and journey into the stars together. Now, our future seems much darker, and to think we could fulfil the promise of a utopian idyll is considered to be naïve. So we think up apocalyptic scenarios, each one more cynical than the last, because by comparison our present day world does not seem so irreparably bleak – at least not yet.

 

Read more: 10 great sci-fi films snubbed by Time Out

 

Featured image: A24

Inset images: Mosfilm; Warner Bros

Tags: apocalypseDawn of the Planet of the ApesfilmScience Fictionthe hunger gamesThe Rover
Previous Post

10 most empowered women in cinema

Next Post

Damsels no more: Dawn of the female superhero

Next Post
Damsels no more: Dawn of the female superhero

Damsels no more: Dawn of the female superhero

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

KNICKER SNIFFERThe ultimate prank by post

Readers Favourites

Movie Resurrection: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Movie Resurrection: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

1st May 2014
215
The Tea & Crumpet Filmcast #4: Two Days, One Night, Sin City 2 and Lucy

The Tea & Crumpet Filmcast #4: Two Days, One Night, Sin City 2 and Lucy

26th August 2014
133
The evolution will be televised: Does average TV have less chance than ever to become great?

The evolution will be televised: Does average TV have less chance than ever to become great?

31st July 2014
149
It’s Time You Watched: Trailer Park Boys

It’s Time You Watched: Trailer Park Boys

24th August 2014
357

What to expect from US TV 2013-14

15th September 2013
144
  • Cookie Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions
Menu
  • Cookie Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions

Copyright © 2020 screenrobot.com

No Result
View All Result
  • Movie News
  • TV News
  • Gaming
    • Xbox Games
  • Streaming
    • Netflix
    • Amazon Prime
    • Now TV
    • Disney Plus
  • Trailers
  • Screen News

© 2020 Screen Robot

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.