Apocalyptic Cinema - Pre & Post
Apocalypse: An apocalypse is a text or story describing a scenario of final judgement. The most famous Apocalyptic text is Revelation, in the Christian New Testament.
Excerpts from essays at Transparency:
"Works of post-apocalyptic fiction and science fiction are simultaneously critiques of contemporary society, disguised depictions of personal development and the mind, and retellings of ancient myths. They use all of these 'realms' of meaning to create new myths about the loss of civilization and what we can do to protect it.
They typically show us a future in which elements from the past and present have been exaggerated and brought into an ironic juxtaposition with each other, to depict a world turned upside down. Into these strange futures come redeemers who are recruited by fate to save humanity from its own worst instincts. The redeemers are a somewhat disguised depiction of us, struggling against the fallen state of society and our own psychodynamics in an effort to create the world we are certain should exist. [...]
Most of the settings of post-apocalyptic fiction are of three types. "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome" falls into one type, showing us a world in which humanity has fallen back into barbarism and is replaying the tape of history. The other two types are world's in which the characters are trapped in a prison of high technology and simulation, that is disguised to look like a paradise ("Logan's Run"), and worlds in which civilization retains technology but is in a state of breakdown and collapse ("Blade Runner", etc.)".
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So post-apocalyptic films are indeed fiction (though not necessarily science fiction, mind you), and retain a sense of massive despair, where common rules of conduct don't apply. They take us on a roller-coaster ride through parallel universes that depict events which we can only hope will never take place in our own, leaving us numbed and truly mind-boggled afterwards.
Excerpts from essays at Transparency:
"Works of post-apocalyptic fiction and science fiction are simultaneously critiques of contemporary society, disguised depictions of personal development and the mind, and retellings of ancient myths. They use all of these 'realms' of meaning to create new myths about the loss of civilization and what we can do to protect it.
They typically show us a future in which elements from the past and present have been exaggerated and brought into an ironic juxtaposition with each other, to depict a world turned upside down. Into these strange futures come redeemers who are recruited by fate to save humanity from its own worst instincts. The redeemers are a somewhat disguised depiction of us, struggling against the fallen state of society and our own psychodynamics in an effort to create the world we are certain should exist. [...]
Most of the settings of post-apocalyptic fiction are of three types. "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome" falls into one type, showing us a world in which humanity has fallen back into barbarism and is replaying the tape of history. The other two types are world's in which the characters are trapped in a prison of high technology and simulation, that is disguised to look like a paradise ("Logan's Run"), and worlds in which civilization retains technology but is in a state of breakdown and collapse ("Blade Runner", etc.)".
---
So post-apocalyptic films are indeed fiction (though not necessarily science fiction, mind you), and retain a sense of massive despair, where common rules of conduct don't apply. They take us on a roller-coaster ride through parallel universes that depict events which we can only hope will never take place in our own, leaving us numbed and truly mind-boggled afterwards.
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