Why Do We Care So Much About the End of the World?

Went to the movies recently and before the feature I saw no less than three movies in which the story revolved around the characters trying to survive on a post-apocalyptic earth. Each film had a different take on what finally ends the earth, or at least makes it uninhabitable for humans, but each film had one basic message: Humans are not long for this world. We might be able to abandon it and find a place to resettle among the stars, but the third planet in our solar system will eventually become too hostile for us. I could say this is just one of those Hollywood trends that comes along every now and then, but that’s not true. Hollywood has been destroying the earth for years. And I am curious as to why.

Now there are those among you who may lean to the right and scream endlessly about “Liberal Hollywood” claiming that all these end of the world movies are trying to push some sort of environmental agenda. There may be some truth to that. I don’t agree in the idea of Hollywood having some mass agenda but there certainly could be enough of an audience for films about the environment could exist. Except not all the films about the world ending have to do with an environmental change. In fact there are as many different scenarios for the world ending as there are films to show them. Some films show the earth after a vast cataclysm, others depict the scorched remains of a war torn planet. Two of the films I saw trailers for seemed to indicate humanity being wiped out by aliens. And of course there is always the much beloved zombie apocalypse. There is a never-ending stream of ways for the world to end.

"That's right. I survive!"

The one common denominator of all these stories is that the world doesn’t end completely. There are survivors. Much like the Rapture (yet another world ending scenario), there are those who are left behind. Not everyone was killed by radiation or drowned in a flood or turned into zombies. Some people manage to avoid the end of the world completely, left to roam the wasteland and/or try to rebuild society. This of course makes sense. A story needs characters and if the end of the world truly did wipe out all the humans then there would only be a film of a burnt wasteland (which might be better than most films out there but would still be kind of boring).

But I still haven’t answered why. What’s the appeal? Well there are several reasons that we are interested in the end of the world. The first is my favorite and it was first brought to my attention by the brilliant comic Patton Oswalt. Many of you know him as the voice of Remy the Rat in Ratatouille. Mr. Oswalt wrote a book entitled Zombie, Spaceship, Wasteland. He explains that the reason his book has that title is because so many writers starting out have such a narrow view of the world and limited amount of experiences that in order to compensate for this they set their stories in worlds where the normal rules of society no longer exist. Thus they as a writer are no longer bound by said rules. Nothing they do can be criticized as unbelievable since they are working in a world of their own creation.

Another reason why there is such a fascination with the end of the world is a reason I already mention in this entry. The Rapture. Even if you are not Christian, chances are you’ve lived in some society with some form of religion. And every religion has both a Creation story (how the world began) and a Destruction story (how the world will end). Be it the Rapture where souls will ascend into Heaven, or Ragnarok where a giant snake devours the world, human culture has been seeped in stories about the end of the world. Even if you are someone like me who has abandoned the concept of religion, you are probably aware of these stories.

Similar to the above reason is something a little closer to our chests. We are all going to die. Human life is fragile and mortal and eventually comes to an end. Many of us find that a hard fact to grasp. So as partly as a way to deal with our own impending end we imagine the end of our world in general. And like many people I’m sure we imagine a world that would be completely devastated by our deaths.

The final reason is the most honest one. The world WILL come to end. It’s inevitable. NASA is tracking no less than three different meteors that if their orbits were just a bit closer could completely annihilate all life on earth. The threat of nuclear war is constantly hovering over our heads, with rogue nations trying to develop weapons all the time. Viruses and Bacteria are constantly evolving and changing, becoming resistant to all the methods we use to treat them. Plus massive extinction events have occurred on this planet before so chances are they could happen again.

Saying all that, I’m not going to lose any sleep. For the time being, the end of world shall remain the fantasy of Hollywood films. No meteor, zombie plague, alien invasion, climate shift or giant Nordic snake is going to keep me from living my life the way I have been. Besides, if any of those films are to judge, someone will survive so I might still have a chance.