Hollywood's obsession with the Apocalypse lately (and does it get on your nerves)?

[THE_REAL_OBLIVION]

Alright I just took a look at what automatically downloading seedbox picked up this morning :

-Apocalypse Earth 2013
-Escape From Planet Earth
-Star Trek : Into The Darkness (kinda grim for a Star Trek movie title)
-Buttplays : Sandra Pearls and Sperm ...wait thats not it

Yesterday I hear about this movie that will soon be released in theaters called "This Is The End" which is a comedy with actors keeping their actors name like if it was real and seeing "the world burn before their own eyes in Hollywood".

Alright, I know we humans are marching straight into doom, but unless russia, america, israel, uk and france nuke someone accidentally, I don't think we will be destroying ourselves this quickly...yet

But since 2012 passed like a breeze (like I was 99% sure it was gonna do) it seems like humanity is on a kind of flatline that's about to go downwards, is it a global feeling that pervades humanity by now that at any moment we might slip and fall, but that's been the case since the 60's, it does seem like Hollywood has a boner for the end more than the usual.

There's a show discussing just that strangely on CBC radio at 9:30am EST if that interests anybody (I Swear i just heard this 10 minutes before I already wanted to question you guys).

Personally I don't really care about this world but losing those I hold dear (my mother and brother....and even a bit of that old man) makes me feel distressed more than anything else. Seems selfish, but I would adopt this position lets say if I had a terrible non curable disease thats going to kill me in the next three months.

 

[jpgrdnr]

Just the movie industry milking our own collective fears.

 

[L2R]

mother earth must be stopped!

 

[95Land]

It goes further-
World War Z
Pacific Rim
Elysium
After Earth
The Mortal Instruments- City Of Bones

All those films are premiering this summer and focus on cataclysmic events that threaten/destroy much of or end earth. I do not get the obsession with cranking out these films and I'm puzzled by a mindset that would make a lot of these films attractive to go see.
A few of them look cool for reasons beyond their basic premise. Elysium, in particular. It was directed by the guy that did District 9.
Overall though, I am in no way itching to see the world and people on it annihilated on the big screen. I despised dreck like 2012, Independence Day, etc, etc, but they still crank them out.......

The ones that actually piss me off are the "terrorists are destroying Washington DC/The White House!" Stupid bullshit.
Olympus Has Fallen
White House Down(perhaps the dumbest title ever).

I don't like the content, it seems unnecessary and there's something too close about it.
I'm from the East Coast. The Boston bombing just happened. I don't want to watch terrorists kill people for mine own amusement.

I guess it's not so much the content of the apocalyptic films that bug me, but the volume of them.

 

[L2R]

it's cheap and easy drama, and it's a money making formula.


just like a hospital setting in a tv show. .... running out of things to write about? bring in an emergency. shake things up a bit.

the age old idea in which you learn the most of a character by the decisions they make under duress has gone to the absurd level in end of world blockbusters, where characters have little to learn or grow from their interactions with one another, and require instead to have the universe exploding into a myriad of catastrophic cartoony colours right behind their heels as they run inexplicably to here and there as a minimum degree of said duress.

yes, it's boring.

i'm looking forward to elysium. i love district 9. might see pacific rim but not for del toro, i like evangelion. world war z appeals only through degree of silliness.

 

[95Land]

^That makes sense.
On a larger scale, I don't really get why most people like what they like in general. Probably because most "normal" people are morons.

I'll probably see Pacific Rim, too. At the very least it will visually look good. District 9 was great.

 

[MrGrunge]

i'm looking forward to elysium. i love district 9. might see pacific rim but not for del toro, i like evangelion. world war z appeals only through degree of silliness.

Well, Pacific Rim is only similar to Evangelion in that both are Kaiju-centric. I really can't see any of the philosophical implications of NGE represented in Pacific Rim - I expect the subtext of the film to be almost entirely "BANG! BOOM! CRASH! POW! EXPLOOOOOOOOOOOOOSION!!!!!!!!!!". It might be a fun movie to see drunk, but man o' man does it look cheesy and dumb.

 

[L2R]

I hope del toro surprises us, grunge. He can, but tends not to.

^That makes sense.
On a larger scale, I don't really get why most people like what they like in general. Probably because most "normal" people are morons.

I'll probably see Pacific Rim, too. At the very least it will visually look good. District 9 was great.

Most cinema goers don't take their entertainment as seriously as we do. I wouldn't go so far as to call them morons, unless they're paying to see a Michael bay film.

 

[Foreigner]

There are a million good and bad things happening in the world every day. We mostly hear the bad.

What is hollywood really pumping out these days? Bad romances, war movies (centred on America), CIA/FBI/White House/secret agent movies, mob movies, and apocalypse.

If you go to any torrent site, the majority of the hollywood movies fall into those categories.

It pissed me off how many inspirational things I read about in independent media that are never picked up on by the mainstream: scientific discoveries, solutions to thinks like energy economy and hunger, peaceful demonstrations, people undertaking projects to help communities, etc.

America is obsessed with drama.

 

[95Land]

I wouldn't go so far as to call them morons, unless they're paying to see a Michael bay film.

If you're telling me you don't appreciate Shia LaBeouf's body of work, this conversation is over. :D.