Apocalyptic works have always interested me – whether it be destruction from aliens, natural disasters, or some other sort of human caused phenomena. I think it’s the “special effects porn” either on screen or in my mind that I find satisfying. There’s one particular end game scenario that’s both fascinated and terrified me at the same time.
A recent article on Slate magazine explored a perceived trend in “airport books” where nuclear Armageddon is explored in grim and excruciating detail – including “splattering” and cannibalism.
I was a child of the Cold War and it scared the hell out of me in grade school. Given, I didn’t experience the all-out vigil terrorfest that was the Cuban Missle Crisis where people thought bombs would drop at any second. I would, on a semi-regular basis, have nightmares about nuclear war and waking up seconds before being incinerated. The Doomsday Clock loomed large, and I always watched the news to find out how many minutes to midnight remained.
The Day After* was the seminal movie of the 80′s about an all-out nuclear conflict. I remember warnings from ABC to not allow your children to watch it – and it was a fairly big controversy for those parents that allowed their children to see it. By today’s standards, the special effects and people getting vaporized were not particularly gruesome. More than anything, it made something which was just imagined much more real.
My parents wouldn’t let me near a TV, so I snuck upstairs when the movie aired and watched the scenes involving nuclear explosions through the crack of my brother’s bedroom door. I don’t think I slept right for several weeks.
With the fall of the Soviet Union and commensurate increase in age, much of that fear left me. Every so often though I still have a bad dream involving nuclear explosions, etc.
In a completely unrelated matter – you really want to be depressed? Read The Life and Death of Planet Earth. You’ll learn about the sunshiny future that awaits life on Earth as our oceans eventually turn to the consistency of acid, boil off, and then the planet (maybe) gets swallowed by our dying Sun.
*Interesting trivia fact in another Star Trek-related note – Nicholas Meyer, who directed Star Trek II and Star Trek VI, also directed The Day After.
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