No, it was in America -- the plot was something along the lines of "If we can just get to Detroit than everything will be okay." I saw it on TV rather than in a theater -- I don't know that it was released theatrically.
Does it? The world goes on, just with fewer people. Or maybe I'm not understanding the whole genre; as I said, I haven't seen any of the movies on the slashdot list.
Oh, I also liked that other recent zombie movie, Shawn of the Dead.
I haven't yet seen Romero's latest zombie movie, but Day of the Dead is great--that's the one where the last humans are battling it out in a shopping mall, right?
Ooh, "fictional depiction"? So much fertile ground! I just reread Engine Summer, which is post-post-apocalyptic; civilization as we know has ended and there are lots of new, more communal societies formed literally on its ruins. (With the misprision of old artifacts a recurring theme; note pun in title.) I was trying to articulate why I didn't think it was post-apocalyptic, and I think it's that post-apocalyptic novels are about chaos whereas it's about a new, more modest order.
the last humans are battling it out in a shopping mall
The Monroeville Mall! That was our mall! (I haven't actually seen any of the Romero movies, but I get the idea I should. It wasDawn of the Dead, actually.)
Has anyone here ever read Cynthia Kadohata's In the Heart of the Valley of Love? It's the only post-apocalyptic science fiction novel (or the only science fiction novel period, even) that had me completely convinced.
You should totally see DayDawn of the Dead, then. There's one scene where the people hiding in the mall look out and see all the zombies converging, and one of them asks: "Why are they coming here?" and another replies (something like): 'It's their last, basic instinct, I guess."
I have fond memories of Logan's Run. Though funny to think of watching it at age 6 or so and not having any concept of 30. So what if they kill everyone after that? That's old.
But my favorite has to be 28 Days Later. Cillian is so sweet! He can't die! Zombies please don't attack Cillian!
Dawn of the Dead (the original), hands down. I have a whole spammy argument to make that it is the perfect movie to describe the transition from the '70s to the '80s, or at least our pop-culture summaries of those decades, but as I don't remember the '70s and couldn't vote until the '90s it's probably a bunch of pretentious BS.
My 2nd favorite is probably 28 Days Later, for capturing the wild spectrum of emotions I imagine the survivors would feel, including the pure glee of having all the trinkets of civilization with none of the responsibility.
The ending of Zardoz is a total rip-off of the ending to Buster Keaton's College. This is disappointing because it is the only thing I liked about Zardoz.
J.G. Ballard's The Drowned World was pretty compelling, except that I didn't actually, um, finish it. But Ballard can be disturbingly prophetic; Myths of the Space Age filled me with all sorts of weird thoughts about how the Space Age has ended, and it looks like we might be headed for the drowned world, if not due to increased sunspot activity.
The Ark Sakura is very cool, though it violates some end-of-the-world conventions.
Maybe I should stop being pretentious and name some movies. Twelve Monkeys is good. And the first Matrix.
I find it troubling that CharleyCarp (in 20) has commonalities with Wolfson. And, Becks, is this post occassioned by the S-K split? Does it really feel like the world is ending?
Sandra Bullock's life is disordered, her addictions are giving her trouble relating to those around her. So she goes to rehab and meets a cute counselor. There's a bit of dramatic tension when she eats his brains.
I don't really recall Sandra Bullock in 28 Days, so it can't be too bad.
Matt, in solidarity, I'll mention how COMPLETELY traumatized I was reading the description of Ragnorak in D'Aullaires' Book of Norse Myths as a child. The bullshit Adam-n'-Eve coda gave me absolutely no consolation whatsoever.
For movies, I second Twelve Monkeys, but also nominate Dr. Strangelove, which is a better choice.
Drama: does Duerrenmatt's Romulus der Grosse count? It's about both the end of the Roman empire and the end of European civilization. And it's funny. It's also all I've got that's not a movie.
42: insert overenthusiastic BSG fanboy enthusiasm here. It was actually the first thing I thought of, but then I bickered with myself over it not being the end of our world, which is probably me caring too much.
1-LB's movie is Damnation Alley. Never saw it myself, but I'm enough of an old-school SF geek to pick it up by guesswork; the movie's based on a lesser novel from a (nearly) first-rate writer, Roger Zelazny, who was a favorite of mine in middle school.
Weirdly, I'm blanking on post-apocalyptic tales generally. I was obsessed with the idea twenty-odd years ago (thanks, Ronnie!) but it seems to have subsided somewhat since the Cold War. There's a very fine post-apocalyptic book I'm thinking of whose name eludes me...damn.
John Brunner's 1968 masterpiece Stand on Zanzibar is my favorite dystopia--though I won't say whether civilization actually ends, because I think y'all should read the book, & bite your nails while so doing. Best SF novel of the 60's, I'd say, & among the best ever; he gets the shape of the future so well that it feels even now like it's about to happen, even though his actual "predictions" are almost all off the mark.
As for movies: what, no love for Silent Running? Personally I can't bear Bruce Dern's performance, but the concept is bone-chilling.
51--Thanks! I tried, briefly, to get that right, but I was pretty sure someone would know the right line.
That movie sucked all of the novelty out of my reading Marx as a horror writer, I have to say. "You mean other people caught on to how 'the dead forms of history' are basically zombies?"
54: Ooo, lots of love for Stand on Zanzibar. What about The Sheep Look Up, also Brunner, for a truly creepy environmental dystopia? It's not nearly as good a book, but boy was it upsetting.
I really liked 28 Days Later. It was a sweet movie all around. I have an idea for a sci fi retelling of Troilus and Cressida, in which the aliens have Earth under seige, the human population has been driven underground to escape from the aliens' powerful atmosphere piercing sensors. Troilus is the upright, xenophobic, misogynistic young general; Cressida the alien/human hybrid ex prostitute spawn of the rape that started the alien-human war lo these twenty years ago. There's a love scene between them at the end of act one when they climb out onto the surface and look at the stars for the first time. Eventually Cressida causes the destruction of Earth by believing that the premonitions she gets are actual harbingers of the future (I don't remember exactly how; I'd have to dig out my old computer) rather than what they really are, signals from her alien race's mind meld!!!1!! If only she hadn't believed in predestination....
My wife took me to see "Damnation Alley" for my birthday. About the time the immortal line "Las Vegas is overrun by giant killer cockroaches" was uttered, I looked into the aisle to see a quite large roach walking down the middle like he was looking for his seat. She apologized profusely all the way home
For an excellent literary look at the apocalypse, try James Morrow's "This is the Way the World Ends," which details the special relationship between Leonardo and Nostradamus.
"Inconstant Moon" by Larry Niven, where the moon lights up like the sun, and everybody realizes that a solar flare has destroyed the world.
Last Flight of Dr Ain by James Tiptree(Alice Hastings Bradley) which follows the worldwide flight of a scientist as he spreads a world killing virus. Very short.
And I am reminded reading the comments that when I saw 12 Monkeys I was really pissed that it was kind of similar to my Troilus and Cressida, especially since I thought it would make a good Terry Gilliam movie.
Greg Bear's The Forge of God. In it's simplistic form, an alien invasion story. Descriptions of the people on board the arks that are leaving as they witness the earth breaking apart.
63 - does that involve the city getting hotter and hotter and the slow realization by a bunch of character who were on the night side that the rest of the world has been burnt to a crisp? If so, love that short story, but I couldn't remember its name.
My vote goes to the four Romero dead movies, Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985) and Land of the Dead (2005). The first one is the only one that is perfect, and it is actually the least end of the world-ish, but taken together they can be the best end of the world movie.
23: That is a great line, and it got a lot of publicity recently because it was preserved in the remake. The exact line is "This was an important place in their lives. " My favorite part of the original though was missing from the remake: The assault on the housing projects. The black and Hispanic residents of the projects protect their zombified relatives against the openly racist police, because they feel more loyalty to the people they lived with, even in death, than they do the authorities. The segments at the TV station as the world collapses, with the experts trying to understand what is going on using only their now worthless political categories, is also brilliant.
All other zombie movies are in some way ripped off from the Romero movies. 28 days later was technically better--better acted, better directed--than any of the later Romero movies. But it's plot was essentially a summary of the first three Dead films.
At the risk of total pretension and overstatement, I would compare Romero to Orson Wells, in that his first movie was a seminal work of genius, and every subsequent movie was flawed in some way, often (but not always) for reasons beyond the directors control.
Close, but not exactly -- the moon suddenly gets brighter, and the characters figure out during the course of the story that that means that the sun's gone nova. They spend the night doing 'last night alive' stuff, and then figure out that the sun hasn't gone nova, it was just a solar flare, and while half the world has been burned up, the Americas should make it. Is that the one you remember?
The Niven story "Inconstant Moon" was made into an episode of one of those cable TV sci fi anthology series, like the revival of The Outer Limits, or something. Michael Gross (Michael J. Fox's dad on Family Ties) was the male lead.
I can read Niven the same way now that I know he is a big Republican and Gingrich confidant. I missed all the conservative subtext when I was in middle school.
I can read Niven the same way now that I know he is a big Republican and Gingrich confidant. I missed all the conservative subtext when I was in middle school.
Same here, but boy, I thought he was great back then.
They may be delusional. I don't think the race survives what is described.
Why not? At the end of the story the sun is up, and the narrator isn't dead.
Re: Niven. It helps, I think, that his writing has gotten uniformly bad of late. Makes it easier to dismiss him. Still, his early short fiction and Known Space stuff kicks ass. Lucifer's Hammer is a pretty good end-of-the-world yarn, for that matter.
a)Three references to "charcoal-gray sky" I don't quite understand what that means, I have been googling, but I suspect nuclear winter. The author is telling us the narrator is in denial.
And the story is about reactions to imminent inevitable death. The narrator is simply in denial.
Three references to "charcoal-gray sky" I don't quite understand what that means, I have been googling, but I suspect nuclear winter. The author is telling us the narrator is in denial.
No, it's sun coming up through thick clouds -- look, this is Niven. The odds that anything complicatedly psychological are happening are small.
81: I'd agree with Rah, at least up against the books you mention -- there might be another candidate I'm not thinking of.
72: That's interesting--I have a very concrete but apparently false memory of the line as I wrote it in #51. Maybe because I told the story that way so many times--it was my favorite Romero moment, whatever it was.
(As an aside, I'll note that I was shocked to see Piers Anthony show up as a nominee twice. I had though his pre-Xanth, actually interesting stuff was relatively obscure.)
88:Tired of googling, can find no support for either reading. Your point about Niven has merit. The text is there, I guess in violation of copyright, for anyone's reading.
My commenting runs on a source of Brownian motion, like a cup of tea.
I've only read a little Niven, but his strength seemed to be interesting world creation and playing around with laws of nature, and not so much with the believable people.
90:That was how I organized my reading in the early eighties. I had a list of all the Hugo & Nebula nominees, and read them all up to the early 80s. Read most everything else by nominated authors. The quality of the genre was doable. Had to do much used bookstore visiting to find the obscure and out of print stuff. Took 2-3 years, and I still have them stored in boxes, with much besides.
the world ends! but it isn't the end, only the beginning! because I believe in atreyou! now let's fly on the giant cockerspaniel and push the bullies in the trash bin!
you believe! and there's an old couple with a wheelbarrow. And your tubular cockerspaniel is just fine. And then the two of you are off on more adventures!
hooray! you guys are the best friends a lonely boy in an abandoned bookstore could have.
When this crazy story gets fixed right, and the man in the mountain stops sneezing us away, and the princess grows up into a fulsome type, and atreyou gets down off that cockerspaniel and gives it back, I tell you, I'll give each and every one of you a friendly backslap or whatever gender specific friendliness I might endow.
Actually I was writing a comment for another blog and hit paste at the wrong time. I reserve the right to hate you all at some future date before the world ends.
I felt under pressure to like the Neverending Story but instead I found it unsettling and vaguely depressing. If I watched again I'd try to figure out why, but I've never done so, or have suppressed that memory and all of its associations.
73: It's been a really, really long time since I read it, so I have no idea (and I have not read the one mcmanus linked because I'm saving that for when I'm on company time - ha! just kidding, employers... eheh... ahem).
Damn, it was in a collection of short stories I have somewhere. It may have even been an apocalypse-themed collection. Oh, damn damnity damn. Anyway, if y'all are both talking about the same story, hey, that's our job as audience: to decide what we want to decide.
I've only read a little Niven, but his strength seemed to be interesting world creation and playing around with laws of nature, and not so much with the believable people.
And not so much with the believable science, either. (I don't think there's a single one of his early stories that doesn't have a major scientific error in it. And let's not talk about his biology...)
I second Clownaesthesiologists nomination of "Cat's Cradle".
Movies: 28 Days Later probably. Those scenes with London just empty and silent are one of the most creepily beautiful things I've ever seen in the cinema.
I found The Day After Tomorrow quite compelling too even though it's a totally cheesy movie. Something about the imagery.
There were some truly horrifying post-nuclear holocaust things made in the UK for TV. 'The War Game' which was banned and hidden away for 20 years is a really amazing and powerful piece of work. Scared the living crap out of me when I saw it (in the 1985 broadcast when it was unbanned).
'When the Wind Blows' is the only great nuclear attack graphic novel about old age pensioners. If bits of the animated film don't bring a tear to your eye, I don't know what will.
The Bloggs ... exhibit considerable confusion regarding the nature and seriousness of their situation ... For example, after the nuclear attack, Hilda notices a smell of burning. Jim responds with the statement "It smells like roast meat. I expect people are having their Sunday dinners early this week due to the unexpected circumstances."
There's a great Harlan Ellison (I think) short story in which the last man in the world is sitting alone in a room and then he hears a knock on the door. Where Ellison both sets up the clichéd opening and then subverts it.
Oh, duh. *slaps forehead* Until the End of the World. I think that's probably a contendor for my favorite. Rah also puts his vote in for that one, over my shoulder.
In a metafictional twist, the person knocking at the door turns out to be the author, Harlan Ellison, there to harangue the dude about a perceived copyright violation.
138 -- thanks for the second! To expand: I recently reread Cat's Cradle and was blown away by the authenticity of Vonnegut's voice. It was a favorite book in my youth but I was worried going into the reread, that it would be flakey and childish -- better suited for a child than a man of my years and gray hair. (I think I was worried about that from reading other commentators saying such things about rereading Vonnegut after some years' separation -- but I cannot put my finger on who said that. Maybe it was me in a moment of pretension.) Anyways, choose one or more: my worries were misplaced. Whoever said that was a dick/not really taking it in. I have grown up a litttle since I said that.
Also: one of my proudest possessions, inscribed-book-wise, is a copy of Cat's Cradle with a doodled self-portrait of Mr. Vonnegut on the title page and the accompanying text, "FOR GOOD OLD JEREMY" + signature.
I'd nominate the radio-play version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Bookwise, I dunno, CITY maybe (by Clifford Simak), where the world ends (uh, spoilers, though not really) because people find someplace more fun to be. CITIES IN FLIGHT (by James Blish) is amusing for pretty much starting out by ending the world, and ending by ending the universe. Movies? "Miracle Mile" was pretty good, so was "Twelve Monkeys".
My dad has a copy of Allan Ginsburg's collected poems autographed to him with a picture of the Buddha. Jesus, it's been a long time since I've seen The Neverending Story. Why didn't I ever rewatch it? I remember I was so blown away when I finally got up the nerve to watch Labyrinth as a grownup and it was just as good as I remembered. I found David Bowie quite hot as a five year old, or however old I was.
I totally can't believe I haven't told this story yet here, but I used google and yahoo site search and can't find the comment, so maybe I haven't. My college boyfriend used to give me a treat by making his penis talk when it was bobbing around half-erect. It was a special, infrequent treat because, understandably, he wasn't entirely easy with me collapsing into hysterical giggles at the antics of his member. Anyway, the main thing he would make it say is " 'Ello" in an English accent. When we watched Labyrinth together, him for the first time, me for the first time since childhood, and the worm emerged from the wall and said " 'Ello" in exactly that voice, it was pretty damned funny, let me tell you.
The static archives should be easier for search engines than ones that change. I suspect something amiss in the .htaccess file. Also, M/tch and I have noticed posts where entire comment threads have disappeared.
I hope so. For example, this comment thread used to contain stories from both Ogged and me about "Rapper's Delight", as well as many, many more comments. Now? Blank slate.
We do have things backed up (I'm pretty sure). I also think that the disappeared comments will reappear when we regenerate the archives (I hope). That's in the queue of things to do.
Yahoo has been indexing the site better than Google since we started using the static pages.
One of the problems is that Google for some reason uses POST even when just crawling the site. We've tried to make exceptions for the Googlebot but some of the requests are still getting shot down. Yahoo uses GET, which is why it's doing a better job of indexing it.
I can't believe we've gotten this far into the thread and not a single person has mentioned Genesis 6-9. Or Revelations. You secular humanists make the baby Obama cry.
"Signal to Noise" by Eric Nylund: Mathematician decodes space noise and makes contact with an intergalactic arms dealer, who blows up the earth and kills everyone but the mathematician and a couple of other assholes. The good news: There's a sequel.
I dispute whether there is, or ever can be, any need to read a book so boring as to bring on a wish for the end of the world, and a desire to die long before then, a book called Earth Abides.
81, 88: As ever, I distinguish between "best" and "favorite". Stand on Zanzibar isn't even my favorite Brunner novel; that's The Squares of the City. So: I'll definitely grant that The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is more fun to read, and I still (since the 80's!) mean to read Lord of Light someday, but I'm giving Brunner the edge in terms of influence.
Zanzibar occupies the perfect mid-point between the large-scale yet rational universe of Asimov (have I skimmed too much or have we been discussing The End of Civilization without taking on the Foundation trilogy?!?) and the atomized, chaotic sprawl of William Gibson.
I'm not sure I can really defend Zannzibar as the most influential, it being from the same decade as Herbert's Dune (among the first to create a whole ecosystem based on current science) and Dick's The Man in the High Castle (which I have to mention because Dick's my favorite SF writer). I'm avoiding Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land because it was apparently written in the 50's, and because personally I find it a bit tedious. That's unfair of me, but I'm over it.
Maybe I should use my own blog if I'm going to get so thoroughly geeked-out. But I'm still loving the thread, & especially the reminder above about Blish's Cities in Flight, another book I've been "getting around to" since the Reagan Administration. As a final thought, though, I'll mention that Blish's 1968 Black Easter is a lovely depiction of an apocalypse wrought by actual demons summoned by actual black magic. Lots of fun, and comes with its own "don't try this at home" warning in the front!
Geez, Rah, I figured you for a hardcore Heinleiner based on your handle.
I'll have to take another look at Brunner. He's always seemd like a minor light to me.
There's a Gordon R. Dickson novel from around that era that's a just scathing indictment of war/ the military that might qualify for among the best from the era, but I'm blanking on the name. I'll try to remember to look it up when I get home.
But I'm still loving the thread, & especially the reminder above about Blish's Cities in Flight, another book I've been "getting around to" since the Reagan Administration.
It's totally worth it (although part of my love for the book may just be the appreciation of a New Yorker for anything that has Manhattan Island bombing around the galaxy steered from City Hall. That was just cool.)
And Chopper -- Brunner is absolutely worth it. Along with those already mentioned, Shockwave Rider is the origin of cyberpunk, or at least I think so, and nothing I've read of his is less than good. (A side note -- any other SF fans notice that while lots and lots of writers foresaw a worldwide information network that everyone would use all the time, they almost all, before the mid-80's or so, assumed it was going to be the telephone system?)
OK, since we waded into books, I'll totally take up the mantle of Asimov's Foundation books. Well, the first three, anyway. It's hard to hear him talk in some of the other ones for all the cash register noises.
The Stand has been a favorite of mine since I read it under the covers as a kid. It might've been the first book of that length I ever finished. Other favorites are A Canticle for Leibowitz, Earth Abides, When Worlds Collide, and the Suzy McKee Charnas books, recently republished as The Slave and the Free. And lemme give a shout out to Gamma World and Thundarr the Barbarian.
My favorite post-apocalyptic movies (at the time of writing) are Alphaville, Logan's Run ("Fish, plankton, protein from the sea ...!"), and ... um ... Delicatessen. Also, I love all the Costner Messiah-complex movies, but especially The Postman, as sappy as it is. I watch that movie about once a year and it's like fireworks on the 4th of July--at some point I just don't care that I'm being shamelessly manipulated.
"No, it's sun coming up through thick clouds -- look, this is Niven. The odds that anything complicatedly psychological are happening are small."
Correct.
"Along with those already mentioned, Shockwave Rider is the origin of cyberpunk, or at least I think so,"
As do a fair number of others.
"and nothing I've read of his is less than good."
Oh, he wrote tons and tons of crap, as well, both under his own various names, and pseudonyms.
But his best is very good. However, that's only about 10% of his quite prolific work. A sampling. I believe it's a safe bet you've not actually read most of these.
Like a lot of skiffy writers of his time, he started as a hack, and rose to do some terrific work at his peak. (Similar to, say, Bob Silverberg, who was even far more prolific.)
Cranky bastard, though (as a human).
Also one of the few writers to actually drop dead at a Worldcon. The only one, I think, actually (though not the only person to ever drop dead at a Worldcon).
I'm unclear how any Foundation stories (all originally appearing in Astounding, incidentally; they weren't collected into book form until years later -- that is, the real stories, not the later yawners) qualify as "end of the world" stories; "end of the Galactic Empire," yes, but not the same thing. Not that anyone here is being fined, or should be, for digressing.
"...they almost all, before the mid-80's or so, assumed it was going to be the telephone system?"
Even with "almost," I think that's somewhat exaggerated; quite a few -- probably more -- had in television form, some had it as print-outs, and so on. Of course, the huge miss was almost no one forseeing personal computers and miniaturization, rather than giant Multivacs or equivalent. Of course, there is Leinster's "A Logic Named Joe," from 1946. Full (very short) story (legally) here. It pretty much gets Google right. In 1946.
Hey, here's one for John Derbyshire; anyone ever read Emergence by David Palmer? Narrator is a superintelligent 11-year old girl; a biowar kills everyone around her, and she discovers by going through her adoptive father's files that she's a highly evolved subspecies of human immune to all human diseases, and has an address list of others of her kind who should also have survived the war, so she goes off with her parrot to find them.
A major theme of the book, once she finds some other survivors, is who or if she's going to have sex with. Oddly, I read it not too far from the protagonist's age, and found it surprisingly uncreepy. Then, several years later, I found another book by the same guy with a chronologically adult heroine who is described in lascivious detail as sexily pre-pubescent in appearance, and was retroactively grossed out by the first book.
"Hey, here's one for John Derbyshire; anyone ever read Emergence by David Palmer?"
Yes. To a considerable extent it's a rip, ah, alternative take on, Wilmar Shiras's Children Of The Atom. Arguably somewhat better prose style, though, and quite readable, as I recall.
"...was retroactively grossed out by the first book"
Having now seen an extended trailer for 13 Going On Thirty on DVD, what seems to be going on in that movie (or at least the trailer) grossed me out.
I mean, the trailer is one long set of jokes about this thirteen-year-old girl (in the body of Jennifer Garner) having sex, or making passes, or having passes made at her, by either thirtyish guys (at someone with the mind of a 13-year-old!) or her (with Garner's body) at 13-year-old boys.
Eeuwy. I'm pretty broad-minded about significant age differences in sex, but not quite that broad-minded. What were any of the people who made it thinking?
"Because Natalie Portman's character in that is 12."
Yeah, but there's nothing overtly sexual in the film (that I recall; been a while since I last saw it). It's not as if there's something wrong with kids and adults having non-sexual relationships.
I copied and pasted the text in italics from a differnt blog, by accident My bad. The rest of it was in response to your 175, and I had meant to copy and italicize this, "What were any of the people who made it thinking?"
176 - There are two versions of that film. In The Professional, which was released in the US, there isn't much sexual going on between the characters. In Léon, the version that was released abroad and is available as an extended-version on DVD here in the US, Portman tries to seduce the assassin and their relationship has a lot more sexual tension. I love that movie (both versions). The release of Léon is one of the reasons I decided to finally buy a DVD player back in the day.
The Professional still has a game of charades with a 12-year-old vamping as Marylin, and she seems like she's really trying. Before anyone says anything, let me note that in 1994, when the movie came out, I was one year older than. So I'm allowed to know that.
Oh, right; I've read that, but never seen the other version, and had forgotten.
Not having seen the Leon version, I can't speak to it. Although offhand, at least having the kid taking the initiative seems to me to likely impart at least a somewhat slight different possible flavor than having the grown-up do so. Possible.
There are two versions of that film. In The Professional, which was released in the US, there isn't much sexual going on between the characters. In Léon, the version that was released abroad and is available as an extended-version on DVD here in the US, Portman tries to seduce the assassin and their relationship has a lot more sexual tension.
Why do they keep doing that to Luc Besson's movies? The Big Blue as released in the U.S. was a terrible movie with an inferior musical score and an ending that made no sense. Le Grand Bleu on the other hand is one of my favorite movies, especially the three-hour version longue. The release of that version in the U.S. on DVD as the "directors cut" was the first DVD I bought.
I totally see your point, but I choose to land on the side of yes, it is apocalyptic. 'End of the Galactic Empire' ends up effectively meaning 'end of centralized civilization.' There are planets ruled by robber barons and backwaters of the galaxy about which nothing is known in fairly short order, and science and history are re-encoded as superstition in any number of places. If that doesn't map onto, say, Mad Max's general topology of a post-apocalyptic world in which there are civilized areas and uncivilized areas, and the struggles between them, I don't know what does. And, if you take all the series of series, Robots and Foundation and even the in-between books that weren't really a part of the original continuity (The Stars Like Dust, for instance), they definitely deal with the end of a world, and successive generations of forgetting, learning about, then forgetting again the history/location/significance/factual reality of Earth (or any number of worlds at one time populated by humanity but abandoned over the millenia only to be rediscovered in later sequels).
That said, I think your point is valid. It is not apocalyptic in many of the ways that Mad Max is apocalyptic - no main characters ever give themselves over to the chaos in order to defeat it, for instance, and there is always an active element of what we would recognize as civilized society striving to fight encroaching entropy - but I still say it fits if we loosen the definition just a belt-notch or two.
"I still say it fits if we loosen the definition just a belt-notch or two."
Fair enough. As I said, no one is giving fines here, nor need be.
(Though we could shoehorn almost anything in with a sufficiently loose argument; why, The Ice Storm, because it's about the end of the world of their relationship... [apply similarly to almost any psychological drama].)
I'm disappointed that this thread petered out before I got to yell Steadmon!
I'm off for a week of wine and torpor on Hilton Head sland. I expect everybody to behave while I'm gone. Except Tia, of course, because I don't believe in setting unrealistic expectations.
Soylent Green is not about the end of the world.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 4:48 PM
I haven't seen any of those movies. Or any other end-of-the-world movie either, come to think of it.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 4:52 PM
Twelve Monkeys.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 4:58 PM
What was that movie with the guy who played Hannibal on the A-Team crossing a burnt-out post-apocalyptic wasteland in an RV?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:01 PM
Sounds like one of the Mad Max movies, LB.
The first Terminator movie was pretty good. Out of that list, that's the movie I'll pick.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:02 PM
No, it was in America -- the plot was something along the lines of "If we can just get to Detroit than everything will be okay." I saw it on TV rather than in a theater -- I don't know that it was released theatrically.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:04 PM
3: That's not really about the end of the world, though, is it? I saw it and liked it, in any case.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:05 PM
Sure it is -- plague that kills most of everyone counts as 'the end of the world', doesn't it?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:07 PM
7: 99% of the population is dead after a killer virus and everyone's living underground.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:07 PM
Does it? The world goes on, just with fewer people. Or maybe I'm not understanding the whole genre; as I said, I haven't seen any of the movies on the slashdot list.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:08 PM
Most of them involve "end of the world as we know it" rather than "end of human existence"; shit goes down, survivors survive, &c.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:11 PM
That makes more sense. Movies where absolutely everyone dies probably wouldn't make much money.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:14 PM
I liked the world of The Postman book, was ambivalent about the novel itself, and wouldn't touch the movie.
On the Beach is a true end of the world movie and really, really depressing.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:26 PM
Sounds like the sort of thing Andy Warhol would make; Apocalypse, consisting of 6 hours of footage of an unchanging scene.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:26 PM
I updated the post to reflect that it's not exactly the end of the world, just the end of the world as we know it.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:27 PM
I liked that recent zombie movie 28 days.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:28 PM
Oh, I also liked that other recent zombie movie, Shawn of the Dead.
I haven't yet seen Romero's latest zombie movie, but Day of the Dead is great--that's the one where the last humans are battling it out in a shopping mall, right?
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:30 PM
Ooh, "fictional depiction"? So much fertile ground! I just reread Engine Summer, which is post-post-apocalyptic; civilization as we know has ended and there are lots of new, more communal societies formed literally on its ruins. (With the misprision of old artifacts a recurring theme; note pun in title.) I was trying to articulate why I didn't think it was post-apocalyptic, and I think it's that post-apocalyptic novels are about chaos whereas it's about a new, more modest order.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:32 PM
the last humans are battling it out in a shopping mall
The Monroeville Mall! That was our mall! (I haven't actually seen any of the Romero movies, but I get the idea I should. It wasDawn of the Dead, actually.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:34 PM
Riddley Walker. Hands down.
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:37 PM
Has anyone here ever read Cynthia Kadohata's In the Heart of the Valley of Love? It's the only post-apocalyptic science fiction novel (or the only science fiction novel period, even) that had me completely convinced.
Posted by jms | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:38 PM
Potential Spoiler:
28 Days was not really the end of the world.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:38 PM
You should totally see
DayDawn of the Dead, then. There's one scene where the people hiding in the mall look out and see all the zombies converging, and one of them asks: "Why are they coming here?" and another replies (something like): 'It's their last, basic instinct, I guess."Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:40 PM
My brother and I had a great conversation about Land of the Dead.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:41 PM
I have fond memories of Logan's Run. Though funny to think of watching it at age 6 or so and not having any concept of 30. So what if they kill everyone after that? That's old.
But my favorite has to be 28 Days Later. Cillian is so sweet! He can't die! Zombies please don't attack Cillian!
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:46 PM
Oh, sure, they have Logan's Run on there, but not Zardoz. Doesn't Zardoz count for something?
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:48 PM
24: Your brother sounds adorable. Politically unawakened, but adorable.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:51 PM
Your brother isn't named Andrew by any chance?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:53 PM
There's one scene where the people hiding in the mall look out and see all the zombies converging
Told from the zombies' point of view here.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:54 PM
Dawn of the Dead (the original), hands down. I have a whole spammy argument to make that it is the perfect movie to describe the transition from the '70s to the '80s, or at least our pop-culture summaries of those decades, but as I don't remember the '70s and couldn't vote until the '90s it's probably a bunch of pretentious BS.
My 2nd favorite is probably 28 Days Later, for capturing the wild spectrum of emotions I imagine the survivors would feel, including the pure glee of having all the trinkets of civilization with none of the responsibility.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:56 PM
For books, you really can't beat Day of the Triffids. I mean, it has triffids.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:57 PM
Oh, but from the Slashdot list? Planet of the Apes every single time.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 5:58 PM
It would have to be The Terminator, because it seemed so real.
Posted by Fadzilah | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 6:00 PM
Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth. He fights superintelligent monkeys in a post-apocalyptic wasteland!
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 6:06 PM
The ending of Zardoz is a total rip-off of the ending to Buster Keaton's College. This is disappointing because it is the only thing I liked about Zardoz.
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 6:06 PM
J.G. Ballard's The Drowned World was pretty compelling, except that I didn't actually, um, finish it. But Ballard can be disturbingly prophetic; Myths of the Space Age filled me with all sorts of weird thoughts about how the Space Age has ended, and it looks like we might be headed for the drowned world, if not due to increased sunspot activity.
The Ark Sakura is very cool, though it violates some end-of-the-world conventions.
Maybe I should stop being pretentious and name some movies. Twelve Monkeys is good. And the first Matrix.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 6:07 PM
Oh, right, the first Matrix. It was pretty good. I haven't seen the others.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 6:09 PM
Guys, 28 Days is the Sandra Bullock in rehab movie.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 6:10 PM
38 to 16 and, especially, 22.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 6:11 PM
I find it troubling that CharleyCarp (in 20) has commonalities with Wolfson. And, Becks, is this post occassioned by the S-K split? Does it really feel like the world is ending?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 6:17 PM
Sandra Bullock's life is disordered, her addictions are giving her trouble relating to those around her. So she goes to rehab and meets a cute counselor. There's a bit of dramatic tension when she eats his brains.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 6:18 PM
The 1968 Night of the Living Dead. I must say I'm also really enjoying the new Battlestar Galactica.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 6:24 PM
I don't really recall Sandra Bullock in 28 Days, so it can't be too bad.
Matt, in solidarity, I'll mention how COMPLETELY traumatized I was reading the description of Ragnorak in D'Aullaires' Book of Norse Myths as a child. The bullshit Adam-n'-Eve coda gave me absolutely no consolation whatsoever.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 6:26 PM
For movies, I second Twelve Monkeys, but also nominate Dr. Strangelove, which is a better choice.
Drama: does Duerrenmatt's Romulus der Grosse count? It's about both the end of the Roman empire and the end of European civilization. And it's funny. It's also all I've got that's not a movie.
Posted by Brett | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 6:30 PM
42: insert overenthusiastic BSG fanboy enthusiasm here. It was actually the first thing I thought of, but then I bickered with myself over it not being the end of our world, which is probably me caring too much.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 6:32 PM
40 - The post's content is not inspired by S-K but the title is.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 6:40 PM
AND I FEEL FINE.
Sorry. Had to get that out.
One of my friends joked in college about throwing a Last Day celebration when he turns 30.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 6:59 PM
What was that movie with the guy who played Hannibal on the A-Team crossing a burnt-out post-apocalyptic wasteland in an RV?
Damnation Alley.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 7:09 PM
Excellent. And your co-blogger had a cameo, didn't he?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 7:18 PM
I love "Miracle Mile". It's perfect for what it is. It's as good as "Repo Man", and it's actually suspenseful.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 7:29 PM
23: "They like to go where they were happy."
Dawn of the Dead and Dr. Strangelove.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 7:33 PM
22 is still accurate, is it not?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 7:43 PM
What was it the end of, I wonder? The end of innocence? The end of Sandra Bullock's career? The end of the counselor's brains?
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 7:45 PM
1-LB's movie is Damnation Alley. Never saw it myself, but I'm enough of an old-school SF geek to pick it up by guesswork; the movie's based on a lesser novel from a (nearly) first-rate writer, Roger Zelazny, who was a favorite of mine in middle school.
Weirdly, I'm blanking on post-apocalyptic tales generally. I was obsessed with the idea twenty-odd years ago (thanks, Ronnie!) but it seems to have subsided somewhat since the Cold War. There's a very fine post-apocalyptic book I'm thinking of whose name eludes me...damn.
John Brunner's 1968 masterpiece Stand on Zanzibar is my favorite dystopia--though I won't say whether civilization actually ends, because I think y'all should read the book, & bite your nails while so doing. Best SF novel of the 60's, I'd say, & among the best ever; he gets the shape of the future so well that it feels even now like it's about to happen, even though his actual "predictions" are almost all off the mark.
As for movies: what, no love for Silent Running? Personally I can't bear Bruce Dern's performance, but the concept is bone-chilling.
Posted by Rah | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 7:48 PM
48: Damnation! That's my reward for tinkering with my comment--somebody got there first. Oh well.
Posted by Rah | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 7:51 PM
Does "The Nine Billion Names of God" count?
Posted by mjs | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 7:55 PM
Cloud Atlas, magnificent novel by David Mitchell.
Also, numerous post- or immediately-pre-apocalyptic songs by Steely Dan, which are great works of fiction in miniature, in their own way.
Posted by Chris Brody | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 7:56 PM
49: No, but I was a technical consultant.
Posted by Giant Mutant Cockroach | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 8:06 PM
51--Thanks! I tried, briefly, to get that right, but I was pretty sure someone would know the right line.
That movie sucked all of the novelty out of my reading Marx as a horror writer, I have to say. "You mean other people caught on to how 'the dead forms of history' are basically zombies?"
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 8:10 PM
54: Ooo, lots of love for Stand on Zanzibar. What about The Sheep Look Up, also Brunner, for a truly creepy environmental dystopia? It's not nearly as good a book, but boy was it upsetting.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 8:23 PM
I really liked 28 Days Later. It was a sweet movie all around. I have an idea for a sci fi retelling of Troilus and Cressida, in which the aliens have Earth under seige, the human population has been driven underground to escape from the aliens' powerful atmosphere piercing sensors. Troilus is the upright, xenophobic, misogynistic young general; Cressida the alien/human hybrid ex prostitute spawn of the rape that started the alien-human war lo these twenty years ago. There's a love scene between them at the end of act one when they climb out onto the surface and look at the stars for the first time. Eventually Cressida causes the destruction of Earth by believing that the premonitions she gets are actual harbingers of the future (I don't remember exactly how; I'd have to dig out my old computer) rather than what they really are, signals from her alien race's mind meld!!!1!! If only she hadn't believed in predestination....
Com'on, who wants to write it with me?
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 8:42 PM
My wife took me to see "Damnation Alley" for my birthday. About the time the immortal line "Las Vegas is overrun by giant killer cockroaches" was uttered, I looked into the aisle to see a quite large roach walking down the middle like he was looking for his seat. She apologized profusely all the way home
For an excellent literary look at the apocalypse, try James Morrow's "This is the Way the World Ends," which details the special relationship between Leonardo and Nostradamus.
Posted by dr-paisley | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 8:42 PM
On the Beach.
"Inconstant Moon" by Larry Niven, where the moon lights up like the sun, and everybody realizes that a solar flare has destroyed the world.
Last Flight of Dr Ain by James Tiptree(Alice Hastings Bradley) which follows the worldwide flight of a scientist as he spreads a world killing virus. Very short.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 8:42 PM
And I am reminded reading the comments that when I saw 12 Monkeys I was really pissed that it was kind of similar to my Troilus and Cressida, especially since I thought it would make a good Terry Gilliam movie.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 8:45 PM
Greg Bear's The Forge of God. In it's simplistic form, an alien invasion story. Descriptions of the people on board the arks that are leaving as they witness the earth breaking apart.
Posted by Kevin | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 8:46 PM
63 - does that involve the city getting hotter and hotter and the slow realization by a bunch of character who were on the night side that the rest of the world has been burnt to a crisp? If so, love that short story, but I couldn't remember its name.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 8:48 PM
Does Nightfall count as an end of the world story? It's certainly an "end of the currently existing civilization story."
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 8:50 PM
In 67, 'story' should not be in quotes.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 8:51 PM
I never read The Stand but Rob Lowe is hot.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 8:51 PM
Thinking about 'the world as we know it' I wonder if Pat Garret is stretching too far. Yeah, I guess it is.
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 8:51 PM
66:Yes.
The Tiptree link is to the actual story. Readable in 5 minutes, quite beautiful and horrifying.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 8:53 PM
My vote goes to the four Romero dead movies, Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985) and Land of the Dead (2005). The first one is the only one that is perfect, and it is actually the least end of the world-ish, but taken together they can be the best end of the world movie.
23: That is a great line, and it got a lot of publicity recently because it was preserved in the remake. The exact line is "This was an important place in their lives. " My favorite part of the original though was missing from the remake: The assault on the housing projects. The black and Hispanic residents of the projects protect their zombified relatives against the openly racist police, because they feel more loyalty to the people they lived with, even in death, than they do the authorities. The segments at the TV station as the world collapses, with the experts trying to understand what is going on using only their now worthless political categories, is also brilliant.
All other zombie movies are in some way ripped off from the Romero movies. 28 days later was technically better--better acted, better directed--than any of the later Romero movies. But it's plot was essentially a summary of the first three Dead films.
At the risk of total pretension and overstatement, I would compare Romero to Orson Wells, in that his first movie was a seminal work of genius, and every subsequent movie was flawed in some way, often (but not always) for reasons beyond the directors control.
Posted by rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 8:53 PM
Close, but not exactly -- the moon suddenly gets brighter, and the characters figure out during the course of the story that that means that the sun's gone nova. They spend the night doing 'last night alive' stuff, and then figure out that the sun hasn't gone nova, it was just a solar flare, and while half the world has been burned up, the Americas should make it. Is that the one you remember?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 8:53 PM
73 to 66.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 8:54 PM
61: Tia, I am so with you. I will drop what I am doing to work on this.
Posted by rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 8:57 PM
Also, I gotta give props to Dr. Strangelove and the Battlestar Galactica remake.
Posted by rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 8:59 PM
Wikipedia Inconstant Moon
They may be delusional. I don't think the race survives what is described.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 9:01 PM
The Niven story "Inconstant Moon" was made into an episode of one of those cable TV sci fi anthology series, like the revival of The Outer Limits, or something. Michael Gross (Michael J. Fox's dad on Family Ties) was the male lead.
I can read Niven the same way now that I know he is a big Republican and Gingrich confidant. I missed all the conservative subtext when I was in middle school.
Posted by rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 9:03 PM
Inconstant Moon
Link to actual story. Yeah, I think the narrator is supposed to be delusional.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 9:03 PM
I can read Niven the same way now that I know he is a big Republican and Gingrich confidant. I missed all the conservative subtext when I was in middle school.
Same here, but boy, I thought he was great back then.
They may be delusional. I don't think the race survives what is described.
Why not? At the end of the story the sun is up, and the narrator isn't dead.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 9:06 PM
Best SF novel of the 60's, I'd say
Really? Over Lord of Light and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (or even Stranger?).
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 9:14 PM
Re: Niven. It helps, I think, that his writing has gotten uniformly bad of late. Makes it easier to dismiss him. Still, his early short fiction and Known Space stuff kicks ass. Lucifer's Hammer is a pretty good end-of-the-world yarn, for that matter.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 9:17 PM
80:
a)Three references to "charcoal-gray sky" I don't quite understand what that means, I have been googling, but I suspect nuclear winter. The author is telling us the narrator is in denial.
And the story is about reactions to imminent inevitable death. The narrator is simply in denial.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 9:18 PM
I see nobody has mentioned Cat's Cradle. It is my favorite novel about the end of the world.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 9:18 PM
Most realistic end of the world: Manifold Time (even thoguh I couldn't be bothered to finish it).
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 9:20 PM
I like The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 9:21 PM
86: yeah!
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 9:23 PM
Three references to "charcoal-gray sky" I don't quite understand what that means, I have been googling, but I suspect nuclear winter. The author is telling us the narrator is in denial.
No, it's sun coming up through thick clouds -- look, this is Niven. The odds that anything complicatedly psychological are happening are small.
81: I'd agree with Rah, at least up against the books you mention -- there might be another candidate I'm not thinking of.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 9:27 PM
72: That's interesting--I have a very concrete but apparently false memory of the line as I wrote it in #51. Maybe because I told the story that way so many times--it was my favorite Romero moment, whatever it was.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 9:30 PM
88: Well, among the that I have read the only other standouts would be A Canticle for Leibowitz and Flowers for Algernon.
(As an aside, I'll note that I was shocked to see Piers Anthony show up as a nominee twice. I had though his pre-Xanth, actually interesting stuff was relatively obscure.)
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 9:39 PM
And I guess I don't know to properly close a damn tag.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 9:40 PM
88:Tired of googling, can find no support for either reading. Your point about Niven has merit. The text is there, I guess in violation of copyright, for anyone's reading.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 9:46 PM
My commenting runs on a source of Brownian motion, like a cup of tea.
I've only read a little Niven, but his strength seemed to be interesting world creation and playing around with laws of nature, and not so much with the believable people.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 9:51 PM
Waterworld, obviously.
Posted by gonerill | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 9:54 PM
90: Canticle for Leibowitz is a possibility; not so much Flowers for Algernon.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 9:54 PM
90:That was how I organized my reading in the early eighties. I had a list of all the Hugo & Nebula nominees, and read them all up to the early 80s. Read most everything else by nominated authors. The quality of the genre was doable. Had to do much used bookstore visiting to find the obscure and out of print stuff. Took 2-3 years, and I still have them stored in boxes, with much besides.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:00 PM
that scene at the end of Labrynth totally rocks my world.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:03 PM
Costner with gills is great, but then again nothing touches Chuck on the beach, really.
Posted by gonerill | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:08 PM
Also the Neverending story.
the world ends! but it isn't the end, only the beginning! because I believe in atreyou! now let's fly on the giant cockerspaniel and push the bullies in the trash bin!
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:08 PM
This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a cockerspaniel.
Text is druuuuuunk.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:09 PM
three cheers for text!
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:14 PM
one
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:14 PM
two
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:15 PM
three
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:15 PM
97, 99: YES
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:15 PM
hooray!
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:15 PM
who wouldn't want a flying cockerspaniel, I ask you? all sleek and scaley?
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:16 PM
well just your luck. I've got one right here.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:17 PM
That's your zipper.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:17 PM
no, no. one needs look behind teh outer shell to find the true tubular cockerspaniel.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:19 PM
it's like when you're traveling on a narrow road through two sphinxy things who've got lasers for eyes, and they're gonna zap you.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:20 PM
and there's no way they aren't gonna zap you, in as much as they've always done so before.
But!
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:20 PM
the power of voodoo who do? you do do what? remind me of the babe...
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:21 PM
OMG, this thread rocks.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:21 PM
you believe! and there's an old couple with a wheelbarrow. And your tubular cockerspaniel is just fine. And then the two of you are off on more adventures!
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:22 PM
the babe with the power
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:23 PM
This is great. Text is the new butter.
text, text, text, text, text.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:23 PM
What am I, chopped liver?
Posted by Butter | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:26 PM
hooray! you guys are the best friends a lonely boy in an abandoned bookstore could have.
When this crazy story gets fixed right, and the man in the mountain stops sneezing us away, and the princess grows up into a fulsome type, and atreyou gets down off that cockerspaniel and gives it back, I tell you, I'll give each and every one of you a friendly backslap or whatever gender specific friendliness I might endow.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:27 PM
gender specific friendliness
Best euphemism ever.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:27 PM
Whoa-oh-whoa, oh-oh-whoa, oh-oh-whoa
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:28 PM
I hate you all.
Posted by gonerill | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:31 PM
gender specific friendliness
Best euphemism ever.
Bastian! Call my name!!!!
---
dance magic dance.
(ooh, ooh, ooh.)
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:31 PM
who can disagree with gender specific friendliness? We ought to all be more friendly. The world is a cold place, smelling of old beer.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:33 PM
I'm trying, I'm trying!
Posted by Bastian | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:35 PM
Old beer breeds eternal stench. Put that old beer in the oubliette, and toss me your head.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:35 PM
I see no one is mentioning the elephant in the room.
Posted by David Bowie's package | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:37 PM
are you referring to my tubular cockerspaniel? Because I've been going out of my way to mention that.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:40 PM
The package was the subject of much amusement during a viewing in college...'who is he trying to fool with that codpiece?'
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:41 PM
Goblins aren't terribly bright.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:43 PM
to bed. g'night all. up with fantasia.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:45 PM
Not to be confused with Gobiel Goblett, who is a Bright. Or was, until the terrible drill thingy got him.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:46 PM
I hate you all.
Nostalgia bomb spooked your horse?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:51 PM
Actually I was writing a comment for another blog and hit paste at the wrong time. I reserve the right to hate you all at some future date before the world ends.
Posted by gonerill | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 10:53 PM
I felt under pressure to like the Neverending Story but instead I found it unsettling and vaguely depressing. If I watched again I'd try to figure out why, but I've never done so, or have suppressed that memory and all of its associations.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 11:03 PM
73: It's been a really, really long time since I read it, so I have no idea (and I have not read the one mcmanus linked because I'm saving that for when I'm on company time - ha! just kidding, employers... eheh... ahem).
Damn, it was in a collection of short stories I have somewhere. It may have even been an apocalypse-themed collection. Oh, damn damnity damn. Anyway, if y'all are both talking about the same story, hey, that's our job as audience: to decide what we want to decide.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 11:05 PM
I've only read a little Niven, but his strength seemed to be interesting world creation and playing around with laws of nature, and not so much with the believable people.
And not so much with the believable science, either. (I don't think there's a single one of his early stories that doesn't have a major scientific error in it. And let's not talk about his biology...)
Posted by Josh | Link to this comment | 06-28-06 11:30 PM
I second Clownaesthesiologists nomination of "Cat's Cradle".
Movies: 28 Days Later probably. Those scenes with London just empty and silent are one of the most creepily beautiful things I've ever seen in the cinema.
I found The Day After Tomorrow quite compelling too even though it's a totally cheesy movie. Something about the imagery.
There were some truly horrifying post-nuclear holocaust things made in the UK for TV. 'The War Game' which was banned and hidden away for 20 years is a really amazing and powerful piece of work. Scared the living crap out of me when I saw it (in the 1985 broadcast when it was unbanned).
'When the Wind Blows' is the only great nuclear attack graphic novel about old age pensioners. If bits of the animated film don't bring a tear to your eye, I don't know what will.
There's a great Harlan Ellison (I think) short story in which the last man in the world is sitting alone in a room and then he hears a knock on the door. Where Ellison both sets up the clichéd opening and then subverts it.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 12:50 AM
Oh, duh. *slaps forehead* Until the End of the World. I think that's probably a contendor for my favorite. Rah also puts his vote in for that one, over my shoulder.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 1:07 AM
In a metafictional twist, the person knocking at the door turns out to be the author, Harlan Ellison, there to harangue the dude about a perceived copyright violation.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 1:11 AM
the only great nuclear attack graphic novel about old age pensioners
Which reminds me, qua cartoon, The Big Snit is pretty good.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 2:16 AM
20 gets it exactly right.
Posted by OneFatEnglishman | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 4:56 AM
138 -- thanks for the second! To expand: I recently reread Cat's Cradle and was blown away by the authenticity of Vonnegut's voice. It was a favorite book in my youth but I was worried going into the reread, that it would be flakey and childish -- better suited for a child than a man of my years and gray hair. (I think I was worried about that from reading other commentators saying such things about rereading Vonnegut after some years' separation -- but I cannot put my finger on who said that. Maybe it was me in a moment of pretension.) Anyways, choose one or more: my worries were misplaced. Whoever said that was a dick/not really taking it in. I have grown up a litttle since I said that.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 6:49 AM
Also: one of my proudest possessions, inscribed-book-wise, is a copy of Cat's Cradle with a doodled self-portrait of Mr. Vonnegut on the title page and the accompanying text, "FOR GOOD OLD JEREMY" + signature.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 7:12 AM
You all need to read "Earth Abides" by George R. Stewart.
Posted by Commentariat | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 7:24 AM
I have long held that Terminator 3 was actually the best of the trilogy, because of the awesome end-of-the-world part.
Posted by Sommer | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 7:34 AM
I dispute The Matrix's end-of-the-world status.
Posted by sam k | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 8:25 AM
I'd nominate the radio-play version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Bookwise, I dunno, CITY maybe (by Clifford Simak), where the world ends (uh, spoilers, though not really) because people find someplace more fun to be. CITIES IN FLIGHT (by James Blish) is amusing for pretty much starting out by ending the world, and ending by ending the universe. Movies? "Miracle Mile" was pretty good, so was "Twelve Monkeys".
Posted by Tom Scudder | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 8:32 AM
My dad has a copy of Allan Ginsburg's collected poems autographed to him with a picture of the Buddha. Jesus, it's been a long time since I've seen The Neverending Story. Why didn't I ever rewatch it? I remember I was so blown away when I finally got up the nerve to watch Labyrinth as a grownup and it was just as good as I remembered. I found David Bowie quite hot as a five year old, or however old I was.
I totally can't believe I haven't told this story yet here, but I used google and yahoo site search and can't find the comment, so maybe I haven't. My college boyfriend used to give me a treat by making his penis talk when it was bobbing around half-erect. It was a special, infrequent treat because, understandably, he wasn't entirely easy with me collapsing into hysterical giggles at the antics of his member. Anyway, the main thing he would make it say is " 'Ello" in an English accent. When we watched Labyrinth together, him for the first time, me for the first time since childhood, and the worm emerged from the wall and said " 'Ello" in exactly that voice, it was pretty damned funny, let me tell you.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 8:41 AM
I remember that story. Why have the search engines forsaken us?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 8:44 AM
My guess it's for the same reason the site breaks less often lately -- search engines don't seem to like the static archives.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 8:50 AM
The static archives should be easier for search engines than ones that change. I suspect something amiss in the .htaccess file. Also, M/tch and I have noticed posts where entire comment threads have disappeared.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 8:55 AM
Noooooooooooooooooo!
(We do have them all backed up somehow, right?)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 8:57 AM
I hope so. For example, this comment thread used to contain stories from both Ogged and me about "Rapper's Delight", as well as many, many more comments. Now? Blank slate.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 9:01 AM
My favorite fictional end of the world story is the one where all the Unfogged comment thread archives disappear into oblivion, never to return. Afterwards, we all wander about aimlessly for a time and finally lie down on the ground and wait for death to overtake us.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 9:03 AM
152: ".htaccess file" s/b ".htaccess and/or robots.txt files"
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 9:04 AM
We do have things backed up (I'm pretty sure). I also think that the disappeared comments will reappear when we regenerate the archives (I hope). That's in the queue of things to do.
Yahoo has been indexing the site better than Google since we started using the static pages.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 9:43 AM
One of the problems is that Google for some reason uses POST even when just crawling the site. We've tried to make exceptions for the Googlebot but some of the requests are still getting shot down. Yahoo uses GET, which is why it's doing a better job of indexing it.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 9:45 AM
Motel of the Mysteries
Posted by Zn' | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 9:57 AM
I can't believe we've gotten this far into the thread and not a single person has mentioned Genesis 6-9. Or Revelations. You secular humanists make the baby Obama cry.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 10:09 AM
You secular humanists make the baby Obama cry.
Apo's right, and he's got pictures to prove it.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 10:13 AM
160 -- Dr. Pavlov told me whenever someone mentions Revelations, I should link to Apocamon
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 10:18 AM
"Signal to Noise" by Eric Nylund: Mathematician decodes space noise and makes contact with an intergalactic arms dealer, who blows up the earth and kills everyone but the mathematician and a couple of other assholes. The good news: There's a sequel.
Posted by shpx.ohfu | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 11:03 AM
I dispute whether there is, or ever can be, any need to read a book so boring as to bring on a wish for the end of the world, and a desire to die long before then, a book called Earth Abides.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 11:09 AM
81, 88: As ever, I distinguish between "best" and "favorite". Stand on Zanzibar isn't even my favorite Brunner novel; that's The Squares of the City. So: I'll definitely grant that The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is more fun to read, and I still (since the 80's!) mean to read Lord of Light someday, but I'm giving Brunner the edge in terms of influence.
Zanzibar occupies the perfect mid-point between the large-scale yet rational universe of Asimov (have I skimmed too much or have we been discussing The End of Civilization without taking on the Foundation trilogy?!?) and the atomized, chaotic sprawl of William Gibson.
I'm not sure I can really defend Zannzibar as the most influential, it being from the same decade as Herbert's Dune (among the first to create a whole ecosystem based on current science) and Dick's The Man in the High Castle (which I have to mention because Dick's my favorite SF writer). I'm avoiding Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land because it was apparently written in the 50's, and because personally I find it a bit tedious. That's unfair of me, but I'm over it.
Maybe I should use my own blog if I'm going to get so thoroughly geeked-out. But I'm still loving the thread, & especially the reminder above about Blish's Cities in Flight, another book I've been "getting around to" since the Reagan Administration. As a final thought, though, I'll mention that Blish's 1968 Black Easter is a lovely depiction of an apocalypse wrought by actual demons summoned by actual black magic. Lots of fun, and comes with its own "don't try this at home" warning in the front!
Posted by Rah | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 1:38 PM
Geez, Rah, I figured you for a hardcore Heinleiner based on your handle.
I'll have to take another look at Brunner. He's always seemd like a minor light to me.
There's a Gordon R. Dickson novel from around that era that's a just scathing indictment of war/ the military that might qualify for among the best from the era, but I'm blanking on the name. I'll try to remember to look it up when I get home.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 1:52 PM
166: Rah's handle is based on something far more mundane.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 1:55 PM
But I'm still loving the thread, & especially the reminder above about Blish's Cities in Flight, another book I've been "getting around to" since the Reagan Administration.
It's totally worth it (although part of my love for the book may just be the appreciation of a New Yorker for anything that has Manhattan Island bombing around the galaxy steered from City Hall. That was just cool.)
And Chopper -- Brunner is absolutely worth it. Along with those already mentioned, Shockwave Rider is the origin of cyberpunk, or at least I think so, and nothing I've read of his is less than good. (A side note -- any other SF fans notice that while lots and lots of writers foresaw a worldwide information network that everyone would use all the time, they almost all, before the mid-80's or so, assumed it was going to be the telephone system?)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 1:59 PM
David Brin's _The Postman_. But not the movie version - Kevin Costner has a lot to apologize for!
Posted by oliviacw | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 3:46 PM
OK, since we waded into books, I'll totally take up the mantle of Asimov's Foundation books. Well, the first three, anyway. It's hard to hear him talk in some of the other ones for all the cash register noises.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 3:58 PM
The Stand has been a favorite of mine since I read it under the covers as a kid. It might've been the first book of that length I ever finished. Other favorites are A Canticle for Leibowitz, Earth Abides, When Worlds Collide, and the Suzy McKee Charnas books, recently republished as The Slave and the Free. And lemme give a shout out to Gamma World and Thundarr the Barbarian.
My favorite post-apocalyptic movies (at the time of writing) are Alphaville, Logan's Run ("Fish, plankton, protein from the sea ...!"), and ... um ... Delicatessen. Also, I love all the Costner Messiah-complex movies, but especially The Postman, as sappy as it is. I watch that movie about once a year and it's like fireworks on the 4th of July--at some point I just don't care that I'm being shamelessly manipulated.
Posted by Paul | Link to this comment | 06-29-06 9:30 PM
"No, it's sun coming up through thick clouds -- look, this is Niven. The odds that anything complicatedly psychological are happening are small."
Correct.
"Along with those already mentioned, Shockwave Rider is the origin of cyberpunk, or at least I think so,"
As do a fair number of others.
"and nothing I've read of his is less than good."
Oh, he wrote tons and tons of crap, as well, both under his own various names, and pseudonyms.
But his best is very good. However, that's only about 10% of his quite prolific work. A sampling. I believe it's a safe bet you've not actually read most of these.
Like a lot of skiffy writers of his time, he started as a hack, and rose to do some terrific work at his peak. (Similar to, say, Bob Silverberg, who was even far more prolific.)
Cranky bastard, though (as a human).
Also one of the few writers to actually drop dead at a Worldcon. The only one, I think, actually (though not the only person to ever drop dead at a Worldcon).
I'm unclear how any Foundation stories (all originally appearing in Astounding, incidentally; they weren't collected into book form until years later -- that is, the real stories, not the later yawners) qualify as "end of the world" stories; "end of the Galactic Empire," yes, but not the same thing. Not that anyone here is being fined, or should be, for digressing.
"...they almost all, before the mid-80's or so, assumed it was going to be the telephone system?"
Even with "almost," I think that's somewhat exaggerated; quite a few -- probably more -- had in television form, some had it as print-outs, and so on. Of course, the huge miss was almost no one forseeing personal computers and miniaturization, rather than giant Multivacs or equivalent. Of course, there is Leinster's "A Logic Named Joe," from 1946. Full (very short) story (legally) here. It pretty much gets Google right. In 1946.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 5:48 AM
Incidentally, Jim Baen died on Wednesday. (See also here.)
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 6:03 AM
Hey, here's one for John Derbyshire; anyone ever read Emergence by David Palmer? Narrator is a superintelligent 11-year old girl; a biowar kills everyone around her, and she discovers by going through her adoptive father's files that she's a highly evolved subspecies of human immune to all human diseases, and has an address list of others of her kind who should also have survived the war, so she goes off with her parrot to find them.
A major theme of the book, once she finds some other survivors, is who or if she's going to have sex with. Oddly, I read it not too far from the protagonist's age, and found it surprisingly uncreepy. Then, several years later, I found another book by the same guy with a chronologically adult heroine who is described in lascivious detail as sexily pre-pubescent in appearance, and was retroactively grossed out by the first book.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 8:10 AM
"Hey, here's one for John Derbyshire; anyone ever read Emergence by David Palmer?"
Yes. To a considerable extent it's a rip, ah, alternative take on, Wilmar Shiras's Children Of The Atom. Arguably somewhat better prose style, though, and quite readable, as I recall.
"...was retroactively grossed out by the first book"
Having now seen an extended trailer for 13 Going On Thirty on DVD, what seems to be going on in that movie (or at least the trailer) grossed me out.
I mean, the trailer is one long set of jokes about this thirteen-year-old girl (in the body of Jennifer Garner) having sex, or making passes, or having passes made at her, by either thirtyish guys (at someone with the mind of a 13-year-old!) or her (with Garner's body) at 13-year-old boys.
Eeuwy. I'm pretty broad-minded about significant age differences in sex, but not quite that broad-minded. What were any of the people who made it thinking?
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 8:25 AM
no right to hear the allegations against them
I don't know. What was Luc Besson thinking when he made Léon aka The Professional? Because Natalie Portman's character in that is 12.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 8:31 AM
"Because Natalie Portman's character in that is 12."
Yeah, but there's nothing overtly sexual in the film (that I recall; been a while since I last saw it). It's not as if there's something wrong with kids and adults having non-sexual relationships.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 8:36 AM
What was 176 in response to, by the way?
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 8:38 AM
I copied and pasted the text in italics from a differnt blog, by accident My bad. The rest of it was in response to your 175, and I had meant to copy and italicize this, "What were any of the people who made it thinking?"
It depends on your value for overtly.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 8:41 AM
What were any of the people who made it thinking?
That Big was a huge hit? Which I found creepy for pretty much the same reasons.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 8:45 AM
176 - There are two versions of that film. In The Professional, which was released in the US, there isn't much sexual going on between the characters. In Léon, the version that was released abroad and is available as an extended-version on DVD here in the US, Portman tries to seduce the assassin and their relationship has a lot more sexual tension. I love that movie (both versions). The release of Léon is one of the reasons I decided to finally buy a DVD player back in the day.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 9:37 AM
The Professional still has a game of charades with a 12-year-old vamping as Marylin, and she seems like she's really trying. Before anyone says anything, let me note that in 1994, when the movie came out, I was one year older than. So I'm allowed to know that.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 9:46 AM
There should probably be a word betwen "than" and the period. Possibly, "that." Yes, "that" was it.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 9:53 AM
How does you being one year older than Luc Besson change anything?
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 9:54 AM
The release of Léon is one of the reasons I decided to finally buy a DVD player back in the day.
Note how much creepier this comment would have been were I a dude.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 10:07 AM
"There are two versions of that film."
Oh, right; I've read that, but never seen the other version, and had forgotten.
Not having seen the Leon version, I can't speak to it. Although offhand, at least having the kid taking the initiative seems to me to likely impart at least a somewhat slight different possible flavor than having the grown-up do so. Possible.
Besides, oh, those wacky French.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 10:11 AM
There are two versions of that film. In The Professional, which was released in the US, there isn't much sexual going on between the characters. In Léon, the version that was released abroad and is available as an extended-version on DVD here in the US, Portman tries to seduce the assassin and their relationship has a lot more sexual tension.
Why do they keep doing that to Luc Besson's movies? The Big Blue as released in the U.S. was a terrible movie with an inferior musical score and an ending that made no sense. Le Grand Bleu on the other hand is one of my favorite movies, especially the three-hour version longue. The release of that version in the U.S. on DVD as the "directors cut" was the first DVD I bought.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 10:29 AM
I'm unclear how any Foundation stories
I totally see your point, but I choose to land on the side of yes, it is apocalyptic. 'End of the Galactic Empire' ends up effectively meaning 'end of centralized civilization.' There are planets ruled by robber barons and backwaters of the galaxy about which nothing is known in fairly short order, and science and history are re-encoded as superstition in any number of places. If that doesn't map onto, say, Mad Max's general topology of a post-apocalyptic world in which there are civilized areas and uncivilized areas, and the struggles between them, I don't know what does. And, if you take all the series of series, Robots and Foundation and even the in-between books that weren't really a part of the original continuity (The Stars Like Dust, for instance), they definitely deal with the end of a world, and successive generations of forgetting, learning about, then forgetting again the history/location/significance/factual reality of Earth (or any number of worlds at one time populated by humanity but abandoned over the millenia only to be rediscovered in later sequels).
That said, I think your point is valid. It is not apocalyptic in many of the ways that Mad Max is apocalyptic - no main characters ever give themselves over to the chaos in order to defeat it, for instance, and there is always an active element of what we would recognize as civilized society striving to fight encroaching entropy - but I still say it fits if we loosen the definition just a belt-notch or two.
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 12:41 PM
"I still say it fits if we loosen the definition just a belt-notch or two."
Fair enough. As I said, no one is giving fines here, nor need be.
(Though we could shoehorn almost anything in with a sufficiently loose argument; why, The Ice Storm, because it's about the end of the world of their relationship... [apply similarly to almost any psychological drama].)
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 12:45 PM
Farber is fined!
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 12:46 PM
Pistols at dawn!
Posted by Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 12:58 PM
Well, we can say it. I don't know what it means, but we can say it.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 1:00 PM
190: There's an extraneous "d" in this comment.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 06-30-06 2:16 PM
I'm disappointed that this thread petered out before I got to yell Steadmon!
I'm off for a week of wine and torpor on Hilton Head sland. I expect everybody to behave while I'm gone. Except Tia, of course, because I don't believe in setting unrealistic expectations.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 07- 1-06 2:06 AM