Apocalyptic Films have Oh-So-Revealing Titles

The scene ends and we are brought to the present day, with the words “48 Hours Earlier”. Ok, good. So we know this will happen in 2 days. What brings it about? We soon find out from conversations between the head Scientist from before and a certain superior of his that in this world there is a new renewable and limitless form of Energy spearheaded by a project dubbed “Eve” (biblical reference perhaps? Fall of man? Garden of Eden?) which relies on large particle colliders (i.e. the Hadron collider in Geneva) to smash subatomic particles together to create energy. The project is being marketed to an international audience at the UN on that very day. From the beginning we notice that the scientist’s superior from the UN, Mrs. Paxton, harbors misgivings about the only Arabic man on the team with Level 5 clearance. She claims she has suspended him from the project because his key code had been used for a security breach.

Fast forwarding to the good stuff, we now enter a scene where an Arab man is illegally entering the Geneva Particle Collider facility using voice and handprint samples he earlier obtained at the meeting of Lead Arabic Scientist Raja Bashir. He is seen entering some codes into the computer mainframe. Soon after we are treated to news reports of devastation in France. The Collider there has exploded with unimaginable consequences. Thirty million are pronounced dead, and half of the country of France has been leveled to the ground. From here on in, when scenes change in the movie, a timestamp in terms of “Time Until Exticnction” is given. This can’t be good news, and the audience is now aware that something is soon going to go horribly wrong with this Eve project.

Racial tensions escalate, as Raja is accused of involving himself with known terrorists from the Arab nations who are infuriated that the project’s technology is not being expanded into the Middle East (as a massive one off to them for controlling the energy market with oil for almost a hundred years). When lead scientist David Wyndham travels to the site of the destruction with his team we are shown the sights that the film opened with:  A vainglorious and deathly image of raw destruction and devastation that not even John the Revelator could have come up with.  Soon after the initial explosion, earthquakes were detected across the globe. Surely we are now seeing the traditional apocalyptic event. Explosion and devastation, fires (sea of flames), earthquakes, and massive loss of life (proverbial ocean of blood) all come into play in quick succession.

Raja in the meantime is on the run from Paxton’s “men”, and flees to France…where he is then on the run from the French Police (bad move?). He is there found and kidnapped by the terrorist who he is being framed as (the one who programmed the codes to set this whole apocalypse in motion). He is wanted for his codes that will shut down the other colliders and basically destroy Western Civilization. Raja informs him however, that there won’t be ANYTHING left if those last remaining colliders are shut down. He brings up what seems like gibberish to the non-math oriented audience: something called the “Doomsday Equation”. Now I thought that was REALLY cool! An equation for doomsday? That’s awesome! Anyway…this equation is allegedly a set of codes, which—if activated, woud set in motion a catastrophe so large, of such a magnitude, and of such devastation, that it would reduce the entire earth to nothing. Raja is tortured by the terrorist at gun point to enter these codes into the computer (those that would turn off the remaining colliders). In a stunning show of courage however, he is able to grab a pocket knife (albeit being handcuffed) and stab the terrorist, eliminating the threat of the end of the world. But…not just yet. Back at the Geneva collider, the lead scientist David and Mrs. Paxton are in a heated argument over whether to shut off the remaining colliders to prevent another disaster like the last. Raja manages to establish a video link with them, warning them to NOT shut off the remaining colliders—cautioning him about the Doomsday equations actually existing, and that the world would be engulfed in a supermassive black hole if those remaining colliders were to shut down. However racism has already taken its toll, and Raja looks like he has just murdered someone—with blood all over his face, cuts and bruises everywhere, and a dead man (the terrorist) behind him, he does not exactly look the role of an innocent scientist that David always believed him to be. Mrs. Paxton shuts off the video link, and convinces David to shut down the remaining Reactors despite the admonishment of Raja. They both agree he can’t be trusted with a matter this grave. All the while the clock has been ticking towards Extinction. In the last few moments as the colliders begin to shut down, we notice tidal waves of explosions of fire, rock, and magma coarse through the entire planet earth, eventually imploding  at the earth’s core, and annihilating any trace of the planet’s existence. The film closes in ominous finality with the unmistakable word “Extinction”.

It’s over. The apocalypse has come, and the film is true to its title. Earth is annihilated. There is no new Jerusalem, and no one is saved. Perhaps this is a sort of Godless apocalypse. Either way, all the elements of Apocalyptic film are there—natural disaster, fire blood, quake, devastation, and fiery doom, and in even more copious amounts than usual. One has to wonder what this film is saying about the potential of religious (and racial) divides to cause the very apocalypses they threaten the world with If their followers don’t obey the Creed. Furthermore it is important to consider that the endgame in this film was caused—not by elements outside our control as the Book of Revelations suggests, but by very tangible concepts of terrorism, racism, and a form of bigoted energy dominance that has rocked World politics for centuries.

And that’s all for tonight, Folks.