One of the most hyped movies in cinema history, ID4 was a huge hit at the box office as it rode the coattails of its very well made trailers. Giving an ominous view of a world invasion by hostile extra terrestrials and the complete obliteration of the Empire State Building and The White House, Independence Day fooled many moviegoers into seeing one of the greatest popcorn flicks ever made. The aliens were unoriginal, the plot was something out of a bad comic book, and the writing was dripping with melted mozzarella.
After the initial outrage wore off, this film has now been accepted for what it was originally meant to be . . . fun. This is one of the last movies to use incredibly detailed models for special effects before CGI took over the industry. It also spawned an entire entourage of popcorn apocalypse flicks like Armageddon, Mars Attacks, 2012, etc. And sometimes forgotten this film not only launches the career of Will Smith, but it also has some other great tongue-in-cheek performances by Jeff Goldblum, Judd Hirsch, and who can forget one of the greatest pump-you-up speeches of all time by Bill Pullman.
“WE WILL NOT GO QUIETLY INTO THE NIGHT! WE WILL NOT VANISH WITHOUT A FIGHT!” If you don’t get goose bumps during that scene, you are dead inside.
This movie is much more than 99% of people’s introduction to Cillian Murphy. It is quite possibly the greatest zombie movie ever made. And there have been more than a few in Hollywood’s history, especially in its golden age. 28 Days Later is a chilling documentary style look into a world where an incurable virus has run rampant across England and possibly the world. Those infected have been reduced to animalistic, rage-endued cannibals. It was a truly scary movie that came along just when people were beginning to think scary movies were dead. Oh the irony.
Before he was breaking the 4th wall in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, he was breaking into NORAD as David Lightman. War Games was one of the first movies that showed the dark side of technology in a much too realistic Cold War setting. Warning us how we could go from Defcon 5 to Defcon 1 in a matter of days all because of a glorified and deadly game of tic-tac-toe.
No Joshua, I would not like to play a game.
7. The Terminator (1984)
If Joshua was the opening act, then Skynet is the main event. Just one year later, audiences got another and even scarier look into the dangers of artificial intelligence. Making the name Schwarzenegger a staple in American households is a grand enough feet, but The Terminator became so much more than Ahhhnold’s signature character. It embodied the prototypical evil robot. After The Terminator, any mention of robots, good or bad, you couldn’t help but think of the T800 endoskeleton with that ominous music in the background. And the effects have far from worn off. Even today, any scientific news story or corporation gloating about the slightest advance in AI, and that music immediately starts to fade into your brain as a shiny metal skull emerges out of a fiery apocalyptic future.
Or maybe that’s just me.
An incredible animated film, quite possibly the best ever. It deserved every bit of the Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. This computer generated masterpiece strikes right into the soul of what could be a greater threat to humanity than aliens or machines combined . . . us.
Even though it’s animated, Pixar is able to illustrate an Earth that looks just as bleak as any post apocalyptic movie before it. A complete wasteland filled to the brim with our garbage, no signs of plant or human life. All that remains is a lone waste-collecting robot trying to complete an impossible task for the past 700 years. Meanwhile the last colony of humans float aimlessly through space on a resort ship, atrophying their bodies and brains.
Unlike other dystopian films, a robot is the only one who can awake our humanity.
Once again we’ve gone and blown ourselves up. However this film addresses something other doomsday movies tend to leave waning. How do you completely reboot society? And what would be the most important component in doing so? In a world where we’ve been nuked back to the bartering system, the most powerful weapon is the written word. Especially the words in the book Denzel Washington’s Eli must protect with his life.
This film shows how the human condition comes around full circle, unfortunately. Another great villain played by Gary Oldman, and Denzel in full badass mode, this film gives a glimpse of what may have been the beginning of society by showing you its future.
When talking about apocalyptic films, sci-fi films or just films in general, no other word can accurately label the original 1968 Planet of the Apes besides, “classic.” Charlton Heston’s most signature role of Colonel George Taylor is only rivaled by his portrayal of Moses in The Ten Commandments. Spinning off 4 sequels and 2 remakes, this is one of the most important science fiction films of all time. The most chilling warning of human extinction at our own hands comes in the form of a twist ending that would reign supreme for the next 27 years, right up to 1995’s The Usual Suspects.
One of the greatest comic book movies ever made. Watchmen takes you through a skewed version of 1985 where Richard Nixon is still president, super heroes have been outlawed and the Cold War is stronger than ever as the doomsday clock sits at 5 minutes to midnight.
This film may have characters running around in super hero costumes, but its underlying story was all too real at one point. The Cold War was one of the scariest times in this country and the planets history. So unpredictable the outcome of who would flinch first, Watchmen creates the first anti-villain to “solve” the problem.
The standard by which all action movies would be compared, Terminator 2 still reigns as the genre’s gold standard. The “next level” special effects still hold up to today’s best CGI, and the toughest chick in the world title belongs solely to Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Conner. Arnold’s “Mona Lisa,” took the Terminator franchise from cult classic to a worldwide blockbuster and cash cow, spawning off books, video games, toys, comics, a television series and 2 more films. And who could forget . . . Hasta la Vista Baby!
Building on the premise of the Terminator movies, The Matrix shows just how intelligent and cold AI can grow. Forget about building robots to destroy us, the Matrix machines have a much better use for our carcasses. Enslaving the entire human race without us even aware of it is a pretty neat trick. Machines use our bodies as their primary energy source while they enslave our minds into a virtual reality called “The Matrix.”
Sending Keanu Reeves career into the stratosphere, far away from his Bill and Ted days, and coining the phrase “bullet time,” are just two of the many effects this film has had on pop culture and the movie industry as a whole. Sort of a “Star Wars 2.0,” The Matrix is the patriarch to current day special effects films, redefining the possibilities for astonishing movie audiences.
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
