Photo: Dome Genbaku ruins, declared World Heritage by UNESCO, in the "zone 0" Hiroshima. On August 6, 1945 was one of those events, as the saying goes, forever change the history of mankind. That day the Japanese city of Hiroshima was devastated by the first nuclear weapon used in war history. The scenes of utter devastation left by war crime that goes unpunished impress even today, more than 60 years later and left a deep impression that inevitably influence in all spheres of art and human creativity. With them would be born a new subgenre in science fiction, devoted to speculate on new horizons of destruction that science laid bare: the post-apocalyptic genre , commonly known as the stories of the "morning after." Because, although some of these stories in which the disaster is natural causes, or that the culprits are aliens, are exceptions to the rule that the war between superpowers would inevitably cause the collapse of civilization.
I must warn that this little article contains a few spoilers do not wiggle. Although almost all refer to the classics we've all seen / read (or should have seen / read) more than once.
already as early as 1948 , writer Aldous Huxley published one of the first stories of the genre: Mono and essence. Huxley, who complained of not having included in his famous work Brave New World is no reference to nuclear power, presents us with a world devastated by nuclear war. From New Zealand, the only area of \u200b\u200bthe planet saved from pollution, part an expedition to find in what was American disaster survivors. They found a people of mutants to the radiation has affected their sexual activity, which is now subject to periods of heat. These lender shall worship the devil, because they believe the war that destroyed the planet is a clear proof of the triumph of evil, and that Satan is the only true God. The creature has begun to take its first steps, but to start walking firmly, needed another major historical event. I needed the Cold War.
Of course, without the need of the Cold War, also have made great apocalyptic stories. By way of example, mention the novels The Drowned World of George Ballard (1962), or I Am Legend of Richard Mathesson (1954), in which the apocalypse happens by purely natural causes. But undoubtedly, are much more suggestive stories take as their starting point the self-annihilation of the human race because of his own madness and the belief that anything goes when it comes to achieving absolute power. No doubt because of the element of criticism and analysis of human psychology that they contain. And also because I never lose sight of the methods to achieve this apocalypse was already there (in fact, are still where we left them just 15 years ago, waiting patiently, knowing that again), waiting to be used by someone crazy enough for it. There was little of a lot of science fiction and in such cases. Having said this, we can understand why the golden age of the genre, except for some precursors and some works twilight cover from 60 to late 80's.
Picture: Poster of the movie On the Beach (original title On the Beach), 1959 In 1959 opens perhaps the first film that shows all the cliches of the genre: Final Hour (On the Beach) of Stanley Kramer, with two big stars like two main characters: Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner . Nuclear war has devastated the planet, and the few survivors are living as refugees in Australia, awaiting the time when the pollution eventually reaches the antipodes and all will inevitably die. One of the most memorable scenes this oppressive drama is the city of San Francisco completely deserted, where the submarine led by Gregory Peck had moved to rescue an alleged survivor, who happens to be a bottle of Coke which pushed up against a telegraph by a curtain to the wind blew, it sent the signal by chance.
Charlton Heston in 1968 , interpret a classic of science fiction, Planet of the Apes , directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, an astronaut after a long journey comes to what he believes an alien planet, where a curious fate of evolution has worked upside down, and while humans have not passed the intellectual level of Cave, the great apes have developed the intelligence to become the dominant species on the planet. Only at the end the hero will find that he has traveled in a circle, returning to the Earth itself in the future, and that the decline of the human species is the result of self-annihilation. For the history of the genre will be the image of Charlton Heston cursing humanity from the ruins of the Statue of Liberty. This film led to several sequels, along the 70's, which abounded in the same issue but only with great generosity could say that reaching the level of the series B.
the mythical final scene of Planet of the Apes (1968): "I will curse ..."
In 1971, Charlton Heston again stars The Omega Man (The Omega Man) , based on the novel I Am Legend of Richard Mathesson , which had already experienced a first film adaptation in 1964 with the title of The last man on earth , starring the master of the series B Vincent Price. This time it's a virus that has made all the world's population into vampires. In the novel, published in 1954, plague, and the immunity of the protagonist, are completely natural origin, but the simple solution is no longer valid in the 70's. The source at this point can not be other than warfare, and immunity of the leading work of an experimental vaccine army property, which is injected into the desperate. Also, vampires do not hate the player just because he walks in the sun and faces with them, but because it also uses the technology, which they considered evil, because I think the plague that destroyed the world. The film has some lovely details of series B that will delight the modern viewer.
The apocalyptic theme that will recur throughout the 70 which may even result in versions intended for children. In 1978 a beginner then Hayao Miyazaki signing his second directorial Future Boy Conan. This animated series follows the adventures of a pair of preteens in a world flooded due to the upheavals resulting from the use of weapons of mass destruction, searching for her grandfather, a famous scientist before the apocalypse, which must be found before done by a group that sought refuge in a former military complex, plans to use its expertise to re-launch the weapons in the tank, and thus conquer all the waters have not yet been swallowed by imposing a military dictatorship. Actually, a lot of talent needed to assemble a coherent way this extravagant mixture of Tarzan, Robinson Crusoe, Marco and 1984, and to obtain a product suitable for family audience, but Miyazaki overboard. The story, that if, in view more than a quarter century later, makes us reflect on that end had come to distrust the future when using an argument as scary for a series aimed at children.
In 1979, occurs a milestone, to debut the first of the three parts of the trilogy to mark on the aesthetics of the genre forward. We speak, of course, Mad Max , directed by George Miller and starring Mel Gibson . Australian deserts on the screen became a world ravaged stop in which new barbarian tribes will be played the last remnants of the precious fuel in the most violent possible. Mad Max, and its two sequels ( 1981 1985 and also by the same director-actor duo) will be imitated endlessly, and throughout the 80's the movie screens were filled with Barbarians futuristic aesthetic heavy / punk, running through desert roads on motorcycles customized, tuned cars and all kinds of motorized Andromina, indulging in the pleasures of speed and gratuitous violence. It opened a new horizon for the series B.
promotional video Mad Max (1979) tuning Fans Get on your knees, please.
the turn of the decade, some also began to change in the global political landscape. The strategy of terror is becoming more questionable, and it seems as if a new generation has been proposed by interrupted the Prague Spring and May French. In the West, Green parties break into politics and start winning lots of power. In the East, the response to Soviet power increasingly takes more strength, with Poland's Solidarity union as a spearhead. This climate affects the same genre, and new works that become critical boost over the background at the expense of pure adventure.
Poster The Morning After (1983) In 1983 telefilm premieres mythical The day after, of Nicholas Meyer, the movie you end up naming the entire subgenre. Recounts the day after without any concessions, and with some incredibly realistic special effects and makeup, the horrific scene in the days immediately after a hypothetical nuclear attack on the United States. The film caused a strong social impact, which led to his leap to the big screen in many countries, despite being a product originally designed for television, giving wings to the emerging peace movement, and was widely panned by most right-wing sectors of the map both in the U.S. political and blockaded the rest of the West, who considered it little more than an act of treason.
frame of the movie "When the wind blows" In 1986
opens the animated film When the wind blows from Jimmy T. Murakami , based on a novel by Raymond Briggs , who also wrote the screenplay adaptation. It tells the story of a retired British couple in the days leading up to nuclear war. Naively trusted by government propaganda, and convinced that nothing can be worse than the hard times of World War II, when they want to realize their error will be too late. The film, needless to say, contains a strong criticism, in keeping with the times.
At this point, historical events begin to mark the twilight of the genre. In 1985 comes to power in the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev , who seeks to curb the increasingly insistent response to Moscow's dictatorial power both in the same European Union, its satellite territories with a series of opening measures in principle should satisfy the population. Without knowing it, everything rolling a snowball down the slope, which eventually ended up taking ahead. In 1987 he signed a disarmament treaty with the USA. In 19889, the Soviet troops withdraw from Afghanistan. In 1989, it demolished the Berlin Wall , producing a domino effect that makes them fall one after the other communist governments in Eastern Europe. In 1990 he produced the reunification of Germany. Finally, in 1991 , lost its neocolonial satellites, the Soviet Union itself breaks up and disappears from the maps. The Cold War ended with the defeat of one of the blocks in socioeconomic causes and not military. With it disappears the inspiration for the genre, which only give some work before it goes final twilight.
In 1995 opens Judge Dredd, adapted from a comic series created in 1977 , a long-delayed project, on a post-apocalyptic world in which law and order are in the hands of a elite body combines the roles of policeman, judge and executioner. The film, directed by Danny Cannon and starring Sylvester Stallone in any case, does not do justice to the original comic, eliminating any element of satire or criticism present in it, and turning one of the most fascist and bastards of the cartoons in little more than a padrazo.
That same year, 1995 , Kevin Costner miserably assassinate the genre to commit the infamous Waterworld without doubt the biggest fiasco in the history of cinema. The film presents a new twist to the argument of the underwater world, but this time the causes of the disaster are not military, but due to lack of respect of man by nature. The film, planned as an environmental argument (with details as obvious as the fact that ill-used as base floated the wreck of the Exxon Valdez, causing a major oil spill in history) failed at the box office and received a merciless criticism . She sank with the attempt to try to use the growing concern for environmental conservation as apocalyptic argument. It did not work, and although the new terrors of climate change and the ozone layer have resurrected the disaster genre, apocalyptic science fiction since remained silent. And maybe be the best. In the final analysis, these films and stories are testimony to an era and terrors disappeared. Other times we now live, with its own terrors. Neither better nor worse, just different.
PS I am sure I've left on the drawing board many films, novels, comics, TV series, etc.. If bad luck including making is a favorite of readers, I can only apologize. I could not put them all, I hope you understand.
