disaster!
posted 2004.05.31
I was a teenager in the 80's. If there was one big fear communicated to me by popular culture during those years, it was of nuclear war. It wasn't the baby boomers' nuclear war; there were no drills, no neighbours building bomb shelters. Neither I or my parents were alive when Hiroshima happened; some of the collective memory and fear had been lost. But there was still fear. There was still a cold war.
My generation learned its fear from movies. War Games. The Terminator(s). And probably the biggest event I can remember on television pre-9/11: The Day After.
I remember having that fear. I remember that The Day After in particular scared the bejeepers out of me. I remember thinking that it was very likely that I would live to see a day when the idiots in power decided to give some of those shiny toys a spin.
(I now own most of these on video, and have recently ordered a copy of Testament, to boot.)
I think that foundation helped me to develop my incredible fondness for disaster films - the more spectacular the better. Doesn't even matter to me if the science is particularly accurate, these days - I love them purely on entertainment value alone. My video shelves groan under the weight of these kinds of titles: Twister. Volcano. Dante's Peak. Armaggedon. Deep Impact. Independence Day. The Stand. I've even watched The Core four times, and it must be one of the cheesiest ever made.
The newest one that will be lining my video shelves will be The Day After Tomorrow, which I checked out tonight. For sheer disaster movie fun it gets high marks, as do the special effects which were excellent. The sense of foreboding was also handled well - great score in behind it, and a few really terrifying shots. In my opinion, one of the best ways to rate a disaster movie, after special effects, is how they handle the foreboding, and the terror, and the shock and grief. (Deep Impact, IMO, wins the award for this.)
Sure, it's preachy. And yes, I've read enough online to know that most scientists think the science is deeply flawed - almost as flawed as The Core, really.
But there's also something deeply satisfying about watching the world end over and over again on film.
What can I say? I'm a little odd. Some people like roller coasters or horror movies. This is my quirk.
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Actually, I'm a Canadian, but live in Toronto which is only a couple hours' drive from the US. What that means: while I have no control over what US politicians do in the event of a nuclear threat since I have no voting priveleges south of the border, I would undoubtedly feel its effects if a war were to happen. :)
Everyone loves a good disaster epic now and agani. ID4, the Poseidon Adventure (remember that one?) Towering Inferno. I agree the Day After was a pretty creepy movie from what I remember, I'll have to rent that one.
The funny thing is that US people are more afraid of nuclear bombs than anyone in the world. But US is the only country that have used it. So are the rest of the world who would be afraid, but most of us aren't. Kinda karma I guess.