The end of the world is not only a topic for interesting
philosophical debate; it has also proved an excellent subject for
artists, fiction writers and film-makers to play on some of our
most deep-seated fears about our place in the universe. The attraction
of end of world scenarios is that they let the artist’s imagination
run wild, giving them free rein to paint, write or film the destruction
of humanity from an almost god-like perspective. But, early artistic
depictions of the end of the world may have been slightly less
immodest in their creation, such as the 14th and 15th century Doom
paintings.
Mediaeval ‘Doom’ paintings represent various examples
of artwork depicting Armageddon at the hands of God. Most were
inspired by the Bible’s Book of Revelation, which can be
viewed as a prime example of apocalyptic writing. The paintings
were typically allegorical reverence to God’s authority over
mankind showing a fire and brimstone end to our existence on the
day of judgement. Although the 20th century was perhaps less well-known
for its apocalyptic art, it was certainly the period in which apocalyptic
fiction writing flourished. While the genre (sometimes considered
a sub-genre of science fiction) has its roots in ancient Judaic
and Babylonian mythology, the latter half of the 20th century was
when it really took off.
One of the earliest examples of apocalyptic
fiction was Mary Shelley’s The Last Man. Written in 1826
(8 years after Shelley’s most famous novel, Frankenstein),
it tells the story of plague that wipes out humanity at the end
of the 21st century. The 1898 publication of H. G Wells The War
of the Worlds was another landmark moment in end of the world fiction,
and it went on to inspire numerous TV and film adaptations as well
as the famous Orson Wells radio broadcast. At the end of the Second
World War, the tense cold war period that emerged in its place,
with its perpetual threat of nuclear annihilation, brought about
a golden age of apocalyptic fiction. The cold war inspired such
notable additions to the canon as; Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank,
The Last Ship by William Brinkley and many others, which as well
as illustrate the stark reality of a nuclear war, also tell of
the bleak aftermath, in what came to be known as post-apocalyptic
fiction – the sub-sub-genre that is perhaps even more terrifying.
The usual topics for apocalyptic fiction are
quite simple and easily conceivable ideas, and therefore all the
more disturbing when they are presented as a means to our own end.
As well as nuclear holocaust, pandemic disease and natural disasters
occur again and again in stories about the end of the world. Steven
King’s The Stand combines the apocalyptic horror of a plague
with some of the earliest apocalyptic ideas presented in The Book
of Revelation. Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend follows a similar
theme of disease causing the end of the world as we know it, replacing
a decimated human population with zombie-like creatures that hunt
the few remaining humans at night. Such was the success of the
novel that it was turned into a film on at least three separate
occasions, most recently in 2007, in Will Smith’s film of
the same name.
Throughout the history of Cinema, the end of
the world and post apocalyptic fiction has provided screen writers
with no shortage of material. From dystopian visions of future
society after some cataclysmic occurrence, to all-out annihilation
by natural (or unnatural) disaster, the end of the world is a movie
maker’s goldmine. Sometimes, a series of disaster movies
come along at the same time, such as the 1998 release of both Armageddon,
starring Bruce Willis, and Deep Impact, with Morgan Freeman and
Elijah Wood among the cast. It is no small coincidence that these
two films, both with plots involving a massive object heading straight
for the Earth, were released just before the millennium. This was
a time when people were already building up the paranoia about
everything from the Y2K bug to any number of end of the world prophecies
relating to Mayan calendars(again), objects from outer space, aliens,
earthquakes and war.
A NASA scientist has recently condemned the
idea that the world is about to come to a sticky end after receiving
more than 1000 enquiries from worried members of the public, some
of whom had seen promotional material for the latest Emmerich film
on the Internet. Dr. David Morrison says he has even had teenagers
claiming they would rather commit suicide than witness the end
of the world, which according to Dr. Morrison proves that the film’s
viral promotions on the Internet and TV are ethically wrong, given
that there is no scientific basis for any of it. But what it also
shows is that, unlike other film genres that aim to keep us on
the edge of our seat, end of the world disaster films have an alarming
psychological hold over us, which is strong enough to push us right
off our seats into a state of extreme paranoia and fear. It also
seems that while there is still a few days, hours or minutes left
of existence in which to make some money, someone somewhere will
be trying to make it. So if the end of the world finally does come
in 2012, expect street vendors to be flogging 2 for 1 deals on “I
was at the end of the world and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” t-shirts.
Surviving Doomsday