The end of the world is nigh.

I always get super hyped on end-of-the-world disaster movies. I don’t know why, but they have always really excited me. I’m definitely a sucker for mass devastation CGI and seeing huge parts of the earth being destroyed in full Technicolor. It’s awesome. I’d probably find myself quite settled at thought of dying if I knew that everyone else was going to die at the same time, which probably makes me an asshole or something. Whatever. Anyway, my point is that none of these disaster movies has ever satisfied me. I see the trailers and I get so excited, but after watching the films I always feel let down and I think I finally figured out what it is about these films that is leaving me flat.

Firstly, Hollywood films, in general, do ridiculous stuff that is completely at odds with real life and the way people really behave in high-stress situations. The distinction between “goodies” and “baddies” is always painfully obvious and the behaviour of the characters always seems detrimental to the film. I’m willing to believe that an asteroid is going to destroy earth, but I’m not willing to believe that Will Smith can fly an alien fighter plane into a mother ship, upload a virus and take down the entire fleets shields. This isn’t why the films kind of suck though.

Secondly, the dialogue in the films is horrible, almost universally. I know these movies have huge budgets that they have to recoup and so the film is aimed at as wide demographic as possible, but you don’t need to make a pun when you dodge the meteor, or kill an alien. It would be entirely unlikely that on out-running a huge gaping chasm that is widening down the highway, the ex-drug addict-turned excellent father would say something like “I thought I quit crack years ago!” This isn’t why the films kind of suck though (although it’s a close second)

The 3^rd reason is why I think these films kind of suck. It’s the happy endings. I mean, most of these films don’t end on an exactly “happy” note, but the sky is always blue and the destroyed world looks kind of pretty and there’s this overwhelming sense that everything is going to be ok. ARE YOU PEOPLE CRAZY? ALMOST 6 BILLION PEOPLE JUST DIED! EVERY PERSON AND BUILDING YOU EVER KNEW IS GONE! THE WORLD IS ENTIRELY DESTROYED! I’d love it if a director had the balls to actually have the humans all die out. It’s not like it would really take much to make us all extinct and I think that would be a rad ending to a film. Am I the only one?

*I watched 2012 yesterday and whilst it was entertaining, our team of “goodies”, led by John Cusack (who I think is awesome usually) manages to out-drive Los Angeles collapsing into the pacific, learn how to fly a light aeroplane and then outrun the huge chunks of rock spewed by a volcano, learns how to fly a jumbo aeroplane and land it on a glacier whilst driving out the back of it in a sports car and then sneak into a military compound and get aboard an ark, fix the complex machinery inside the arc to ensure they don’t crash into Mt Everest. Thank god the film was pirated.