Over the last fifty years or so, there has been a continual
rise in the popularity of post-apocalyptic stories across all media but in
particular film and television. For some reason, people are captivated by the
thought of society having to start over after some form of devastation, whether
it’s disease, weapons of mass destruction, technological destruction, alien
invasions, or of course, a zombie apocalypse. If you look deeper into the films
or shows you love, the list for post-apocalyptic, disaster or dystopian
societal stories is endless! This is obviously a goldmine for television and
film studios; to have the opportunity to churn out the same story over and over
again with a few tweaks here and there, with the guarantee that you’ll have an
audience is one of the greatest reassurances in an industry that is as volatile
as Iceland’s eyjafjallajökull volcano (…it erupts a lot).
So why do we keep going back to watch the same
story? Ranging from comedic takes such as ‘Shaun
of the Dead’, ‘This is the End’ or ‘Warm
Bodies’ to the more extreme, dark and serious versions like ‘Falling Skies’, ‘The Book of Eli’, ‘Contagion’ or ‘The Walking Dead’; the different subgenres help to breathe a
different life into the same story in the hope to keep the ideal of battling
against all odds relatively fresh.
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| The 2004 hit comedy starring Simon Pegg & Nick Frost |
The most obvious post-apocalyptic story that has
been reused countless times is of course the zombie apocalypse story arc. No
matter whether you’re watching a film or a TV show, you can’t escape the zombie
apocalypse (excuse the pun!). Over the years, the box office has been plagued
by the undead, most notably from Simon Pegg’s comedy ‘Shaun of the Dead’ to more recent endeavours, like Brad Pitt’s ‘World War Z’. In nearly every zombie movie,
they speak
both to our nostalgia for the modern world as we watch it crumble before our
very eyes, as well as to our disquiet about a post-modernity that appears
barbaric and foreboding; with a zombie attack, it acts as a cleansing balm and
the chance to start over again. This could be something that appeals to a
number of people who continue to watch, in the hope of turning over a new metaphorical
leaf in their mind.
As well as this, the protagonist in this genre is the
self-sufficient individual rather than the social, pluralistic horde, only to
be thrown into the deep end in the context of the specific story; another
psychological connection of something the viewer might want to aspire to in
their own lives, let alone the fantastical world of film. In recent years, it
has not always been a sugar coated experience for the viewer but heavily coated
in a cruel reality of loss and devastation. One particular television series
that capitalises on this aspect is of course ‘The Walking Dead’. The show’s characters help to create emotional
connections with the viewers, as they are mentally and physically tested in a
derelict society where the wrong turn could mean death and prove that the
actors on ‘Game of Thrones’ have
better job security than they do! And let’s not forget the scene in Will
Smith’s zombie-like epic ‘I Am Legend’
when his dog, his only friend on a deserted, zombie-infested Manhattan becomes
infected and he has to kill her with his own hands… Who didn’t shed a tear at
that scene?!
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| The most iconic scene from the 1996 sci-fi blockbuster |
Yet it’s not just the zombie apocalypse we’re
continually drawn to but also an endless string of alien invasions where
humanity has to rise up to repel the invaders. Like zombie films, Hollywood
blockbusters such as ‘Independence Day’,
‘War of the Worlds’ or ‘Battle: Los Angeles’ all have the theme
of impressive special effects, a captivating protagonist, the fight for
survival and aliens, aliens, aliens! The idea of being the indigenous species is
something that haunts our society as we continue to survive and strive to be
the best, in the hope to postpone our inevitable fate of any form it might
appear in. And if that happens to be an alien invasion, blockbuster films have
taught us that we’ll set aside our personal differences and go out fighting,
even if we don’t have a superhero team in the form of ‘The Avengers’ to do our fighting for us… Let’s just hope that their
weakness is just water, like it was in Mel Gibson’s sci-fi thriller ‘Signs’ and that they’re not giant Kaiju
monsters who wreak havoc and destruction, seen in Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Pacific Rim’ and what we’ll see again
this summer in the reboot of ‘Godzilla’.
However, the post-apocalyptic genre does not stop
with zombies and aliens but technically extends its reach to the concept of a
dystopian society. A lot of post-apocalyptic television shows and films have an
element of science-fiction at their core, like ‘Blade Runner, ‘Elysium’ or
J.J. Abrams’ ‘Revolution’, but
everything has been turned on its head and what would be the norm is now far
from reality. One franchise that adopts this is the ‘Planet of the Apes’ franchise that is now in its prequel/reboot
stage with the upcoming ‘Dawn of the
Planet of the Apes’ film this summer. The franchise is centred on the
role-reversal where apes are the dominant species to humans in a futuristic post-apocalyptic
Earth.
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| The latest hit franchise among movie goers |
A more well-known dystopian film to even casual
movie goers is ‘The Hunger Games’.
Based on the books of the same name, these films take place in a fictional
world where a highly advanced metropolis, The Capitol, exercise political
control over the rest of the nation. The main difference in these films however
to most dystopian-like films before it, is the fact that the main protagonist
is female. This helps to generate a greater demographic of female viewers and through
a dystopian society, it creates another spin on the generic post-apocalypse
genre.
But all of these films and TV shows that focus on
the demise of our planet or a civilisation that emulates ours, is something we
might subconsciously crave because it’ll break up our monotonous day-to-day
living; in most cases it acts as a way to start over. Not to mention, we’re
shrouded in doom and gloom in our everyday lives we still want humanity to
prevail in the end and this genre helps to provide that in some way. For the viewer, the real
thrill of a post-apocalyptic film or series is feeling the heroic in him or her
being called out into a world that in many ways already feels post-apocalyptic.
This genre also implies the idea that technology and our way of living is enough
to annihilate the human race and they have the power to call mankind into a
more deeply and genuinely humane way of life… Just look at the events of ‘The
Day After Tomorrow’ to see how we could potentially cause a cataclysmic
shift of our planet through global warming! The post-apocalyptic genre also suggests
to its audiences that the time has come to grow beyond mankind’s age-old
self-absorbed territoriality, and to seek out a deeper, more heroic
interrelatedness with each other and the world in which we live. But this is only
scratching the surface of the genre…
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