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What can post-catastrophe films tell us about our current real-world circumstances?
This book proposes that a new sub-genre of film called ‘post-catastrophe’ is emerging that displays narratives directly analogous to our current predicament of runaway climate disruption. Post-catastrophe film sits in the space between blockbuster disaster movies that use scenes of destruction to blow the world up and disrupt the flow of humanity and post-apocalyptic films where a version of society has formed in the ashes of the disaster.
In these narratives, the characters are thrown into a world of unsettling circumstances in which they have to adapt and strive for survival and reimagine the world as it changes around them. We face a similar predicament."
'Post-Catastrophe Film is a serious engagement with how the end of the world is represented in science fiction. Stephen Lee Naish's analysis asks us to consider what catastrophic films are trying to tell us about our contemporary moment, underneath the spectacle and the rubble. From insistences on carrying on with daily life, indulging in individualist fantasies of frontiersmanship, escaping sacrifice zones, witnessing the slow degradation of everything, to the helpless yearning for heroic intervention. Naish asks us to confront our shared exposure and consider what we have to collectively lose – or gain.'
— Robert E. Kirsch, co-author of Be Prepared: Doomsday Prepping in America
Stephen Lee Naish is a British-born writer, visual artist, and author of several books of nonfiction. Steve's work has appeared in Aquarium Drunkard, Film International, The Quietus, Archetype, Dirty Movies, Drunk Monkeys, Cosmonaut, Albumism, and other online and in-print journals and zines. He lives in Ontario, Canada.
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Prelude
Introduction: The Slow-Motion Catastrophe
- A Primer to Understanding Post-Catastrophe Films
- Small Screen Apocalypse: Examples of Post-Catastrophe Films
- Does Technology Envision Our Annihilation? The Role of Artificial Intelligence, Simulated Dreamworlds, and Augmented Robots, and Cyborgs in Post-Catastrophe Narratives
- Cosmic Post-Catastrophe: Escaping our Planet and Colonizing Others
- The Optimistic Apocalypse: Star Trek as Post-Catastrophe Narrative
- A Sense of an Ending: Envisioning the Absolute Destruction of Everything
- The Lonely Planet: On Being the Last Person on Earth
- Being Normal in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Living Among Gods, Monsters, and Superheroes
Conclusion
Why Post-Catastrophe Narratives Matter
Notes
Index