Ahira's Hangar

A while back in Gen Sci Fi, Balon started a topic about post-apocalyptic novels.

Now what about favorite post-apocalyptic movies? Really, any movie with a "dystopic” premise works for me.

So, what movies make you sadly muse - or cackle gleefully - about the end of the world as we know it?

Logan's Run is one favorite. Saw it as a kid and I remain fond of it, though it’s hard to overlook the movie’s flaws today. This movie may have been my first exposure to the idea of human civilization rebuilding/remaking itself after a terrible war/disaster. The portion of the movie where Logan and Jessica left the safety of their gleaming city and entered its forgotten “bowels” was especially exciting to me. When they then broke through to "outer" Earth and wandered through the wasteland of what was once Washington DC, that was pretty cool too. It’s possible that my attraction to themes and images of industrial decay started with Logan’s Run. Shall I call it the “romanticism of entropy?”

A Boy and His Dog has got to be one of the most weird movies I have ever seen...

I've heard of the title, but don't know anything about it. Thanks, I shall investigate...

It is really hard to describe. But the dog gets the last words (and bad cannibalism pun) at the end.

I'm a sucker for the big, epic, post-apocalyptic world. And I gotta say Waterworld is one of my favourites. Screw the critics.

--A

You're crazy for liking Waterworld, and I'm crazy for liking David Lynch's Dune, so I guess that makes us even.

The thing I liked best about Waterworld was Costner's character - the idea that a human could adapt to life in water and grow gills. It just seemed a rather fast adaptation, in evolutionary terms. Shouldn't such an alteration to the human body take thousands of years? Mind you, I don't remember how far in the future the story takes place.

Just thought of another film that I enjoyed for its time: The Road Warrior, the 2nd entry in the Mad Max trilogy. I don't think I've ever seen the original Mad Max in its entirety, but I saw enough that I can say it didn't captivate me all that much. The Road Warrior was the one that really caught my imagination; for a brief time, I regarded it as one of the best action movies ever - and maybe it still is for many...but over the years, the film has lost a lot of lustre in my eyes. However, I think it's still the best of the trilogy. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome had its moments; indeed, at its best I think it is the most poetic and poignant film of the group. More so than the others, Thunderdome conveyed a sense of sadness for the destruction of civilization, the loss of culture and language, as personified in the band of lost kids that saw Mad Max as their savior. The problem for me was that the film really dragged in places - I'm sure I nearly dozed off a couple of times. Whereas The Road Warrior was more focused.

What is so interesting about the Mad Max movies is how much civilisation degrades fom one movie to the next.

Society is still somewhat recognizable in the first one. Max is a police officer, with a wife and child, with lives that do not seem too bad. And then things get wilder and weirder with each subsequent film...

Though I did quite enjoy "The Road Warrior" and had a generally positive experience with "Waterworld" the problem I have with many post apocalyptic films is that so many of them rely on "junk" to populate the movie's environment. Now I admit most of my complaints come from fairly low budget outings that could not have afforded much in the way of special effect no matter what terrific ideas they were trying to convey. However it only takes a few seconds of screen time to tell me what I'm in for if the characters are using discarded hubcaps for hats and barbecue grills for armor. Usually these kinds of film also feature acting that would be found commonly at the neighborhood highschool drama club.

Planet of the Apes, Charlton Heston version, is probably the best post-apocalyptic movie.

Neither of you are crazy. Waterworld, is flawed in many ways, BUT it is not the barf fest I'd been led to beleive it would be. Dune (1984), directed by David Lynch, is flawed, too, it's major flaw is its major and substantial deviations from Herbert's original text. However, it's been my opinion for many years that if one is to consider the 1984 movie and look at it completlely apart to from the Herbert text, one will find a movie with substantial merit and appeal. FWIW, Dune 1984 is a better movie than Waterworld and WW is better than PM, AotC, RotS altogether.

Good post. And I'm sure you're right about the Lynch movie. I just can't look at it apart from the text...and I didn't think it was cast that well either, with a couple of notable exceptions. Hell, Patrick Stewart would have made a better Duke than the Duke did.

--A