Planet Destroying Disasters in The Movies:
How will the world end? That is truly a question that has intrigued and baffled people for centuries. The movies have tried to be really creative as to how the end of the world will look like and what will cause it. Some of them are just too interesting to ignore.
1. Solar Flare – 2012
When the movie 2012 was almost ready to hit the theatres, the rumors about the actual apocalypse started to surface all over the media. The Mayan Calendar ended in 2012 AD, which is when the planet called Nibiru would collide with Earth and ends all life as we know it. 2012 was the story of how a family manages to survive catastrophic events after the planet encounters a solar flare that changes the Earth’s magnetic poles.
2012 would have been an even better-regarded disaster movie if the movie actually needed the final breath of humanity. The actual ending was mankind found a way to survive. A small pocket of humanity made it to the new supercontinent that was formed after the movie’s climactic events and would start life anew in a brave new world.
2. Extra-Dimensional Energy Explosion – Cloverfield
This might seem a little whacky for some. But remember movies are only a mirror. And it is not like humanity has not tried to play God by trying to harness powers way beyond their control. Take nuclear energy for example. In the 21st Century, it is the Large Hadron Collider, a machine that is capable of creating miniature black holes.
Cloverfield deals with a space experiment trying to find out an unlimited energy course going awry and as a result, the energy source in question going out of control and opening up a portal to another dimension. From that dimension comes a huge titanic monster that is capable of destroying the entire world.
3. Comet Strike – Deep Impact
Another possible way the world might end in real life, Deep Impact is a movie that may not be the first to explore it but certainly the first to go mainstream. Deep Impact is not actually about the disaster but the way humanity would deal with it. Mass hysteria and global panic take over the world leading to murder and crimes of epic proportions.
Deep Impact leads to the death of humanity with the comet striking an ocean, the huge tidal wave being enough to destroy an entire continent. Many of the surviving humans take to huge space ships built by the governments of the world. For a movie that was built so many years ago, Deep Impact sure does look very realistic and extremely scary because it could happen to use at any point in time.
4. Earth’s Core stops rotating – The Core
In the movie The Core, the beating heart of Earth which is its core stops rotating. If you do not know, it is the core of the Earth that keeps the earth spinning and gives us the magneto-sphere. It is the same protective layer you came to know about in your high school science classes that protect us against solar flares and the deadly UV radiation from the sun. With the core stopping its rotation, the Earth no longer has a magnetic pole and as a result, the entire world stands still.
The real reason the core stopped doing what it does best is not that it was a naturally occurring phenomenon though. It was because humanity had developed a weapon that could harness the power of Earthquakes by tapping into the Earth’s Core and use it as a weapon against enemy nations.
5. Solar Flare – Knowing
Solar Flare has been the subject of two disaster movies on this list because they are actually plausible. You may never know when the planet might be hit by a superflare that can engulf the entire Earth and render its atmosphere useless to support life. The sun actually sheds dozens of superflares an hour so it is a very plausible way the planet may die. In Knowing, a young psychic who can see the future realizes that the Earth is about to die.
She can predict deadly events and her last prediction titled “E.E” stands for Everyone Else. The planet-killing event comes in the form of a massive solar flare that first takes out the entire global government apparatus and then leaves the planet scorched and inhospitable to life.
6. The Second Ice Age – The Day After Tomorrow
Climate Change is not a joke. Every day we see it take our beautiful planet little by little. And it is all our doing. The movie The Day After Tomorrow is one movie that actually manages to capture the very essence of the effects of a global climate change. And it is not what anybody would ever expect. In The Day After Tomorrow, changing atmospheric temperature and greenhouse gas emissions lead to a very different and unanticipated death of humanity.
The Earth, unable to cope up with these changes, witnesses a chain reaction within its atmosphere and lithosphere. The world is not going to die due to excessive heat. In The Dar After Tomorrow, the world dies because it is exposed to another Ice Age, which takes its toll on the world population, leading to an extinction level event.
7. Global Epidemic – 28 Days Later
For years, we have tried to find out the secret to create the perfect weapon. The perfect weapon cannot be defended against and is invisible which means you will never see it coming. In the movie 28 Days Later, this perfect weapon came in the form of a virus developed in a high tech lab. The Rage Virus was something that was developed as a viral strain to be tested out on monkeys. One monkey managed to bite a human and this human becomes the Patient Zero of the ensuing Zombie Apocalypse.
Society and Civilization collapse after the zombie hordes (people infected by the Rage Virus), takes over the world. 28 Days Later is a cult classic movie that spawned an entire franchise and is considered a very true to its source masterpiece in the genre.
8. Global Warming – Water World
Water World was a flop but this Universal Studios movie is considered a cult classic. The premise is pretty simple. People cannot use cars or trains anymore. Why you ask?? Because there is no land!! The entire world became a victim of global warming which melted the polar ice caps until there was nothing left.
The planet is now composed completely of water. Water World is a very harrowing tale of how people survive in a world that is completely covered by the sea and the world’s most valuable trading community is literally dirt, a substance found in the depths of the ocean floor which only a few can get to. Humanity has also given rise to mutants who can breathe underwater.
9. Super Storm – Geo Storm
There is one unwritten in any movie – when Humanity tries to play God and control forces that are clearly never going to be its forte, tragedy will soon follow. Geo Storm tells the story of how mankind tried to control the impact and frequency of natural disasters by using a constellation of satellites that can control the weather called the Dutch Boy program. The Dutch Boy program has been secretly affecting the planet’s weather regulating abilities that no one was able to notice. As a result, a Super Storm of epic proportions called the Geo Storm poses a threat to all life as we know it.
10. Pandemic – Contagion
Contagion takes the global epidemic trope and gives it a very real-world spin. The World Health Organization is racing against time to stop the spread of the lethal MEV-1 Virus. There are no zombies or violent mobs this time. It is just a plain old virus that is not contained in time and as a result, becomes a threat to humanity itself. Later it is revealed that the virus gained so much foothold because of one simple reason – people do not properly wash their hands. At the end of the movie, a cure is available to stop the virus from taking any more lives but more than 26 million people have already been killed due to the pandemic.
