Essay that examined the Disaster Genre for EST: 330 Natural Disasters Course at SBU with Professor Paul Siegel
This essay received an A = 100 and under the Works Cited, my professor wrote “Great Paper"
(This essay has been updated with better grammar from the originally graded version. Significant changes are noted with strikethroughs and/or asterisks. Professor’s notes are in larger, capitalized Font. Updated and additional notes are further below.)
But first, a Film Reference Guide:
"Twister (Jan de Bont, 1996)
Disaster = Tornadoes in Mid-West America. Classification = Sudden onset, short lived, natural disaster (nature caused and humans suffer). Characters = Bill Harding - hero & tornado chaser (Bill Paxton); Jo Harding - female tornado chaser & Bill's separated wife (Helen Hunt); Jonas Miller - corporate sponsored rival tornado chaser (Cary Elwes). Imdb.com Page
Dane's Peak (Roger Donaldson, 1997)
Disaster = Volcano eruption in small town. Classification = Sudden onset, short lived, natural disaster (nature caused and humans suffer). Characters = Harry Dalton - hero and geologist (Pierce Brosnan); Rachel Wando - town mayor and mother (Linda Hamilton); Graham and Lauren - Linda's pre-teen children; Ruth - Rachel's ex-mother-in-law. Imdb.com Page
Volcano (Mick Jackson, 1997)
Disaster = Earthquakes and lava flow under Los Angeles. Classification = Sudden onset, short lived, natural disaster (urban development over fault line). Characters = Mike Roark - hero & director of Emergency Dept. (Tommy Lee Jones); Dr. Amy Barnes - seismologist (Anne Heche); Emmitt - Mike's assistant at headquarters (Don Cheadle); Kelly - Mike's daughter (Gaby Hoffmann). Imdb.com Page
Deep Impact (Mimi Leder, 1998)
Disaster = Meteoroid on path to hit Earth. Classification = Will cause extinction. Characters = Leo Biederman - hero & high school astronomer who helped discover meteoroid (Elijah Wood); Sarah Hotchner - Leo's girlfriend (Leelee Sobieski); Jenny Lerner - TV new anchor who uncovers the story about the meteoroid (Tea Leoni); U.S. President Beck (Morgan Freeman). Imdb.com Page
Armageddon (Michael Bay, 1998)
Disaster = Meteoroid on path to hit Earth. Classification = Will cause extinction. Characters = Harry Stamper - hero & oil driller (Bruce Willis); Grace - Harry's daughter (Liv Tyler); A.J. Frost - Harry's employee and Grace's boyfriend (Ben Affleck); NASA Administrator (Billy Bob Thornton). Imdb.com Page.
The Core (Jon Amiel, 2003)
Disaster = Earth has stopped spinning and will lose its electromagnetic field. INTERESTING. Classification = sudden onset, long lived , ecological/environmental (due to failed government project, human caused and nature suffers). Characters = Dr. Josh Keyes - hero & climatologist/geophysicist professor (Aaron Eckhart); Major Rebecca Childes - astronaut & pilot (Hilary Swank); Dr. Zimsky - famous rival scientist but *not evil (Stanley Tucci). Imdb.com Page
The Day After Tomorrow (Roland Emmerich, 2004)
Disaster = Global warming escalates to an Ice Age in less than a week. Classification = short onset, long lived, ecological/environmental (due to great human error). Characters = Jack Hall - hero & climatologist (Dennis Quaid); Sam - Jack's high school aged son (Jake Gyllenhaal). Imdb.com Page
Since 1996 a multitude of Hollywood Blockbusters have featured natural disasters. In 1996: Twister. In 1997: Dante's Peak and Volcano. In 1998: Deep Impact and Armageddon. In 2003: The Core. In 2004: The Day After Tomorrow. All of these films have very strong similarities in their plots, characters, and purposes. The appearances of tornadoes, volcano*ic eruptions, meteoroids, flooding, and their resulting damages have been increasingly convincing due to computer graphics. Despite natural disasters existing in reality, they are presented to audiences as extreme disasters that escalate in a very short time, which humans try to control and/or prepare for.
The disaster genre is about how a disaster is dealt with. In all of these films, except The Day After Tomorrow, humans proceed on the belief they can control the disaster. Those in Twister and Dante's Peak must get in the disaster's zone of destruction to get better predictions and save more people. Those in Volcano tried to divert the lava path by using dynamite *and creating a dam for a new path. The solutions of Deep Impact, Armageddon, and The Core take an approach of top superiority: a group is sent to its respective threat, implant nuclear weapons, and detonate them. There is no way to prevent or plan for another Ice Age in The Day After Tomorrow, so the hero goes on a mission to save his son over 100 miles away with arctic conditions between them.
The heroes are one dimensional likeable men: attractive, an authority of their (usually scientific) profession, humorous, brave, and primarily lead a bachelor's life, but have a sentiment *affection for women and children *(their own or those they've just met). They are either hired by or are already employed by the American government to conceive an ingenious plan to solve the problem and are given the *unlimited and futuristic resources to carry out their missions. Harry Dalton and his associates work for the U.S. Geological Survey. Mike Roark is Director of the Los Angeles Office of Emergency Management. NASA calls upon Harry and his drill team to go to space. President Beck announces the coming meteoroid, Plan A, Plan B, (the Ark National Lottery), and gives an encouraging speech at the flood damaged White House. The Treasury spends $50billion to build the drill-shuttle and bombs that can restart the Earth's core.
The heroes' sidekicks usually have eccentric or odd personalities. Those of Twister, Dante's Peak, and Armageddon are most similar. They act as a chorus for their respective hero, are highly educated and/or skilled, and their dialogue is humorous. One sidekick of Dante's Peak made an obvious comparison between the little town and Pompeii. The rebel gang of Armageddon will participate in their mission if the government allows them never to pay taxes again. Other films' sidekick functions are to provide support or extra knowledge for what the hero cannot perform himself. In The Core, Dr. Brazzelton was an inventor and Rat was a computer hacker while Volcano's Emmitt was in charge of headquartering operations and a soundboard for Mike's ideas.
A character or an institution that shall perish represents the antagonist. Ruth lives in a house on the mountain but refuses to leave (*even as the lava approaches). Because the children go to save her, Harry and Rachel must rescue them. But just before they all get to safety the old woman dies *sacrifices herself. The nemesis Dr. Miller has the same mission as Bill and Jo but seeks money rather than research. He and his crew are sucked into a tornado. The institutional enemy is the Executive/Congressional branch that initially dismissed Jack's research and predictions. The political downfall is agreeing to eradicate Mexico's debt allowing Americans to illegally cross their border for safety.
One absolute subplot is a love story, or the possibility of love, between who will survive the disaster. (Both lovers are of the same sociological qualities.) And if children are involved, they must be rescued. Although Bill has a fiance, after surviving a Category 5 tornado *(which should not have happened), he and Jo promise to stay married *(Melissa already broke off the engagement before that scene). After the danger is over, Dr. Amy offers Mike (and his daughter) a ride home with a telling smile. Harry and Rachel's relationship will lead to marriage and family because Harry promised to take them all on a vacation. Leo rescued Sarah and her baby sister from gridlock traffic, made it up a mountain, and survived the flood. Harry sacrificed himself so that Grace and AJ could marry. Sam and Laura didn't reveal their mutual infatuation until after Sam made a daring mission to save her from death *(by getting medical supplies off a Russian ship.) The future love story was never more predicted than in The Core: Keyes and Rebecca are the only two survivors of their mission.
Twister made over $41million on opening weekend because audiences were able to witness the awesome sight of (harmless) tornadoes. Roger Ebert said of Dante's Peak, "(it) had better special effects, a more entertaining story, and a real mountain" when compared to Volcano. Critics loved how Deep Impact had a wall of water crash over New York City and the East Coast. The Core was the most imaginative for creating the inner-space of Earth because no one knows its actual appearance (*hence stories like Journey to the Center of the Earth). The Day After Tomorrow used the latest computer graphic technology to its best ability: "a tsunami all but engulfing the Statue of Liberty and then flooding Manhattan are perhaps the most impressive...water surging through the streets are eerie and dramatically convincing." (McCarthy) Except for Twister and Dante's Peak, disaster films have persuasively obliterated New York City, Los Angeles, Tokyo, the Coliseum in Rome, and (*the Eiffel Tower in) Paris for dramatic effect and scale.
Disaster films are expected to show scenes of normalcy before the disaster comes, clues something is wrong, explaining which disaster is coming, devise a plan of action, act out the mission, rescue those in danger, and show the disaster's aftermath. The heroes are to accomplish the above listed tasks in a relatively short time with the help of a team; while also making time for romance (and children). This film genre is Man's battle to prove his superiority by using his machines to control nature. Disaster films have received immense praise for the high quality of realistic special effects, especially when destroying great urban landmarks.
Works Cited:
1. Ebert, Roger. Review: Volcano. Chicago Sun-Times. April 25, 1997. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com
2. McCarthy, Todd. Review: The Day After Tomorrow. Variety. May 26, 2004. http://www.variety.com/review
Updates from 2021:
This was (and still is) a really unique course available at Stony Brook University, because it didn't go into the complexities behind "meteorological and geological phenomena which at times result in natural disasters" (per the syllabus), but rather gave an overview understanding of them. Types of actual historical natural disasters studied were: wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. Taking this in the Fall of 2007, it was only three years after Hurricane Katrina and the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 - and what would be five years before Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
Professor Siegel required the approx. 200 students to apply natural disasters to their own major. Since most of us were not science majors, it required creativity. For me, the natural disaster film genre was a fun essay to write. Getting a perfect score put me at the top of my peers' submissions! But the winning essay was a children's story about a natural disaster written in French with English translation. (I could bow to that.) Due to the page limitation, I edited down my original draft by providing a cheat-sheet so all the film details like director, type of disaster, etc. could be compressed into one page and the essay's language wasn't interrupted.
I find it a bit amusing now that my Professor's only comment in the paper was about The Core. That movie is still one of the most unique in the disaster genre by having a crew go inside the earth instead of into space, and featuring a mistake that the Americans made instead of a threat hurtling towards earth. The greatest scene is when Drs. Keyes and Zimsky unite to show the powers-that-be the world's danger of what awaits them as the core comes to a halt. It's so well written, performed, edited, and scored. It's both horror and comedy. And, then of course (of course!) the general's immediate reaction is "How do we fix it?" Keyes says, "We can't." General: "Not in my vocabulary." Keyes: "Then you might want to get one of those 'word-a-day' calendars General because it's impossible." Some more words are exchanged, and then Keyes says: "Even if we came up with some brilliant plan to fix the core, we just can't get there." And then Zimsky jumps in with, "Yes but what if we could." And cut to the helicopter rushing them to some scientists' warehouse lab.
Although I disliked Volcano very much, there's one scene that made a strong point. After the lava was diverted away from the Los Angeles population, there was still enough ash from the final eruption to cover the ground, cars, and all of the people. A little boy was separated from his mother and a police officer wants to help reunite them but needs to know what she looks like. The boy via the camera's POV looks around and says, "They all look alike." The singular gray appearances of a racially divided city gave the cinematographer a poignant panorama shot of humanity. Something horribly similar was captured in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks when people in the streets were covered in ash and debris from the Twin Towers' falling.
In terms of diversity, all of the above mentioned natural disaster films center around white male heroes who may (but mostly don't) have sidekicks of different ethnic backgrounds. Though it's one of the few genres that do feature women in prominent roles contributing towards the story and not just in need of saving. Twister is the most white. But, Bill is married to a fellow meteorologist who has a doctorate and he is engaged to a psychologist, also with a doctorate. In Dante's Peak, Rachel is the town's mayor whose leadership made it an award-winning suburb for raising a family. Played by Linda Hamilton, she is a legendary hero in the Terminator franchise. In Deep Impact, Morgan Freeman played the United States' President, who would go on to play God in Bruce Almighty and Nelson Mandela in Invictus. In The Core, the proven tough-as-nails but with feminine vulnerability, Hilary Swank played a NASA pilot who brought the team of scientists safely into the earth's core. And in The Day After Tomorrow, Sam Hall's crush Laura was not only at the top of her class and competing in an academic decathlon but spoke enough French to help rescue a woman and her son from the approaching tsunami wave. Sadly, Grace in Armageddon is more known for having animal crackers play upon her chest. But damn, the Aerosmith song still gets me crying! (Disappointingly, Bastille's song "Pompeii" from 2013 was NOT used in the movie Pompeii (2014) starring Kit Harrington and Emily Browning.)
Deep Impact stands out as the most memorably fearful for me. Jenny Lerner rushes to the beach where she used to go with her family as a child, so that she can reconnect with her father in their last moments. As the wall-sized wave rises about to crash over them, they look so small. Having grown up and lived most of my life in an apartment building on the beach, that wave became a personal nightmare. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy's waves never reached that high, but they did crash over the barrier wall of my home, flooding the entire lobby floor and garage. For Long Beach, NY it was the night that the ocean met the bay. Across the Eastern Seaboard, it was the worst natural disaster in nearly 100 years.
In Fall 2007, I hadn't yet seen Absolute Zero (2006). Even though it is a critically-terrible natural disaster movies, it's one of the few that would focus on the destruction of Miami - where I would live to attend grad school. Once you're away from downtown and Brickell (where the skyscraper condos are), the vast majority of buildings are less than 15 stories, and most are only two-story houses. I distinctly remember thinking that Godzilla would be so upset just to stomp around a bubble-wrap like area. Made by MarVista, it leans into the unintentionally funny script. This is practically a precursor to the much wilder but more beloved disaster film franchise, Sharknado (2013).
In 2008, the parody Disaster Movie was released and is the number one worst movie ever according to imdb.com with a 1.9 rating. (That's really low!)
But thankfully, since 2008, there have been some natural disaster movies that have taken the genre to a new level and gave it some nuance. 2012 (2009) combined all the formula elements and worst natural disasters across the world, bringing together the separate characters' stories in the last moments. It's like if Gary Marshall's Valentine's Day, New Year's, and Mother's Day style was instead made into a disaster film. In Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012), the space mission failed and the world has three weeks left. So in that time left, Dodge and neighbor Penny go on a road trip but they fall in love along the way. We never see the astronauts or the government. It's more personal, and there's no last minute saving. Also in 2012 was The Impossible - based upon a British family's separation but survival and reuniting during the 2004 tsunami while they were vacationing in Thailand, but forgetting that the people who lived there suffered more in the immediate aftermath and took years to recover.
In conclusion, a disaster movie featuring what's called an "Extinction Level Event" per Deep Impact or a "Global Killer" per Armageddon (ugh, facepalm emoji here) can be a thrilling adventure with ever impressing special effects seen safely from your theater seat or home's couch, with characters to root for as they stupidly hike/fly/drive/drill into the danger zone trying to save the world and/or their loved ones. In the late 20th / early 21st century of technological advances, it wasn't just having the computer graphics to show the apocalyptic effects of a natural disaster but also the strong hopeful idea that actual (even if secretly) available technology could be used to save the world so that an inevitable apocalypse can be averted...by (mostly) Americans. The best of these films have scripts grounded in the possible reality of an extreme situation and actors not willing to call-it-in but really try to embody the gravity of the situation. And of course, as per the famous screenwriting book you gotta "Save The Cat!" (by Blake Snyder).
Coming in December 2021 on Netflix is Adam McKay's Don't Look Up, starring (almost every celebrity under the sun but especially) Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, and Meryl Streep, that is expected to be a much much better parody of the disaster genre!
...Oh, I completely forgot about Sunshine (2007). That's supposed to be good!
No comments:
Post a Comment