On Feb 3, 1:08 am, Blair Leatherwood wrote:
> I just finished reading On the Beach, and it made me think about
> post-apocalyptic fiction in general.
> There seem to be two basic variants. One is the "small band of
> survivors creating a new society" and the other is "sorry folks, you
> really screwed the pooch and it's all over now".
I have noticed I haven't read much of it, but I do have an opinion on
TV and film post-apocalpytic stuff.
Ongoing TV PA series cannot be successful because the second type you
mention is too depressing, and the first is too big,
"It's all over" is a series final, not a direction for an ongoing
series, otherwise the audience will give up. "small band of
survivors" is too big for TV. Unless you have some miracle cure for
the Earth's woes, the will be no satisfactory outcome for the
audience... it's going to seem unrelently like "it's all over, you
just haven't realised yet." Or too easily gets caught in the travel-
log "Here's mutants in the remains of Chicago, next week a simple farm
community tried to steal the women in our band." There just isn't the
"space" in a series to have a eventually happy outcome.
Films (TV specials and movies) are more successful but have the same
problems. "It's all over" is hard hitting but bleak. As such they
don't get made much, when they do they annoy half the audience. "Band
of survivors" are more common, but have the same issues as TV, usually
ending with some small, and essentially pointless "victory". Yay,
someone's found a cure for the virus and so the reminants of society
need not fear another outbreak... or the band has finally found a
good patch of ground to start again. (Unless raiders turn up and kill
them or the crops fail just once).
The line between the two types, is really very thin, I think, it's is
really about the tone of the end. Small band stuff rarely negates the
possibility of "we're screwed" it just pretends for a moment that
there is hope otherwise.
I want a film, one day to end with a guy turning to a girl and saying
"well, there's nothing left for us but to repopulate the Earth with
our inbred grandchildren."
> Which resonates more with you? And are there preferred variants of the
> variants (like the "we haven't really learned much"--see A Canticle for
> Leibowitz--or "we'll do better this time")?
Come now, this is like asking "Which of your wives do you love the
most?" The answer doesn't matter, if one of them heres the question,
you're already in trouble.
No, sorry, "Which one of you children do you love the most?"
All of them equally.
A good is good and bad is bad, and I don't think one is better than
the other, for me.
> Any favorites? I did get a nice little thrill at the end of On the
> Beach (first time I've read it; I *think* I've seen the older film
> version a long, long time ago) because it seemed so inevitable.
OTB is the only one that I recall reading ATM. Unless you count the
end of The Time Machine.
Oh, and "this weird fantasy setting is actually post-Apocalyptic
Future Earth!"
That may be a third type for you. It was long enough again that a new
stable society nothing like our own world has emerged.
> I have read Canticle, Alas, Babylon, Earth Abides, When/After Worlds
> Collide, and probably many others which could fit the definition. I'm
> leaving dystopias out of this--I'm primarily interested in true
> apocalypses (apocalypsi?).
Apocalypse seems Greek (and being biblical would suggest it is) so
probably an "i" ending... at some point in England the civil service
standised the language and "seems Greek" was end for a "i" plural.
On-topic (more or less):
For a different type of Type 1 or 3 story, see Babylon 5: "The
Deconstruction of Falling Stars" (and the potential TV series that JMS
joked about in the commentary).
And: Jeremiah... a Type 1 story that had some travel-log elements, but
a built in miracle-cure(ish), too.
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