Top 10 Tuesday: End Of The World Movies

Who doesn’t love the “time for the bad news” disaster films. Small scale… global scale, complete with the attempt at character development and not much of a script. The constant, recurring theme in all these films? No character is ever safe. Any big time actor/actress could be picked off at a heartbeat, either by sacrificing themselves or from some alien attack. As we’ve witnessed over the decades, the screenwriter has been Overlord to the Earth’s demise.

With director Lorene Scafaria’s SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLD, the audience is taken on a humorous, moving, and intimate journey set against the epic backdrop of Earth’s final days after it’s announced that a 70-mile-wide asteroid is en route and mankind will soon be at an end. In this week’s Top 10 Tuesday, WAMG looks at how filmmakers have been trying to scare movie going audiences of impending doom.

10. THE CORE

With the turn of the century, the studios apparently thought 21st century audiences were clamoring for more and gave us Jon Amiel’s THE CORE. The 2003 Sci-Fi disaster film has terranauts traveling to the center of the Earth to restart the core that was snuffed out by a government experiment that went awry. In the meantime, the planet begins to erupt by destroying the Coliseum in Rome and melting San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. The tagline on the poster said it all – “Earth Has A Deadline”

9. DEEP IMPACT

In 1998 asteroid flick DEEP IMPACT, film-goers were greeted in the theaters with lots of red comet tails, stars, and the Earth in there somewhere. Critics and even the scientists praised DEEP IMPACT for its scientific accuracy over Michael Bay’s doomsday film. Director Mimi Leder’s special effects laden movie had not one but two apocalyptic endings – two for the price of one. With death and mayhem throughout, DEEP IMPACT was another case of spin the roulette wheel to see who would live and who would die. Some met their doom with the above monster tidal wave on Earth while others by the asteroid itself in space. A movie the Master of Global Destruction would be proud of…speaking of Roland Emmerich…

8. THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW & 2012

The director seems to be the maestro at coming up with destructive visuals to famous landmarks. It is his 2012 that inspired this list, and, I’m sure, you’ll be seeing another movie of his somewhere else down the line here. The great thing about THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW (other than the incredibly inaccurate geography of, well, everything in that movie) is how nature seems to be chasing down its victims. This isn’t a film about the planet crumbling underneath us, because of all of our wrongdoings. This is a film about nature coming to life and stalking people. Just as the ice chases Jake Gyllenhaal down the hallway of a wrecked ship in TDAT, so, too, does a well-placed tornado look at Mount Lee, think for a bit, and says, “Hollywood Sign,” you’ve got to go.

7. EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS

In the 1956 sci-fi classic EARTH VS FLYING SAUCERS, aliens in flying saucers give the Earth sixty days to surrender. Scientist Hugh Marlowe invents some sort of sonic gun, which knocks them off balance and, in the finale of the film, the saucers lose control and crash into various Washington D. C. landmarks. Despite a mundane script, the movie works effectively by adopting a dry, documentary tone and splurging the budget on Ray Harryhausen’s spectacular special effects. The smooth, grey, spinning discs of EARTH VS FLYING SAUCERS have become the definitive UFO, imitated in dozens of subsequent alien invasion movies. There’s always been something quite sensational in watching Harryhausen’s destructive vandalism.

6. WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE

“PLANETS DESTROY EARTH!!” was splashed across the poster for 1951’s WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE – a fantastic doomsday film. The giant planet, Bellus, is on a collision course for Earth and an escape ship is built, filled with food, animals, books, medicines, and people with the golden tickets to make the trip to nearby Zyra. A group of people lucky enough to be chosen escape off the planet just before the Earth has a close encounter with Bellus.

5. THE OMEGA MAN

No planets. No aliens. No spaceships. Just your friendly vampire-like creatures on a mission to take out the Last Man on Earth. Based on Richard Matheson’s “I Am Legend,” this second version reigns supreme over the first adaptation THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (1964) starring Vincent Price and the third adaptation, I AM LEGEND (2007) starring Will Smith. What could be more scary than the harsh realization of being totally alone after the world has gone to hell-in-a-handbasket.

4. CLOVERFIELD

J.J. Abrams. He’s the creator of so many awesome movies and shows, and always delivers on coolness to the extreme. Regardless of whether you fall into the love it or hate it camp, CLOVERFIELD stands to remain memorable for one reason if no other – the decapitated Statue of Liberty! How twisted is that? The monster beheads Lady Liberty, our most sacred symbol of American justice. Granted, it’s not entirely the idea of Abrams and the writers, seeing as the concept was inspired by the ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK. Still, that scene, above all others in the film was incredibly intense and jaw-dropping, making CLOVERFIELD worthy of praise in this top ten list.

3. ARMAGEDDON

“A global killer.” It’s still sends chills hearing Billy Bob Thonrton describe the asteroid, the size of Texas, heading directly towards Earth at 22,000 mph. Only option NASA has? Send a deep core oil driller and his crew of roughnecks to land on the asteroid, drill into the surface and drop a nuclear device into it’s core. Easy-peasy! But on this heroic journey, the crew has to embrace the horror and nastiest of conditions in order to save the world and stop the impending Armageddon.

2. PLANET OF THE APES (1968)

Towards the conclusion of the Sci-Fi classic, 1968’s PLANET OF THE APES, just as Taylor (played to the hilt by Charlton Heston) and the gorgeous mute, Nova, have seemingly escaped the clutches of their simian jailers, they’re riding on a horse along the ocean when he sees something on the shoreline. Taylor jumps off the horse, slowly walks over to the object in slack-jawed disbelief before crumbling down into uncontrolled anger, in the mind-blowing realization that he has been home all along. In the harsh truth that his own civilization has been destroyed, Heston yells the staggering pronouncement, “We finally really did it. You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you. God damn you all to hell.” The camera zooms out and pans upwards to reveal one of the most recognizable U.S. landmarks, The Statue of Liberty. Bar none, it’s still the best movie sucker-punches ever.

1. INDEPENDENCE DAY

Roland Emmerich has a hard on for destroying cherished land marks all over the world. At the time of INDEPENDENCE DAY’s release, nobody could have expected they’d see so much demolition in one film. The US Bank building in LA, The Empire State Building and the biggest kicker of them all, the White House were all destroyed at exactly the same time, and the blasts coming from them managed to level entire city blocks. The most destructive force in film since The Death Star landed on every single land mark in the world, and damn was it awesome. The capital of the strongest nation in the world, the very symbol of The United States of America’s strength was completely wiped out in a matter of seconds. The model itself was actually 1/12th the size of the actual White House, and that amazing explosion was filmed with nine cameras, generating one of the most amazing explosions in film history, and easily makes our #1 End of the World Movies.

So that’s our doomsday, apocalyptic list.What films would you have included? Let us know in your comments section below.

Opening on Friday, June 22nd (nationwide), the film stars Steve Carell, Keira Knightley, Connie Britton, Adam Brody, Rob Corddry, Gillian Jacobs, Derek Luke, Melanie Lynskey, T.J. Miller, Mark Moses, Patton Oswalt, and William Petersen.

SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLD is rated R (for language including sexual references, some drug use, and brief violence)

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