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All things must come to an end, but we humans have an endless fascination with the inevitable. Our September 2010 special issue and our web exclusives explore some of those endings. Writers and filmmakers, of course, have been tackling apocalyptic themes for decades, at times using them to highlight emotional aspects of sacrifice, heroism and dedication, to varying degrees of success.
The staff at Scientific American came up with a list of movies and books that show what human civilization would be like if it got short circuited by some sort of catastrophe. Feel free to add your own selections in the comments section.
1. Astronomical catastrophes
Day of the Triffids (novel 1951)
A beautiful meteor shower brings widespread blindness to all who watched it, causing civilization to descend into chaos—resulting in the release of bioengineered plants that move around and attack people.
Lucifer's Hammer (novel 1978)
A chronicle of the end of civilization caused by a comet that impacts Earth.
Armageddon (film 1998)
NASA sends oil-rig workers on a mission to blow up an asteroid that is on course to destroy all life on Earth. An overbaked action version of Deep Impact.
Deep Impact (film 1998)
The world braces for the impact of a seven-mile wide comet that threatens to cause mass extinction. A touchy-feely version of Armageddon.
Sunshine (film 2007)
The sun is dying, so a heroic crew travels by spacecraft to deliver a massive bomb to reignite the Sun.
Death from the Skies (nonfiction 2008)
Phil Plait, astronomer and author of the blog "Bad Astronomy," provides a chilling chronicle of potential hazards from outer space that could wipe out life on Earth and explains the science behind them.
Everything Matters! (novel 2009)
The story of one man who lives his entire life with the knowledge that life on Earth will be destroyed by an asteroid called Destroyer of Worlds.
2012 (film 2009)
Neutrinos released from a massive solar flare melt Earth's inner core, triggering a chain of catastrophic natural disasters, and survivors struggle take refuge on a small number of arks.
2. Biological Calamities
Earth Abides (novel 1949)
After humanity is wiped out by a deadly airborne illness, a small band of survivors set about rebuilding civilization.
A Sound of Thunder (short story 1952, film 2005)
A time-traveling hunter inadvertently crushes a butterfly during an excursion to the Jurassic period. It causes a succession of “time waves” to batter present-day Earth—and its embattled human occupants—and wrenches reality onto a different evolutionary path. Think baboon-dinosaurs besieging your local gas-mart.
I Am Legend (novel 1954, films 1964 (The Last Man on Earth), 1971 (Omega Man), 2007 (I Am Legend))
One lone man is immune to a pandemic virus that ravages humanity. He struggles to develop a treatment to save the infected.
The Andromeda Strain (novel 1969, film 1971, TV miniseries 2008)
A satellite returns to Earth with a deadly microbe that wipes out an entire town except for a baby and an old man.
The Stand (novel 1978)
A deadly virus is accidentally released from a research lab, wiping out humanity. The story chronicles the confrontations that occur among the survivors.
12 Monkeys (film, 1995)
A terrorist release of a virus has devastated civilization, forcing the remainder of humanity underground. Scientists send a convicted felon back in time as part of an effort to stop the release.
28 Days Later (film 2002)
A chimpanzee harboring a deadly virus escapes from a research lab and infects the entire population, resulting in societal collapse. The film focuses on four uninfected people and their struggle to survive.
Reign of Fire (film 2002)
Dragons suddenly populate Earth and wipe out all people in their path. Small bands of survivors across the planet struggle to evade the dragons and fight for their lives.
3. Geophysical Disasters
Soylent Green (film 1973)
The planet has warmed significantly and is overpopulated. Food is scarce; humanity clings to survival by consuming a processed food called soylent green, which contains a horrifying secret ingredient.
Waterworld (film 1995)
The polar ice caps have melted, leaving civilization underwater. Small bands of survivors drift across the waters seeking land.
The Core (film 2003)
Earth's inner core has stopped rotating, and its magnetic field dies. A heroic crew must travel to the center of the planet and detonate a nuclear bomb to restart the inner core and save humanity.
The Day After Tomorrow (film 2004)
A series of severe weather events brought about by climate change triggers a devastating ice age that prompts survivors to flee to warmer latitudes.
Wall-E (film 2008)
A garbage-collecting robot sets about cleaning an Earth so trashed that mankind has abandoned it.
4. War
The World, the Flesh and the Devil (film 1959)
A man emerges from a caved-in mine that trapped him for days to find a deserted world wiped out by nuclear war.
On the Beach (novel 1957, film 1959 and TV movie 2000)
A nuclear World War III has wiped out most of the planet, except for a band of survivors on Australia. This story follows the lives of these ordinary people as an impending radioactive cloud nears their refuge, bringing certain death.
A Canticle for Leibowitz (novel 1959)
Set in a Catholic monastery, the story chronicles the rebuilding of society after a devastating nuclear war.
Planet of the Apes (novel 1963, film 1968)
Astronauts crash land on a distant planet with a civilization of walking, talking apes that are hostile to humans. Sequels to the 1968 movie include Beneath the Planet of the Apes and Escape from the Planet of the Apes.
Stop the Planet of the Apes, I Want to Get Off! (musical 1996 from The Simpsons)
I hate every ape I see, from chimpan-A to chimpanzee…
A Boy and His Dog (short story 1969, film 1974)
A young man and his telepathic dog roam a desolate world obliterated by a nuclear war.
Mad Max (film 1979)
Set in the wastelands of post-apocalyptic Australia, the film tells the story of a vengeful policeman and his clashes with a violent motorcycle gang. Sequels: The Road Warrior (1981) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985).
The Day After (film 1983)
Fictional account of the devastation wreaked by a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
Testament (film 1983)
This film chronicles the lives of people in a small California town after nuclear blasts destroy civilization.
Threads (TV drama 1984)
Documentary-style look at the medical, economic, social and environmental consequences of a nuclear war in northern England.
The Postman (novel 1985, film 1997)
A war has devastated the planet, and bands of people, led by a stranger in a postal uniform, struggle to survive.
Book of Eli (film 2010)
Thirty years after a devastating world war, a man named Eli travels on foot to the west coast of the U.S. to deliver the last remaining copy of the Bible to a safe location.
5. Machine-Driven Takeovers
Logan's Run (novel 1967, film 1976)
In a futuristic society, every aspect of people’s lives is controlled by a supercomputer, and, to keep the population and planet's resources in equilibrium, no one is permitted to live beyond the age of 21.
The Terminator (film 1984)
In a post-apocalyptic future, intelligent machines devise a plan to exterminate the remaining humans. The film led to several sequels, a television series and two gubernatorial victories in California.
The Matrix (film 1999)
Machines harvest humans for energy by keeping their minds trapped in a simulation of the late 20th century. Sequels: The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions
6. Unspecified Catastrophes
The Road (novel 2006, film 2009)
A father and son struggle to survive after an unknown disaster reduced the planet to ash and rubble. They must avoid cannibals and scavenge food from abandoned houses and stores.
The World Without Us (creative nonfiction 2007)
This riveting thought experiment imagines how the planet would respond if humans suddenly vanished.
7. Collected Disasters
Armageddon Science: The Science of Mass Destruction (nonfiction 2010)
The science behind potential apocalyptic threats such as climate change, nuclear blasts, bio-hazards and the Large Hadron Collider.
How it Ends: From You to the Universe (nonfiction 2010)
A scientific explanation of how everything in the universe will eventually end.
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64 Comments
Add CommentInteresting list. Lots of bad/awful/stupid science. Also, looks like some good science stuff too (which I will explore).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy no religious end of the world stuff such as "The Rapture". Because there is no science content, good or bad?
Oryx and Crake is a science fiction novel by Margaret Atwood.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe novel begins after the collapse of civilization by an event that is not immediately identified. The protagonist is Snowman, a post-apocalyptic hermit character. He resides near a group of what he refers to as Crakersstrange human-like creatures. They bring Snowman food and consult him on matters that surpass their understanding. In addition, strange hybrid beasts such as wolvogs, pigoons and rakunks roam freely. As the story develops, these assorted lifeforms are revealed to be the products of genetic engineering.
And - it's awesome.
Small correction: in Logan's Run, the cut-off was actually one's 30th birthday, not 21st!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the vein of Stephen King's The Stand (aka Apocalypse) is McCammon's Swan Song. Awesome book.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIsaac Asimov's The Last Question is an interesting thought doodle of a story, taking us all the way to the end of the Universe - and back to the start. Lots of apocalyptic material in other Asimov stories, too.
When much younger I was fascinated by "Z is for Zachariah" by Robert C. O'Brien. It tells the story of a girl who survives a nuclear war thinking she is the only person left alive in the world. A movie based on this book was done in the UK in 1984. According to IMDb another "Z is for Zachariah" movie is in production for 2011.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI highly recommend the books on this list:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDay of the Triffids (novel 1951) - British author John Wyndham wrote many post-apocalyptic books, including The Kraken Wakes, The Chrysalids, The Midwich Cuckoos and Trouble with Lichen
Death from the Skies! (nonfiction 2008) - a good, frightening read!
Earth Abides (novel 1949) - holds up remarkably well, especially given recent pandemic scares
The World Without Us (creative nonfiction 2007) - you'd be surprised by how quickly evidence of humans would disappear from the planet, and also what human-made artifacts would survive the longest
My personal favorite, though I'm not sure which category it belongs to: Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI admit it's not probable, but it would be an interesting "end."
Arthur C Clarke wrote a book called "Song of Distant Earth"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScientists had determined that the Sun would go nova around
3600 AD (something to do with the Solar Neutrino Problem which has since been explained)
Between the present and 3800AD, humans had successfully seeded another solar system
I would add "Quatermass and the pit", a Hammer production movie on an aborted psy forces end for part of mankind
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRidley Walker, by Russell Hoban -- superb novel!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPanic In The Year Zero
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMore titles to add to this collection, just because I love films. :)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2. Biological Calamities
Resident Evil
Dawn of the Dead/Day of the Dead/Night of the Dead/Land of the dead/Diary of the Dead
6. Unspecified Catastrophes
The Happening
7. Collected Disasters
Plan 9 from Outer Space <--- LAWL
8. Alien Invasions
Men in Black
Mars Attack
V
Independence Day
War of the Worlds
9. Alien/Foreign Epidemic
The Invasion
David Brin - Earth
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWas a great disaster novel that I read about 10 years ago. Check it out!
The cutoff age in the book was 21, and 30 in the movie.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe film Soylent Green was based on the 1966 novel "Make Room, Make Room" by Harry Harrison
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually, I think the cut-off in the book LOGAN'S RUN was 21 and it was changed to 30 for the movie
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisanother small correction: in 12 monkeys, they send James back in time to find clues that will help them develop a cure, not to stop the release, because they cannot change the past.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisanother small correction: in 12 monkeys, they send James back in time to find clues that will help them develop a cure, not to stop the release, because they cannot change the past.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI recently read "Riddly Walker" by Russell Hoban, first published in 1980. The setting is two thousand years after a nuclear war destroys the world and civilization reverts to an iron age level of technology.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe 2003 french film "Time of the Wolf" by Michael Haneke would fit nicely into the category 6 - Unspecified Catastrophes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese films are all well and good. But the reality of the apocalypse ain't so pretty. Check out apocotalk.com for really helpful hilarious survival pointers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTruth is the real End of Days ain't gonna be so pretty. Check out http://www.apocotalk.com - beautifully and hilariously illustrated tips to survive the apocalypse!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRidley Walker is an awesome book. Much of the plot of "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome" is lifted from directly this book. Another apocalyptic film not mentioned is "The Quiet Earth" about a scientist who awakens to find himself alone on Earth and suspects that project he worked on may be to blame.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswww.apocotalk.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisit's all you need.
www.apocotalk.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisall the information is here.
My favorite is Walter M. Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiscool article and excellent posts everyone...i can see i need to get back into reading scifi...thanks for the suggestions ...ps..have 500+books, just been "too busy" to check out something new.....thanks....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnder War: "Alas, Babylon" by Pat Frank. It's the aftermath of nuclear war set in a small Florida town.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would add the novel "Greybeard" by Brian Aldiss (1964) to your list of "Biological Calamities". It is about humanity on earth which has become sterile because of radiation from atomic testing in space, and the ageing population ekes out an existence in the face of nature which now reclaims the towns and villages with wild vegetation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't forget Mike Judd's "Idiocracy" which ushers in the Apocalypse by the natural inclination of stupid people to reproduce at a massive rate, while the intelligent elite puts off procreation for various social/economic reasons.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this(Not sure which category this would fall under. "Biological" perhaps? Though not in the traditional sense of a virus.)
Human folly, represented by Felix Hoenikker and Ice-9, makes a memorable apocalyptic impression in Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCategory Novel, Author John Ringo
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVon Neumann's War.
The Earth Solar system is being taken over by self replicating machines and Earth is next
Machine driven Takeover
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAuthor John Ringo
Van Neumann's War: Earth's solar system is being taken over by machines and Earth is next
You've forgotten a few! How about:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen Worlds Collide
The Last Gasp
Ariel
On the Beach
5. Machine-Driven Takeovers
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis should include Dune by Frank Herbert (1965) - the feudal society (with limited technology and no computers) is humanity's reaction to being enslaved and almost wiped out by machines.
5. Machine-Driven Takeovers
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis should include Dune by Frank Herbert (1965) - Interplanetary feudalism (with limited technology and no computers) is humanity's reaction to being enslaved and almost wiped out by machines. To cope with the challenges, humans have developed disciplines of the mind and body to perform the actions of "thinking machines".
Don't forget all the incredible scenarios presented on the fabulous DOCTOR WHO series. How can you not mention him ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs is well known, even a stopped clock is right twice a day (refers to analog clocks of course.) Sooner or later one of the dire predictions will come true in spectacular fashion. The Christmas day tsunami of a couple years back that drowned 200,000 may only be a gentle precursor to what might come.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Aldiss thesis of atomic testing in space is trumped by extreme solar flares that may hit us with withering radiation as soon as 2012. If someone hasn't done a book/movie on this recently, there is still time. . .
The good news is that we humans are built for trouble. We are at our best when it comes to overcoming and surviving. Reality TV shows seem to be mining this theme a lot lately, but the TV survivalist environments are so contrived and artificial as to be laughable. When the real deal shows up we will get the version that brings out the true grit in maybe only a few lucky folks.
Dear Albert, MY visions theorize fully in, out, rectilinearly, and on the fifth dimension where Lisa Randall and I frolic in verdant warped fields and I remember the future to a certainty of an inverse google standard deviations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeyond that, everything is up for grabs--my lord, a proton just decayed and I felt it! Wasn't expecting that, I must admit.
Planet of Apes is similar to Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve kill the humans off and start MEEK
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe best apocalypse story I ever read was very different than any presented so far. The tragedy is that I don't remember the author or title! Instead of the world ending in a Boom! or some horrible way, it ended with a bored sigh of ennui. People the world over got caught up in entertainment and gradualy stopped productive work and paying taxes. When it hit critical mass everything fell apart and we ended up in a stone aged culture.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisColossus: The Forbin Project (1970) has defense computers taking over the world and a well thought out plot line.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow could you not name 2001: A Space Odyssey? Oh that's right, the writers were concerned with the really important stuff (their personal experience LOL).
Soylent Green is based on Harry Harrison's book, "Make Room, Make Room".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr. Strangelove is a classic 1964 Peter Sellers dark comedy about the third and final world war being started by mistake. If you tire of the plot, fast forward to the sequence of real nuclear explosions set to music.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow would you feel if you are the only person, who knows how to push that large beast called "Wormwood" out of the way so that it will not hit earth, talk about it and get ridiculed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe new novel "The Passage" by Justin Cronin, very similar in tone to "The Stand" describes a post-apocalyptic world where humans have lost the war to those who became infected with a vampire-like virus.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't know if anyone has mentioned this but... 12 Monkeys was not about attempting to prevent the release of the virus, it was about trying to get the original strain to develop an effective cure... just thought I'd throw that out there.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne left off the list "Eden 2", a child hood favorite of mine, and late night chiller theater fodder throughout the 70's a made for TV movie by the team that brought you "Star Trek" a techno distopia where people had two belly buttons, which a quite young Mariette Hartley looked quite fetching sporting
Re: Logan's Run - it was 21 in the book, 30 in the movie.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are correct, sir!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAbout the same time as "2012", I saw the movie, "Knowing", which I thought had a good premise to it. A small girl gets her grade school to create a time capsule so that it is opened 50 years into the future. She scribbles about 2 pages of numbers with no set refernces. 50 years later, Nicholas Cage's son is given the envelope with this girl's numbers. He shows it to his dad, Cage, who is an astrophysicist. He starts to look into what the numbers mean. He finds the numbers are grouped into dates of catastrophies, the number killed, and the map coordinates of the event. He happens to identify the dates by the most recent public tragedy...09112001. He then learns the following number 2995 is the death toll of the event. What has him stumped is the last series of numbers, which end up being longitude and latitude coordinates. All the while an alien race is trying to save a small number of people from earth...mostly children. I enjoyed it. Others panned it. Enjoy!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Quiet Earth -- 1985 New Zealand film, from a novel. And, as mentioned earlier, Alas Babylon, the first post disaster book I ever read and still very good.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisnovel missing under Biological catastrophes: Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood 2003.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisChildhoods End, Arthur C. Clarke
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI didn't see the film "The Age Of Stupid" on the list. To me that is the most likely scenario for mans demise. I'm with Dr Lovelock, 50 years max.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlas, Babylon - can't forget it!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlas, Babylon should be included.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNovels:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Death of Grass" John Christopher
Movies:
"Children of Men"
"Zardoz"
There was a televison series a number of years back with several characters who all came together in a small valley that was radioactive free. Everybody else in the world was kiled by the radioactivity. It only lasted one or two seasons. It was a comedy. Almost all of the scenes took place in the "front room" of the log cabin that they found.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this28 Weeks Later had a sequel: 28 Weeks Later.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"feel free to add your own selection in the comments section " - here you are ...www.mammoths.narod.ru -prediction are not include in the program Dynamic model , but variants specify on that Ms( hard shell of planet ) to go back into stationary position - that is all
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHello.Especialy after climate change people afraid for near future about mega-disasters even natural catastrophes(big tsunamies,earthquakes,meteors,...) .These are good reasons to movie-makers for to make films with new fearful scenarios .Somebodies are thinking :"-is it possible big damages to our planet even end of the world and lifes by last dangerously developments .More power tornados,floods,Arctric's ices melting and other echologic negatively developments are big fears for human future.Without wrong human interventions natural systems are perfect but unfortunately especialy after 20.century new technologic productions giving big damages to earth perfect eco-systems.For example many chemical materials very dangerous,and natural sources(cutting trees) are using for big productions so ;some of them are reasons of nature corruption and pollution.But companies prefer commercial advantages to human and earth goodness unfortunately.No body can change this situation.Only ther is one hope that,Universe Maker's intervention
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiscan do.Acording to Bible ;lovely and Almighty God is going to do soon for His world planet and (especialy good )human.After all natural sytems will be improve and later will be perfect again and only good human can live this paradise enviroment ; and nobody give any damages to planet .For more information I can recommend to dear readres our JW official website: www.watchtower.org )If we observe üniverse there very big billions galaxies,bilions planet systems are perfect and very very big power is controling all of them there are'nt any mistakes..So we can trust to high wisdom's source for to keep our planet too.But maybe before this Godly operation like top of the list movie scenarios will realize unfortunately.Because Jesus say on Luke Gospel's 21.chapter there are many fearly things before(Armagedon).But if we live acording toLovely Creator's purpose and standarts we will not afraid these catastrophes.By the way we hope responsible authorities(goverments,scientifical organizations...) will be more sensetive to planet and lifes.Industirial productions must control for healthly standarts .Probabaly some scenarios will not realize but other many of them are possible...?However we can live more of these obsatckles.With my deep regards...!
that fact, that scripts of the future on a planet is submitted in numerous interpretations - is naturally, that fact, that events of the past on continents also are submitted by variants which not probably even to count up is - a full absurdity , as events of the past in numerous interpretations are possible only in numerous publications of the certain quantity of authors which have the right
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thison the publication in editions such as Sciences.. and.. Nature; the Dynamic model has allowed to present chronology of events on continents during stages II - IV, in this model of event of the past are coordinated in sequence and interconnected - such events as thus are precisely proved: changes of a level of Ocean, when and why there were hills, features of climatic changes accordingly zones (h ' - h "" ); in summary follows, that not having precise representation about events of the near past on a planet scripts of the future - look rather strange
Resulting in re-named slavery and genetically engineered biological computers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt was Boxing Day. Not Christmas Day.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this