Disaster Movies. I love them. Tonight I watched three hours of Impact (2008) a cheesy disaster mini-series - meteor storm promises the most spectacular world-wide views in 10,000 years and one of them, larger than expected, hits the Moon. Well, this causes all sort of havoc with tides and gravitational changes until finally, we much blow up the Moon (essentially) by a team that must land on the Moon (shades of Armageddon (1998).
So why do we watch? As a kid, my brother and I used to sneak to watch The Poseidon Adventure (1972) on TV (I'm guessing around 1976 or so). My Mom said no, but we wanted to see it. So we covered our 13" Black & White TV with a blanket (so the glow of the tube wouldn't be seen) and we turned the volume down real low and watched it with our eyes about a foot from the screen. It was great!
My very first disaster images was actually old newsreel footage on like 16mm film reels that my school library had. There were of the 1940 Collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. I remember watching this a few times; fascinated.
In recent years, all sorts of movies from Independence Day (1996) to The Day After Tomorrow (2004), Deep Impact (1998) and The Core (2003) have excited me.
Why? Why do we like to see NY or DC blown up? Tokyo stomped by monsters? Earthquakes, Twisters, Volcanoes under Wilshire Boulevard? Why are these kinds of movies fun for me and for many?
I would love to come up with an answer to this one, but the more I try, the more I hit a wall (and the bricks in that wall all come tumbling down, destroying a small Lego City... NO, stop it!
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