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The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 1/1/2012 6:35:05 PM

Rgirvan44

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From: Punishment Park

So now we have hit the end times, what are the best visions of the end of the world on film? Now this is different from post apocalyptic films. This is more about the END.

The first one I am going to throw in is the End of Evangelion. Now I haven't even watched the series (just the 2 new movies which remake the series) - but there are giant robots and teenage kids and it is kind of crazy.

This craziness reaches its apex here - for reasons I am not sure about a giant naked woman rises out of the Earth. Robots with human looking faces stick spears into their chests, and the world ends with people turning into pools of orange goo. This is all against the backdrop of a pop song about suicide that sounds like a riff of Hey Jude. Visually interesting, and distrubing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNelByTqFnA

From about 2.30 in.

So odd.

What are some of yours?

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 1/1/2012 8:53:08 PM

rich

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From: Neo Kobe

Yeah people didnt like how Evangelion ended, which the guy who made it wasnt happy about - so he went and made a more disturbing more crazy version of how it ends with the movie.

Personal choice - T2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR_midwZ2f0

< Message edited by rich -- 1/1/2012 8:54:42 PM >

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 1/1/2012 10:15:43 PM

DancingClown

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quote:

ORIGINAL: rich

Personal choice - T2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR_midwZ2f0

Yeah, I remember seeing that in the cinema and was bloody terrified. And these days I find it harder to watch as I have kids of my own. Very powerful stuff.

I've always enjoyed the prologue to Mad Max 2, the mixture of archival footage and stuff from the first film, although it doesn't actually mention anything nuclear. I also love the description of the apocalypse - or the "poxyclipse" - in Thunderdome with the kids enacting the end of the world through mime and their bizarre lingo - getting "jumped by Mr Dead". Actually quite chilling and a brilliant example of depicting something effectively with only the minimum of visuals.

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 1/1/2012 11:25:04 PM

Whistler

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Melancholia. A few films have done it very effectively, but none as powerfully as Melancholia. That final scene is just unbelievable; devastatingly realistic, brutally hopeless, and utterly terrifying. I was completely blown away (as was the rest of the theatre).

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 1/1/2012 11:32:49 PM

DONOVAN KURTWOOD

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Knowing and 2012 (obviously) come to mind as good recent examples

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 1/1/2012 11:37:03 PM

Rgirvan44

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Whistler

Melancholia. A few films have done it very effectively, but none as powerfully as Melancholia. That final scene is just unbelievable; devastatingly realistic, brutally hopeless, and utterly terrifying. I was completely blown away (as was the rest of the theatre).

Yeah that was a great one. Of course there is a whole metaphor thing...but the literal sense of what is happening is every bit as scary.

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 3/1/2012 1:56:35 PM

Timon

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For me, it's The Road.

Just bleak, bleak, bleak survival at its rawest.

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 3/1/2012 4:41:20 PM

filmfanatic123

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If it can count - The Day After Tomorrow.

Think it's a stunningly shot film with some great acting - one of the most underrated films of the last ten years.

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 4/1/2012 9:11:00 AM

Spaldron

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quote:

ORIGINAL: filmfanatic123

If it can count - The Day After Tomorrow.

Think it's a stunningly shot film with some great acting - one of the most underrated films of the last ten years.

Dude srsly.

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 4/1/2012 10:04:20 AM

messiahtime

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I Am Legend...

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Fall Out 3 ;)

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 4/1/2012 10:32:40 AM

Whistler

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Rgirvan44

So now we have hit the end times, what are the best visions of the end of the world on film? Now this is different from post apocalyptic films. This is more about the END.

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 4/1/2012 12:12:39 PM

filmfanatic123

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Spaldron

quote:

ORIGINAL: filmfanatic123

If it can count - The Day After Tomorrow.

Think it's a stunningly shot film with some great acting - one of the most underrated films of the last ten years.

Dude srsly.

You may mock, but I genuinely believe that...

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 4/1/2012 4:55:59 PM

rich

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The world didn't even end, never mind nothing stunning happens

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 4/1/2012 5:12:54 PM

garvielloken

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Takashi Miike's Dead Or Alive.

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 27/2/2012 3:54:09 PM

itsmandylee101

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2012 really scared me, especially since disasters (earthquakes, landslide, and flooding) were present in my country when it was shown. Talk about good promotion.

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 28/2/2012 8:18:51 AM

threshold

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Seeking a friend for the end of the world looks pretty damn scary for a comedy-drama...

TV wise, The Goodies ep shocked me to the core.

2012, day after tomorrow etc are all pretty average.

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 28/2/2012 9:16:04 AM

Stillwater

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Whistler

Melancholia. A few films have done it very effectively, but none as powerfully as Melancholia. That final scene is just unbelievable; devastatingly realistic, brutally hopeless, and utterly terrifying. I was completely blown away (as was the rest of the theatre).

I would concur with this, an amazing payoff for the frankly quite dull (albeit stunning) movie that went before hand.

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 28/2/2012 10:40:44 AM

st3veebee

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Stillwater

quote:

ORIGINAL: Whistler

Melancholia. A few films have done it very effectively, but none as powerfully as Melancholia. That final scene is just unbelievable; devastatingly realistic, brutally hopeless, and utterly terrifying. I was completely blown away (as was the rest of the theatre).

I would concur with this, an amazing payoff for the frankly quite dull (albeit stunning) movie that went before hand.

Can something be simultaneously dull and stunning?

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 28/2/2012 11:27:59 AM

Stillwater

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quote:

ORIGINAL: st3veebee

quote:

ORIGINAL: Stillwater

quote:

ORIGINAL: Whistler

Melancholia. A few films have done it very effectively, but none as powerfully as Melancholia. That final scene is just unbelievable; devastatingly realistic, brutally hopeless, and utterly terrifying. I was completely blown away (as was the rest of the theatre).

I would concur with this, an amazing payoff for the frankly quite dull (albeit stunning) movie that went before hand.

Can something be simultaneously dull and stunning?

Storyline was dull, visually it was stunning

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 28/2/2012 11:44:09 AM

shool

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I'd go with T2.

Although for a real possibility, although they manage to save the world I'd go with Contagion.

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 28/2/2012 12:04:02 PM

Stillwater

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Although they save the world in the end, I like Deep Impact

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 28/2/2012 1:03:04 PM

great_badir

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If you can get past Brian Thompson playing a good guy, in a leotard and handily being able to fly a helicopter at the last minute, The Miracle Mile's microscopic budget avoids showing the destruction and instead focusses on the sheer mental panic of the general public, in a fury of fucking, fighting, looting, crying and suicides in the street. Good little film.

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 28/2/2012 1:12:11 PM

Sutty

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Threads.

Made in 1984. British film set in, I think, Yorkshire primarily. Made as TV movie and is obviously low budget, but all the more bleak and realistic for it. For anyone who has not seen it you should seek it out. But be warned, there is no 2012/Day After Tomorrow style last minute grasps to a better tomorrow or saving of dogs.

A very, very intriguing and frightening depiction of the end of the world...

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 28/2/2012 1:24:42 PM

great_badir

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Sutty
Threads.

On a similar wavelength, Peter Watkins' infamous War Games.

Although neither of them are properly THE END.

< Message edited by great_badir -- 28/2/2012 1:25:19 PM >

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 29/2/2012 1:05:57 PM

grucl

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Beneath the planet of the apes.

When I first saw it as a kid I was really shocked by this very definitive ending (until the next movie, of course).

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 29/2/2012 1:10:05 PM

homersimpson_esq

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24 posts and nobody has mentioned this yet?

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 29/2/2012 1:44:48 PM

DONOVAN KURTWOOD

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The intro to Mad Max 2

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 29/2/2012 11:00:25 PM

Qwerty Norris

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quote:

ORIGINAL: homersimpson_esq

24 posts and nobody has mentioned this yet?

This....

Melancholia's a good shout, as is the Road (but naturally the book articulates it even better).

It's not quite the end, but I remember back in 2002 thinking 28 Days Later managed to capture the idea of "bar a handful, we are all dead" pretty well.

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 1/3/2012 8:23:17 PM

Darth Psyman

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Love apocalyptic end of the world stuff (don't know what that says about me) like the opening to I Am Legend which is eerie and haunting (especially when he's lying in the bath with a gun listening to all the sounds from outside) and 28 Days later, really well shot.

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RE: The Best Depictions of the End of the World - 2/3/2012 2:42:26 AM

King of Kafiristan

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Timon

For me, it's The Road.

Just bleak, bleak, bleak survival at its rawest.

I'd have to agree. The film hits you like a gut punch, and the utter hopeless of the situation is just all consuming.This movie deeply affected me, and I now feel more concerned about the environment than ever. The tired voice of Viggo Mortensen during the film's opening narration is just frightening to listen to. He is describing the end of all animal and plant life, and it's clear that continuing on in this dead, empty world has beaten him down to such a degree that he can no longer even express a particular emotion about this loss. It simply is the state of things.

"Soon every tree in the world will fall". I can hardly imagine anything more terrible.

BTW: The scene in the basement is by far one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen in a movie, and though I've gone back and rewatched the film several times, I've repeatedly found myself skipping past that entire sequence.

Ugh.

MOST ENTERTAINING DEPICTIONS OF THE END OF THE WORLD: WATERWORLD. It's bleak, but there is a swashbuckling exhilaration that comes with the freedom of sailing on endless seas.

< Message edited by King of Kafiristan -- 2/3/2012 2:46:49 AM >

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