The End of the World
The end is nigh. In preparation for impending doom tomorrow on the dreaded May 21, 2011 apocalypse, we take a look at end-of-the-world stories and why they’re just so compelling to our collective imaginations.
A Precautionary Tale
True to all good science-fiction, apocalyptic stories offer a warning of the possible outcomes of the various paths humanity might take. While the advent of Skynet seems more and more like a possibility these days, the idea that Manhattan might turn into a large maximum security prison in 1997 is now unlikely. Regardless, it’s the “what if…” effect that makes an end-of-days story so interesting.
The Struggle to Survive
Effective stories compel the audience, providing situations easily relatable though fantastic as they may be. No matter how distant the world or far in the future a story might take place, the basic human struggle to survive is something very understandable to us all. This universal desire is also the most primary rung on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, an early infographic on human motivations.
The upcoming series Falling Skies (produced by Steven Spielberg and scheduled for debut on June 19), chronicles the survival efforts of humankind after a brutal alien invasion.
And survival means the most in a zombie apocalypse, as the inhabitants of the The Walking Dead universe are learning. Just renewed for a second season, the show follows a police officer recently revived into a world of zombies. It seeks to find a solution to the ever-popular quandary of what one should do when faced against a horde of zombies. Moreover, it answers the question, “What would 28 Days Later look like in the hands of the director of The Shawshank Redemption?”
A Return to Mysticism
Another common quality of end-of-world stories are the elements of mysticism. While science may have reduced the prominence of “magic” from our everyday lives, we still long to connect with the raw and natural. As much as we love our iProducts, there’s a part of us looking for something more spiritual.
In Terra Nova, an upcoming series coincidentally also produced by Spielberg, humans leave a dystopian future and opt to travel 80 million years into the past. Their lives are changed immediately, living in the woods and experiencing “paradise,” a contrast to their previously gray lives. But much like the characters on Lost quickly realized paradise wasn’t so nice, the inhabitants of Terra Nova discover dinosauric dangers of their own. Looks like a few key scientists missed Jurassic Park when scheduling their travel clocks.
Humanity Banded Together
Finally, and most importantly, the apocalyptic story is most effective in that it bands humanity as a whole. A technique much used in prolonged glory scenes by epicmakers Roland Emmerich and Michael Bay: camera pans to the right, under the protagonist’s chin as jets sore ‘cross a sunlit sky. The scene cuts to Japan… then South Africa… then Mexico City…
Cue inspiring music.
Even in real life, we often see the best of us during the hardest of times. That we might work together in the face of insurmountable doom… Harold Camping could’ve predicted that.
