Image via HBO
As if we needed more reason for the apocalypse to be at the forefront of our minds, The Leftovers returned Sunday for its third and final season. Judging by the striking trailer, the show seems to be heading for end days after 2 percent of the world’s population has already disappeared mysteriously.
Normally, we might be annoyed at having a show so (unintentionally) topical when reality is already exhausting enough, but The Leftovers is just too damn good to be upset with. After a pretentious, meandering first season, Damon Lindelof’s latest effort leapt into stellar form as it explored mass grief and dabbled in the fantastical, becoming one of the best shows on television (we had it as the second best show of 2015, to be precise).
In a world in which Donald Trump is the president of the United States of America, watching The Leftovers may actually prove to be a relief. Sure, life is not great right now—tensions are high with Russia, environmental protectons are being torn apart, and rights are being stripped from the most vulnerable Americans—but at least our loved ones haven’t mysteriously disappeared, yet. And at least a world-consuming flood isn’t on the way on the very anniversary of when we lost said loved ones. In that spirit, let’s take a look at some of Hollywood’s other great apocalypses to put things in perspective.
28 Days Later (2002)
Director: Danny Boyle
Starring: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris
Apocalypse by: Fast-as-hell zombies
Students of the varying types of zombies in popular culture know that the most terrifying of them all are the ones who can run. Sure, the stumbling, bumbling flesh-eaters are scary and threatening enough, but unless you’re some type of athlete, you’re just not going to make it in the world of zombies who can run. You don’t need to be swarmed by a crowd of them. Just one could run your ass down like it’s Richard Sherman.
Just when you think the apocalypse is under control, these swift zombies can muck it all up again. Look at 28 Weeks Later, which, in my humble opinion, is the superior of the two films. The Americans swoop in to save the Brits (you’re welcome), only for another outbreak to begin because of a couple of overconfident children (shouts out Imogen Poots). Your thorough zombie apocalypse plans don’t mean a damn thing if the zombies are swift.
The Book of Eli (2010)
Director: The Hughes Brothers
Starring: Denzel Washington, Mila Kunis, Gary Oldman
Apocalypse by: Nukes
Denzel Washington plays a blind man who traipses all through the a nuclear wasteland just to get his braille bible in the right hands.The idea of a nuclear apocalypse isn’t far from reality, but we’re not there yet. And oh please, do not let us get there. Because look at what items become commodities in the post-nuclear wasteland. Shampoo, that thing you probably put in your hair too often. Books, which are for nerds. And water, which is mysteriously pouring out of air conditioners and onto your forehead across New York City. If things become so dire that I have to sleep with a crusty old man to get my mane shampooed, just go ahead and kill me.
Dogma (1999)
Director: Kevin Smith
Starring: Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Linda Fiorentino
Apocalypse by: Ben Affleck and Matt Damon
What we have here is a good old religious apocalypse written and directed by Kevin Smith to ignite IRL controversy. In it, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon play two fallen angels who seek out a loophole to get back into heaven. The only problem is that by doing so, they’d be proving God wrong and thus end all creation. Can you imagine being rendered into nothingness by those two Boston yokels? I would rather be shot and killed by a toddler, a much more dignifying way to go out. Also, there was a literal shit monster inside a strip club bathroom. Gross.
The Happening (2008)
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo
Apocalypse by: Trees
Let's just start out by saying this is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. M. Night Shyamalan should have been blackballed by Hollywood for this flick, and we never should have allowed Mark Wahlberg to become a “serious” actor after this flop. Mass suicide spreads across the world in this stinker, and the Shyamalan twist is that it’s all because of plants. Mother Nature claps back after all us humans have done to her. Would we deserve it? Of course. But that neither makes this movie any less terrible, nor does it make for a better alternative than our current reality. Let’s just heat up the atmosphere and flood our greatest cities instead.
Idiocracy (2007)
Director: Mike Judge
Starring: Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard
Apocalypse by: Idiots
Idiocracy, the Mike Judge movie that’s better in theory than it is on film, is more or less where we’re heading, making it all the more horrific. There’s not a true apocalypse, per se, but there is a mass extinction of intelligent thought. People talk in a language more broken than our text messages, and people are named after commercial products. The only thing that isn’t worse in this fictional world is that the president is a former wrestler played by Terry Crews. I’ll take that over a racist, misogynistic and incompetent former reality star made of straw and a discarded citrus peel any day.
Independence Day (1996)
Director: Roland Emmerich
Starring: Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum
Apocalypse by: Aliens
Aliens start appearing in the sky over the world’s major cities and military bases in preparation for a major attack, only for Will Smith to save us all. Even though Will Smith exists in real life, a bunch of aliens showing up to annihilate us is one of my top lingering fears that I just know will happen, behind World War III. It’s not just a humorous riff to say we should avoid alien contact for our own self-preservation. It should be a worldwide credo because if there’s anything we’ve learned from mankind, it’s to not trust explorers. Any alien who shows up at a doorstep is essentially the white man of the universe, and he should not be trusted. He’ll take our planet and only leave us with, like, Antarctica.
Pacific Rim (2013)
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Idris Elba, Charlie Hunnam
Apocalypse by: Interdimensional monsters
There are two conflicting thoughts on this scenario. One, it would be objectively miserable to have a bunch of interdimensional organisms show up out of nowhere to terrorize us. Two, it would be objectively worth it to see the showdowns with them and giant robots. Pacific Rim is excellent, but what it doesn’t explore is the TV spectacle that would emerge from such battles. If we can get clear footage of O.J. Simpson in the Bronco or American missiles being launched at Syria, you better believe that these fights would be on CNN. Each one of them would be better than the Super Bowl, the Mad Men finale, and the great llama chase of 2015 combined. And the risk of violent death by a creature bound to different laws of nature is a fair price to pay for good TV.
The Terminator (1984)
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger
Apocalypse by: Cyborgs of our own creation
If you disregard the last two Terminator films, which you absolutely should, we see very little of the Skynet apocalypse. That mystery is part of what makes it so frightening. It’s largely left to our own imaginations to picture the ritualistic human cleansing by skeleton-esque robots known as terminators after Skynet has already goaded us into nuking the hell out of each other.
There’s also the fatalism that looms over all the Terminator flicks. The first three films are all spent on different efforts to prevent the apocalypse or protect the resistance, and even when the missions are successful, the apocalypse just goes ahead and happens anyway. Sarah Connor prevented Skynet from being invented only for Skynet to be invented anyway. What’s up with that?
This Is the End (2013)
Director: Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen
Starring: James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen
Apocalypse by: Beasts from hell
I’m gonna ignore the majority of this movie for the purposes of this blurb and focus on the ending in which Danny McBride is one of the last obstacles before you can be raptured. If you can’t taunt the thespian behind some of the biggest assholes in film and television after he’s become an IRL asshole who eats people, heaven is truly unattainable. I don’t care what the bible says. You should be able to taunt a man who wants to eat your flesh. I don’t want to live in a world in which you can’t.
The Walking Dead (2010 - Present)
Creator: Frank Darabont
Starring: Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus
Apocalypse by: Zombies, Rick Grimes’ decision making
There are essentially two forces that can lead to your demise in the world of The Walking Dead. You can be killed by the zombies who have consumed the earth or you can fall victim to Rick Grimes’ decision making. If you survive the former, there’s a nontrivial chance you get killed by the latter. Rick is presented as a somewhat morally ambiguous figure for the people who he’s murdered by his own hands, but he doesn’t get enough flack for the staggering number of his own people who’ve been killed because of his decisions. This is partially because so many of them have been the largely anonymous Alexandrians who the show barely gave the time of day. We can stand behind Rick for the purposes of enjoying the show, but in a real world scenario there’s no way I’m standing behind that dude. I’m going the way of the Morales family from season one. For all we know, they’re still alive and prospering. They could be the royal family of a peaceful Birmingham.