The apocalypse in film and fiction

At this point, the only ones I can stand are in spoofs like Shaun of the Dead or Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. :weary:

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Podcast reco, in case you don’t already listen: How Did This Get Made?
Look for the Zardoz episode.

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already I know I don’t want to hear anything they say about Zardoz:

They’ll discuss everything including the multiple floating heads, Sean Connery oozing sexuality in a red diaper, and one of the laziest reveals in movie history.

Every idiot says “omg Sean Connory in that outfit!” how typical. The floating head of Zardoz is cool as shit and I will fight anyone who says otherwise, and the “lazy reveal” is one of the best of all-time in any genre.

I HAVE SPOKEN

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That reminds me!!

The World’s End

That movie has a special place in my heart, not least because I’m convinced I knew the ex-goth matte-black Cortina driving individual that the Simon Pegg character Gary was based on!

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If you like Threads check out Testament – basically a story of a small American town far enough away from cities to avoid the initial blasts in a nuclear war. So life continues. Until a combination of resource shortages and radiation poisoning due to fallout happen.

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Timescape by Gregory Benford is another favorite of mine that I revisit every few years.

The story is set in a California University in the '60s and an Oxbridge university in the late 90s (the book was published in 1980, so 1998 is the future) in a dying world strangled by diatom bloom.

The team in 1998 UK find a way to utilise tachyon particles to interfere with an experiment taking place in California in the 60s, thus establishing communication and attempting to stave off disaster.

The contrast between the two times is beautifully rendered and the plot rips along at a great pace as the future faces impending collapse.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/guide/marvin.shtml

There was also a not horrible mini series in 2009

and there seems to be yet another one in “development”

Love me some Triffids.

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I read Parable of the Sower just pre-George Floyd. It was not too-too much at that point but I would advise anyone to heed your warning by now.

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Station Eleven was a ‘can’t put it down’ read.
Respiratory track pathogen, seemingly of natural genesis, worldwide death rate high enough and sudden enough to lead to the collapse of industrial society.
Focuses on what parts of our current culture persist while surviving humans scrape by and contemplate small-scale reforming of communities, and does a nice exposition of how well-meaning pseudo-spiritual woo can dovetail into justified violent domination.

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OMG, it’s happening!
Not really but we’re perilously close to the story’s punchline. A Sound of Thunder is a great short story about carelessness and the law of unintended consequences. It was published 68 years ago.

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I mostly enjoyed it, but there’s a “then a miracle occurs” that he sneaks in between the first and second parts that bugs the hell out of me. Fantasy, I have no problem with. Willing suspension of disbelief, fine. FTL travel, OK. But the rest of the novel is set up as classic hard SF, so it bothered me.

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Surely that’s a Mk2 Granada in the film, not a Cortina?

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Is this the profoundly wrong place to ask whether Amazon Prime’s “Utopia” is 10 ep. of fine fine work? “The Office” X ComiCon (minus Adult Entertainment Expo proximity) apocalypse is going to exceed the joy of (trying to) read selected Octavia Butler at 6x or such as people listen to podcasts? Median podcast-accelerator personhood! It’s made of adzuki beans!

The first Triffids movie isn’t horrible, (well, apart from its tacked-on deus ex machina ending) but it bears very little resemblance to the novel. The 80’s miniseries is much more faithful and worth seeing if you liked the book. Haven’t seen the third one.

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Could be, could be!

I put that down to artistic licence on the part of the production team.

:grin:

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I like my apocalypse movies on the light side. “Night of the Comet” comes to mind.

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Lots of good suggestions but a book that really haunted me is called “The death of grass.” by John Christopher written in 1956. In the US it was renamed ‘No blade of grass’ . The plot is simple a virus kills off grass and other grasses - these include rice, wheat, barley and other grass based crops. Whenever I hear about genetic modification of crops I think of this book.

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