In almost all post-apocalyptic films we see the destruction and disintigration of life as we know it. Because of famine, plague, disease, war, natural disasters, or a slew of other “acts of God” the framework that human kind has built comes to a screeching halt and humans are forced to rethink how to proceed. I want something new! Most of the post apocalyptic movies we currently see do one of three things:

1.

Either spend the majority of their time portraying the destruction of the world…
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2.

…OR the main character goes from place to place encountering various groups of the oppressed, or oppressors in search of some greater meaning. Often the groups are subcultures who have formed localized militia out of the rubble…

3.

…OR they show how, after the chaos of the apocalypse, a dystopian government has risen to oppress the people.

The dystopian variety are my favorite version of post-apocalypse because they often envision a place where people are nothing more than machines, property of the state, or tools for profit. Much of the way our world functions, in the 1st world and in the so-called 3rd world, is like this even though there has not necessarily been any apocalypse. Many of the movies are warnings about our behavior towards other humans as well as our behavior toward our planet.

I see many of these post-apocalyptic movies warning us but I see very little in the line of suggestions for post-apocalyptic living or specific life-changing prescriptions for our current situations. What I would like to see is more movies where we see the apocalypse, but then we ALSO see how hard work, changing our life-style, and being supportive can bring communities together. I don’t want just a “look we saved the day by killing the enemies” ending or a “we found the cure that saved the world” ending, but I want a film full of actual steps toward making our world a better place to live in. How do we do that?

Movies like Wall-E are a step in the correct direction. In Wall-E we experience the future consequences of OUR current actions and decisions. But we see a group of people that learn how to reclaim the land, grow their own food, and learn how to incorporate human interaction back into their lifestyles. I would have loved to see more of the clean-up and rebuilding of the dirty earth. What would the new economy and political structures look like? Why end the movie right as they enter the New World?

Let’s look at the 2008 version of The Day The Earth Stood Still. Regardless of whether or not we think the movie is successful or not, I thought the issues being raised were pertinent and similar to that of Wall-E. The earth is at a point where it’s in crisis mode and we can avoid the apocalypse if we change. However, the place where this movie ends is when one or two people convince the aliens that humans can change. We don’t get to see any of that change, and we aren’t really even convinced that our main characters care all too much about the state of the earth, but imagine if the aliens had put some demand and ultimatum on the humans where we got to see them restructure everything and attempt to turn everything into sustainable systems. Maybe that would be boring, but don’t you want to at least have some time to imagine what this new system could look like? How would humans change the world in one year if they were given that ultimatum? How could we get creative quickly? I think that could be wild. Agree?

Besides Wall-E, another movie that adds to this conversation is the 1970 film Gas-s-s-s. I don’t necessarily recommend the movie to anyone; I thought it was quite bad. In it, there is a gas that kills everyone in the world over 25 and a group of young hippy-types travel across the country in search of some sort of meaning. I’m less interested in their quest for meaning than I am in the very last scene. They ended up finding a place that just threw a big party and that was how they solved the problem of hatred and oppression in the world. While I think it’s a really silly idea to think that just throwing a party will make everything better, I do think that, in some ways, this movie addresses the need for community, friends and a sense of family. The movie itself doesn’t do a good job, but it has some little nuggets that are interesting. I would like to see what happens post-party. Partying will not solve the world problems, but it could create a very temporary moment of togetherness. Can this moment of togetherness leave enough positive residue to form a community of people that will work together? What would that look like? Would it look anything like the movie Commune? How does a community congegrate post-apocalyptic style?

My problem is that most of these movies end right as the movie is getting good. I want to see the aftermath, I want to see the challenges. I don’t want to just see that the world was saved, or that meaning was found, I want to see things being rebuilt and I want to see how to form communities. I want to see how a vision for a better place is addressed after the life as we know it disintegrates. Does anyone else agree with me? Maybe one thing that I will do on this blog now is offer alternative endings to the post-apocalyptic movies I’m watching.