Monday, May 11, 2009

The sky is falling...in a theatre near you!

Today I went to see the new Star Trek movie, and saw that most of the trailers shown for upcoming movies were about the destruction of Earth, in some form or another. I find these movies always eerie. The trailers in question were for Transformers 2, Terminator Salvation, and G.I. Joe. Maybe these trailers were shown because they are similar in conventions as Star Trek, but seeing all three in a row really got me thinking about how audiences are drawn to movies about our demise as a species. I admit that I always think hmmm...will we die this time, or be saved like every other time.
Other movies from the past few years, just to name a few: I Am Legend, Cloverfield, The Happening, and The Day the earth Stood Still all follow this theme as well. It's funny that all these movies (and likely all movies to come with this same premise) always end with earth surviving, humans changing their ways in order to save the earth. Some movies even portray how after the earth is spoiled, people come back and change their ways (WALL-E).
These movies are rarely cinematic genius, but they always make me question how I live on the earth. Sometimes I think these movies are out there to convince us that we're not all that bad, to calm us down, that as long as we repent we can save ourselves (ha, that sounds kind of catholic to me, actually).

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