The end of the world! The Zombie Apocalypse! Global climate change!
It seems wherever you go nowadays that lots of people are in a panic about the possible end of the world.
Newsflash! End-time panic is nothing new. I remember when I was a kid it was the nuclear war threat, overpopulation, greenhouse gases, a shortage of food or a dozen other ways for the world (specifically people) to end.
Guess what? It ain’t happened yet. I’m not saying it won’t (as a Christian I know it will happen, but no one knows when).
In Apocalypse Then, written by Mike Bogue and published by McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, readers are invited to travel back to the years 1951 to 1967 to witness American and Japanese Atomic Cinema.
Back then everything bad was blamed on the Atomic Bomb or Atomic Energy gone wrong.
Giant monsters, irradiated humans who either grew to enormous size or shrunk to sub-atomic scale, mutated giant insects; space invaders and other threats dominated the Silver Screen.
It seemed that everyone was Atomic Bomb crazy and terrified and the movies echoed that fear with invader, horrific monsters, Atomic War or any of a dozen other ways that splitting the atom could destroy mankind.
Discover all of the films that foretold of doom in this exciting new book, complete with vintage movie photos and art that examines the Atomic Age anxiety of that time.
Just to set the record straight Environmentalism has been around for decades. It really got a push in the 1960s and has spread worldwide.
Some of it is disconcerting but much of it is pure panic quackery and hackery dreamed up by those that get anxiety attacks when a plant dies.
It’s more about politics than pollution.
Be that as it may environmental degradation was spotlighted in the movies long before most took notice.
Authors Sean Rhoads and Brooke McCorkle has investigated the early Japanese giant monster movies and discovered an interesting fact.
Most of them promoted a central theme-the wide-scale destruction of the environmental and ecological systems of the world.
That’s right! Godzilla, Mothra, Gamera and all those other giant beasties of Japanese Cinema were not just creatures of destructions; they were the guardians of the Earth!
Mind blown! Think about it, nuclear power, industrial pollution, man’s wide-scale destruction of the flora and fauna, water and air pollution, the destruction of the Ozone Layer-all of them were addressed in one form or another.
I can see it now, Godzilla as the new poster child of the environment. A kind of lizard Smokey the Bear with the catchphrase, “Only you can prevent worldwide destruction!”
Check out Japan’s Green Monsters Environmental Commentary In Kaiju Cinema.
Let’s get back to giant insect, lizards, animals, etc.
Back in the days when movies were filled with films about Nature Turned Nasty it seems animals of all sorts were determined to make people pay for their misuse of atomic energy, nasty chemicals and the like.
In Creature Features author William Schoell lovingly looks back at such classic films as The Birds, The Blob, Them! and other low budget and blockbuster films where man’s fellow creatures decided they had had enough and it was time to pay the piper-big time!
Dismember, devour, dissolve, mince-it really didn’t make a difference on how humans were eliminated-they all made great cinema!
Honestly, who doesn’t like a good old-fashioned nature gone crazy film?
It was these films that made such classic movies as Jaws, Alien, Jurassic Park and modern films of like genre so popular.
Get ready for some human entrees and snacks in a book that proves that humans are part of the food chain.
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