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Choppingblockbuster
Jul. 30th, 2007 01:40 pmA raging storm builds high seas which gather and surge over the Thames barrier, drowning London. The British capital quivers on nature's chopping block. Will all be lost? Cue much breast-beating by clueless politicians and clock-beating dashing about by "top marine engineers and barrier experts Rob, his ex-wife Sam and his father Leonard Morrison", who may be able to save millions of lives. Watch the trailer here.
The 21st century climatology disaster genre was established with 2004's The Day After Tomorrow. Here's the destruction of New York by enormous waves set to cheerful surfing music by The Beach Boys:
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Close cousin to the (sadly topical) climatology thriller is the geo-tectonics thriller. Nihon Chinbotsu -- Japan Sinks -- became a big hit last year when Japanese cinema-goers in screaming droves paid to watch their nation destroyed by a combination of CG earthquakes, CG fires, CG subsidence and CG floods. Oddly enough the first city to go is the Nowheresville I spent a few months working in back in 2005, Hakodate. It all begins when Hakodate's twee dockside shopping centre is crushed by a gigantic wave:
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If a town as insignificant as Hakodate can get its own CG disaster, why can't Berlin? How come nobody's making a disaster epic in which the capital of Germany gets stiffed bigtime by God? True, we aren't on a faultline or near the sea. It would be difficult to come up with a plausible disaster. Perhaps there could be a chain reaction of exploding beer bottles, or a deadly outbreak of rabies amongst the dogs punks keep. Perhaps Berliners would suddenly stop waiting on the curb for the red man to turn green, and get killed in their thousands by traffic? Perhaps a huge diesel cloud from all the tour buses carrying all the "atrocity tourists" could engulf the city in an angry brown storm? Perhaps a plague of giant wasps could settle on the city's peaceful garden allotments? Or a Ryanair jet -- no, six of them, plus an Easyjet flight -- could crash into the TV Tower?
I'm happy to start working on a script right away if the city council is willing to pay me to imagine Berlin's destruction. We can't afford to get left behind; these days a city without its own catastrophic disaster scenario looks sadly provincial.
The 21st century climatology disaster genre was established with 2004's The Day After Tomorrow. Here's the destruction of New York by enormous waves set to cheerful surfing music by The Beach Boys:
[Error: unknown template video]
Close cousin to the (sadly topical) climatology thriller is the geo-tectonics thriller. Nihon Chinbotsu -- Japan Sinks -- became a big hit last year when Japanese cinema-goers in screaming droves paid to watch their nation destroyed by a combination of CG earthquakes, CG fires, CG subsidence and CG floods. Oddly enough the first city to go is the Nowheresville I spent a few months working in back in 2005, Hakodate. It all begins when Hakodate's twee dockside shopping centre is crushed by a gigantic wave:
[Error: unknown template video]
If a town as insignificant as Hakodate can get its own CG disaster, why can't Berlin? How come nobody's making a disaster epic in which the capital of Germany gets stiffed bigtime by God? True, we aren't on a faultline or near the sea. It would be difficult to come up with a plausible disaster. Perhaps there could be a chain reaction of exploding beer bottles, or a deadly outbreak of rabies amongst the dogs punks keep. Perhaps Berliners would suddenly stop waiting on the curb for the red man to turn green, and get killed in their thousands by traffic? Perhaps a huge diesel cloud from all the tour buses carrying all the "atrocity tourists" could engulf the city in an angry brown storm? Perhaps a plague of giant wasps could settle on the city's peaceful garden allotments? Or a Ryanair jet -- no, six of them, plus an Easyjet flight -- could crash into the TV Tower?
I'm happy to start working on a script right away if the city council is willing to pay me to imagine Berlin's destruction. We can't afford to get left behind; these days a city without its own catastrophic disaster scenario looks sadly provincial.