Catastrophe! Disaster! Death and Destruction of Property

Post Reply New Topic

I would like to celebrate the disaster movie. My favourites are:

"War of the Worlds" Steven Spielberg's version. Stupefying special effects; that machine emerging from the ground; that disintegrating ray; those tripods herding humans like rodents across a hillside.

"The Day After Tomorrow". Roland Emmerich. Stupefying special effects. Those tornadoes, that instant freeze, those CLOUDS!! And tidal waves and flying trucks and etc.

"The Poseidon Adventure" The ORIGINAL, with Gene Hackman as totally inspiring disabused religious guy. And upside down ballrooms. The dilemma of WHO to follow to safety. The soundtrack. The sadness.

"28 days later" Yesss, what a total disaster. Wonderful.

What's that one with Milla Jovavitch ? Extermination?

Others please....

So, what's the "other" that someone voted for? Please tell? I would like to be reminded of others and introduced to new ones.

Spielburg butchered the one book I truly loved in my childhood by taking an victorian english parable and americanising it into a sh***y hamfisted metaphor for 9/11, and for that I will never watch any other film he makes.

Resident Evil was shambolic and pointlessly unfaithful to the original work. the point that Paul W.S. Anderson ripped himself off with the plot of Alien vs Predator says it all. the sequels lack any of the panache and social commentary that keeps Romero's films afloat.

Roland Emmerich hasn't made a good film since Stargate, which he followed up with the big bucket 'O Patriotism that was Independence Day.

28 days later was a great film, on the other hand. Decent cast (people I've actually heard of for once),dark storyline, pathos, and a look into the nature of humanity.

I didn't notice any parallels with 9/11. In what way do you believe that it is it a metaphor for that event?

I also read and enjoyed Wells' book in childhood, but i think Spielberg did a pretty good job of transposing it to the modern age, except that the let out of bacteria is less plausible now because alien intelligence capable of space flight, etc etc, would almost certainly know better than to expose themselves to an alien environment without protection.
I too think Independence Day is Rubbish, but what have you got against The Day After Tomorrow"?

Yes, 28 days is by a hairs breadth, of some thing to do with humans, my favourite of all too.

I grew up watching disaster movies. My favourites are:

1. Airplane! (well, you didn't say they had to be serious)
2. The Day After Tomorrow
3. The Day After
4. Airplane II: The Sequel
5. The Swarm
6. The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
7. Airport '77

The Perfect Storm
Twister

I recently watched both of these. While the Twister had awesome special effects, I found that The Perfect Storm affected me for many days afterward. Maybe because it was a true story.

I don't really watch disaster films, but I really liked both Independence Day and the Day After Tomorrow. I'm a big sucker for blockbusters, which is really a failing in a film studies student. XD War of the Worlds impressed me for the first three quarters or so, then the ending made me want to hurt someone. Pretty, pretty effects though. I'd love to watch it again now I know more about special effects.

Those three are the only three disaster movies I can think of off the top of my head that I've watched though. XD Unless the Titanic counts, in which case that's my favourite. >>;;

Backdraft
Ladder 49
Twelve Monkeys
Children of Men
The Rock
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
WarGames
Airplane!
Alive
Das Boot

I felt the same way about it the first time i saw it.

In fact it pissed me off so much i tried to work out why. Because it's not as if Spielberg never made a film before.
One thing i wondered was whether we might not in fact be supposed to believe in it; and that the last quarter of the film is "after death"/in heaven/hell and/or fantasy. Possible signs: the man who waves them into the cellar of the house, holding his gun, is an ambulance driver, and they have just crossed over a river. Which reminds me of the River Styx and the ferryman who takes people over to death. ( also you catch a glimpse of the man just before they cross the river, when people are fighting for the car)

And they go underground. Then Cruise kills the guy, death, which could be seen as denial. And "the child", ( classic Spielberg) who "sees clearly", has her eyes and ears covered, and is told to sing nursery rhymes. And after that Cruise becomes a hero with his grenade, and then the aliens are killed by bacteria, and everybody is safe at the end.

The film breaks a very big rule of all disaster films/stories, which is that at least one important person always dies! I don't think Spielberg can have done something as against the rules as that by accident.

Anyway, with this angle on it, that it isn't "realistic", that it includes human fantasy in it, I have since enjoyed watching it. And in fact it is even sadder and more terrible for it. It isn't an easy ending at all.

XD I think that's too complex for Spielberg. He started in the directors era, but he MADE the blockbuster. It was Jaws and American Graffiti (Lucas) that killed the (brief) directors era. If there's much thought in any of his films I'd be surprised.

I'm not an expert on him though, I've only watched Jurassic Park and War of the Worlds, I'm going on stuff I've learnt in class (and my lecturer /is/ an expert on him).

It's a nice thought though. >> Wishing away the problems in films is always a good start.

Maybe the reason he "MADE the blockbuster" is because he is a master storyteller. I believe he thinks a great deal. And highly symbolically too, which is another reason he "made" the blockbuster.

Therefore that he allowed every single important character ( except ambulance-driver whose role is ambiguous at very least) to survive in a storytelling tradition where there is always a "loss"/sacrifice (which "buys" the survival of the others in a way) seems significant.

In fact perhaps "apparent survival"/happy ending is bought at price of denial, ( also symbolised by Cruise covering eyes and ears of daughter) and the film says that. And people really don't like it.

The reappearance of the son at the end is so utterly non-credible that it functions almost like the end of "Brazil", by Gilliam, when after seeing the anti/hero driving away into green countryside we see the doctor and assistant torturer speaking over the head of our hero who is still lashed to the chair, and saying " We've lost him". He has got away in his head.

It's make believe. Maybe people hate the end of "WAR of W" because it forces them to think that a happy ending to such a catastrophe is pure fantasy. And it's a lot more powerful than simply ending with total anihilation, because that wouldn't set up the dissonance. It would be seamless, and so challenge nothing.

Voted War of the Worlds

For all of its shortcomings, the presentation of the martian war machines is enough to shake every geeky bone in my body. Visually, emotionally stunning spectacle. Mediocre plot, but I'm willing to defend it.

Yep. Completely. And yes, it's perfectly poss to want the film in collection for that reason alone.

re; plot: was thinking some more, and thought perhaps the guy in basement isn't "death" so much as "inconvenient questions and reality". "This isn't a war, anymore than maggots against man is a war; this is an extermination" he says. And these inconvenient questions, doubts, the obviously hopeless nature of any human retaliation, etc are denied/disposed of, to allow "happy ending".

I accept Fluffy's "Titanic" nomination, and "Twelve Monkeys" , and "Children of Men", but NOT " Wargames", because that disaster doesn't happen, which i think disqualifies it, nor Strangelove because although disaster strikes you don't see people dealing with it, not really! I think of "Backdraft" and "The Rock" as thrillers, and don't know Das Boot or Alive.

What about "Jurassic Park" ?

I liked "Twelve Monkeys"; but why doesn't it feel like a disaster movie to me? Something about the perspective/point of view. Hmm.....interesting.

"Children of men" i disliked because of the syrupy P D James morality.

Last edited by ouinon on 14 Mar 2008, 1:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

Got it!! I've worked out why i didn't think of it as a disaster film.

Disasters are not only unpredictable, but they are UNpredictED.

I knew there was something fundamentally fishy about "the global warming disaster"/"catastrophic climate change" as concepts!!

You only know about disasters after they've happened.

Disasters by definition come out of the blue, like aliens and icebergs and triffids and hiroshima. Nobody really thinks that they are going into a disaster.

"Twelve Monkeys" is a tragedy. Even knowing "beforehand" as a result of tech/"time machine", it still happens.

I don't think Jurassic Park counts as a disaster because it's on a really small scale. I mean (*searches memory back to hiding under the blankets last weekend*) three or four people die? Maybe if some of the sequels are more widespread they'd count.

Also, going back to Spielberg, there's defenately some thought in his film (even if he started the blockbuster era off, he was friends with all the big names from the directors era, and I refuse to believe he picked nothing up off them), I just don't think the whole plot could be a metaphor for something. It's too recent as well.

Wouldn't this count the Day After Tomorrow out then? Or doesn't it count because while it was predicted earlier, it was predicted in ten-fifty years in the future (can't remember the dates given).

(Bleh, it took me too long to remember the copy/paste codes for windows. >>)

Also, what does anyone think of any of the 9/11 films that've come out recently? I haven't seen any of them, but surely they count?

That's an interesting question. HOW big must a "disaster" be to count as a disaster?

I was thinking about "The Fly" for example, by Cronenberg. It is a real disaster. It arises unannounced, ( they thought the risk might be in the machine, but it was in human error), and there is nothing they can do about it, except try to survive. But only one person dies. ( I actually think it is a tragedy, because the real first cause was human error, arising from anger/disappointment/loss of trust). "The Thing", Carpenter, is also a small scale, unpredicted, "explosion" in an isolated system. Does that count? ( Then there is "The Dawn of the Dead" etc. Big scale; does it count as a "disaster" film? )

The question of whether it might have been avoided is also why I hesitated to include "28 days later", because there is that moment right at the beginning when the scientist is saying to the animal liberationists, " Don't let them out; they have a deadly virus!", and one of the activists says "Don't believe him". So does the film count as real disaster, or as tragedy?

Not the whole plot, just that the episode in the cellar where Cruise blindfolds his daughter and kills the ambulance-driver functions ( by symbolising denial ), to separate off the last quarter of the film, to frame it as a different "level" of narrative. Fantasy/wish fulfilment.

Last edited by ouinon on 14 Mar 2008, 7:27 am, edited 3 times in total.