What's your apocalypse premise?

Horrorphile

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APOCALYPSE ... what?

July 5th 2007 04:04

Here’s a concept: The end of the world. The Christians know it as Armageddon or Judgement Day. Other less committed types might refer to it as an all consuming apocalypse, conjuring up iconographic cinematic images of the arrival of the Four Horsemen. REM weren’t too fussed about it, they said they felt fine. But what exactly will happen?

Director Francis Ford Coppola took the mythical novel by Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, and adapted its key premise into an anti-war statement, but more accurately, a statement about humankind’s judgement against humankind. Coppola called his film Apocalypse Now, and used the Vietnam War as a metaphor for a kind of Hell on Earth.

In an ironic twist the movie took four years to make and was dubbed by media as Apocalypse When? It has since become regarded one of the most powerful “war” movies ever made. Will the end of the world occur through conflict between nations?

There have been numerous disaster movies that have heralded the end of the world by means of either supernatural causes or, more plausibly, by natural causes. In this climate of geophysical upheaval the end of the world occurring due to the planet and its surrounding forces colliding is far more probable.

Most likely a superflu, a modern plague of sorts.

The Ice Age was seen by many animals as the end of their world. The diehard cynics of the modern world would see the current obsession with reality TV and Paris Hilton as the end of the intelligent world.

In cinematic terms, what would be your end of the world scenario or premise?

Here is mine, utterly far-fetched, and uncompromisingly science-fantasy-fiction in scope:

The Storm of Time

It is about a decade from now. Evelyn, a fusion scientist, is heading to work one morning, but there is a major crash on the motorway and she is trapped in a traffic jam. As it turns out suicide terrorists have taken over the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor plant where she works and she learns of this over the car radio.

There is a massive explosion, and the scientist fears for the worst. The worst has happened. There is even worse to follow. ITER implodes in a cataclysmic fission meltdown with toxic radioactive chemicals shooting up into the stratosphere. A gigantic rogue tornado is formed the size of Manhattan island; a kind of chemical whirlwind, a mutant storm.

Thousands of people who witness the event from an immediate safe distance, attempt to escape, but are consumed by the monster storm as it obliterates everything in the wide girth of its path. Evelyn, heading in the opposite direction, manages to stay ahead of the apocalyptic hurricane, but not for long.

She does get to her fiancé, Adam, a science fiction novelist whose best seller, Eat My Cosmic Dust, deals with the time and space continuum being upset by the arrival of very powerful extra-terrestrial intelligence. The two hapless lovers are caught in the tendrils of the fusion behemoth, which has been steadily increasing in size and speed (now as large as the State of Texas), and are sucked up into the vortex; the evil eye of the tornado.

Somehow, in a super-cosmic twist of fate, they are thrust through a wormhole that has been created within the vortex, a time and space portal that transports the two of them, unharmed, back through time to the dawn of humankind. But they don’t know it.

The scientist and novelist emerge from unconsciousness on a desert plane. They are naked, their clothes having been stripped from their bodies. But nearby they find his analogue watch and her mobile phone. The watch still works still telling the time from their present (now the far future). Much to their surprise the mobile phone shows coverage, but when they ring any of the numbers stored in the phone, no one answers.

They head for the mountain range on the horizon. It takes the rest of the day to reach the foothills. They spot a fire burning up in the distance. As they cautiously approach the pyre they discover the surrounding clan of people to be Neanderthals. The prehistoric people have captured a person. It is one of the suicide terrorists who obviously survived and was also caught in the same wormhole. The clan leaders are arguing over an object.

The object is a hand gun. The scientist and the novelist stare in disbelief. Suddenly the scientist’s mobile phone starts ringing …

Hmmm, I think I’ve written myself into a corner … It was fun though.

Does anyone have any ideas how this preposterous end of the world scenario could resolve? Or does it simply end at the strange time and space continuum dilemma I’ve collapsed at …?

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: set-pieces

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Comments

9 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by KylieW

July 5th 2007 05:05

Celebrity Obsession

Damn, that's pretty bloody good work Bryn. I particularly like that the phone starts to ring.
As for what happens next.....

Hmmm....could it be that there was more than 1 wormhole and a friend/colleague has been dumped at a different point in time, and their phone is also working??

Hmm.....that sounds a bit too Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (which was a truly excellent adventure) to be truly apocolyptic doesn't it?

Comment by Damo

July 5th 2007 05:16

It is call from himself tell him not to use the gun. Never one for taking his own advice he shoots the gun.
"Ha," says to himself, "I knew you would do that."

Comment by Bryn

July 5th 2007 07:12

Horrorphile

Cheers Kylie and Damo, I like both ideas ...
Perhaps the lovers are split up, and it's Adam calling Eve ... Eve is trapped in the Prehistoric age, and Adam is in a far off desolate post-Storm future ... lol
I guess the idea I was hinting at with the gun in the hands of the Neanderthal was one of bitter irony ...

Comment by David

July 5th 2007 21:24

Bryn,

What might make it even more interesting is, they discover they're not in the past at all, but in the future, and the neanderthals are suvivors who are learning to live all over again without modern technology.

David ...

Comment by Bryn

July 6th 2007 03:15

Horrorphile

David, that's brilliant!!! If I'd stayed on the concept for a little longer before posting I'd probably have come up with it myself .... lol .... Wow, it's almost worth writing a treatment! Did you like the concept initially??

Comment by D. Armenta

July 7th 2007 00:26

The Florida Keys and Everglades
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Debate Fan
L.A.M.P.

Love the worm hole bit. I thought that might take them to a parallel world.

The couple (who are liberal pacifists) manage to get the handgun and free the terrorist from the neanderthals; their intention is to destroy the gun and so prevent violence from breaking out in this world; also to teach the neanderthal by example that capturing and imprisoning other humans is wrong.

The terrorist, who sees the neanderthals as inferior to himself, plots a way to get the handgun and create a dictatorship for himself here. He despises the couple as "weak" for rescuing him from the neanderthals and plans to dispatch them as soon as he gets the gun. In this way he will set the example that he is stronger and more powerful than everyone else.

The neanderthals, upon whom modern subtleties are lost, conclude that all three newcomers want that gun. They bash the brains out of all three.

Hey, you could make this a round robin, Bryn..everyone contributes a bit to the story..