INSPIRATION // A CONCEPT OF THE APOCALYPSE

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A NEW SET OF IDEAS

Something I've been really interested in (for a while, really) is the concept of the apocalypse.  You wouldn't think it, since I was terrified of zombies at a young age due to a neighbor showing me The Night of the Living Dead, but now I love to think about it.  My senior thesis revolved around the idea of a doomsday/end of the world scenario and that seemed to be only the beginning.

For a long time, my only sorts of media input on "the apocalypse" were two concepts: the zombie apocalypse, and some sort of grey end of the world, like The Road.  28 Days Later is my favorite film because it redefined the image of the "zombie" for me.  That movie enabled me to be able to watch a zombie film, as it was a thriller rather than a horror.  I devoured Max Brooks' The Zombie Survival Guide and a few years later, World War Z.  I was no longer afraid of zombies, so I was able to think about them (something I will never be able to achieve with things like ghosts, for example).  Then there was The Walking Dead, which I read and watched (but I'm not caught up too... oops!).

I love the idea of the apocalypse, because it enables the ability to push people to their breaking point.  It allows for humanity to become their "true selves" without the hinderance of law and government and social values.  This then brings up the question of: which of those values need to be upheld, even though the people are now in a lawless situation.  This enables the character of a person to truly come out, and for moral values to be put to the test.

So, that was how I thought of the apocalypse for a long time.  That was how I thought about it all throughout creating my thesis, and those are the values and ideas I wanted to get across in my work.  However, recently I've been playing Fallout 3.  If you've played it, I'm sure you can take a guess at where I'm going with this.

Fallout 3 revolves around The Capital Wasteland, the area around Washington D.C. 200 years after World War III, when China and America bombed each other to hell with nuclear bombs.  The concept of the Cold War and nuclear holocaust was never an apocalypse idea I had considered, even though it had been an actual real fear to people all over the world fifty years ago, including my parents.  The Road seems to play upon this concept in a similar way (nuclear winter), but I had never really considered nuclear fallout as a concept.  I have no idea why.

I then was prompted by my boyfriend (who also loves this stuff) to start devouring Cold War and nuclear holocaust media.  I watched Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, which is satire about Cold War paranoia being the cause of the destruction of humanity, rather than any actual real threat.  I then watched A Boy And His Dog, which is a really weird movie.  That one I didn't really like, because the characters are all awful people with no redeeming qualities.  However, everything else about that movie is amazing!  The design and ideas of the movie are really spot on, which is why Fallout was based largely on that film.

Fallout is even cooler, in a way, as they took it a step further.  The war in Fallout didn't actually happen until 2077, but the key to the design of the game is that the United States was kind of stuck in a strange continuation of 1950s culture.  As soon as you say that, I love it, because I love the 1950s period, but to push it that far makes it even cooler.

There's also the whole concept that the game takes place about 250 years after what we consider "now," which means that the things that people know of life before the war are few and far between.  Setting the game so far in the future as well as essentially in the past is an amazing design choice, and it's extremely effective.  By choosing that timeline, it enables the player to become placed in a future that they feel like they already know, therefore creating a much more immersive game.

I am so hype over all this stuff, I couldn't help but write about it.  I've been struggling with this blog, and I haven't had much I felt like writing about, so I opened this document just to see if I could come up with something.  Seems like I could!

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THE HOBBIT:DESOLATION OF SMAUG & LOTR THOUGHTS

(SPOILER ALERT)

I saw The Hobbit last week, and I just had a few thoughts.

The Hobbit is an interesting story, because the main characters are not driven by a noble quest to save the world against evil.  The dwarves are attempting to regain their kingdom, as they are scattered.  However, the ideas of evil and greed within themselves seem to always reemerge, especially in this second film.

The one scene I keep thinking of is when Bilbo kills a newborn spider because the ring has influenced him and he believes the spider is trying to take the ring from him.  Bilbo is never a lovable character in the way Frodo is, which in retrospect is very interesting.  Even in his actions while Smaug is awoken, he never seems overly courageous or brave.  Only when Balin comments on how courageous Bilbo is to go in to the lost kingdom did I think of it.  Mostly, he just seems to have been thrown in to this adventure.  The first movie does a better part in making the audience like his character.  This film was more about the other characters, such as Thorin, Kili, Bard, Tauriel, Legolas, and Thranduil.  Which is not bad, just interesting.

One of the main things I thought about this film was that the love triangle between Tauriel, Legolas, and Kili was absolutely unnecessary.  The romance between Tauriel and Kili would have been so interesting without Legolas butting in, since it made no difference in the end.  A relationship between an elf and a dwarf is controversial (in the story universe) enough, and if you know anything about Lord of the Rings, you would know that.  However, I suppose they put in the love triangle for those who don't know that, to give it a slight flare of drama.  Whatever.

The film wanted to make it seem like it was a tough decision near the end, where Tauriel has to choose between saving Kili's life or going with Legolas to kill the orcs, but it didn't seem like a tough decision.  Tauriel never seems to have any sort of romantic intentions relating to Legolas whatsoever (which is why Thranduil's warning of her giving Legolas hope where there is none was odd), whereas she has a nice something budding with Kili.  I wish they had just completely left out Legolas being mildly weird, somewhat possessive, and creepily lurking in the shadows while Tauriel talked with Kili in the cell.  That way, Tauriel could have a cute little thing with Kili, romantic or friendship, and could have continued being a badass.  With the love triangle, her character is reduced to her romantic intentions with Kili versus Legolas.  It doesn't do her justice.

Also, the gold bit at the end was kind of weird and unnecessary, since it didn't actually work.  Screen time!

On another, though not completely different note, I re-watched all three Lord Of The Rings films with the boy while he was visiting this week, and it made me realize how AWFUL the Hobbit movies are!  From the pacing to the costuming to the basic interest of the story, everything about Lord Of The Rings is a yes, and almost everything about the Hobbit is a big fat NO in my book.  The only thing that slightly redeems The Hobbit films in my eyes is the reasonably good acting.  However, while watching the Lord Of The Rings, I kept spotting or coming up with new reasons why they're ten times better films.

I wish they had just filmed one Hobbit movie and left it at that.  It didn't deserve the screen time it got, especially since it's mostly wasted.

xxTanya

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