The wisdom of zombie movies

Just read a nice observation at The Christian Science Monitor:

If war, as one wit famously observed, is “God’s way of teaching Americans geography,” then environmental disasters such as the BP oil spill seem to be the primary way that Americans learn about ecology.

In the absence of environmental disasters we watch zombie movies. Consider their key ingredients: extreme violence and number of casualties, crazed fight over or race for the few remaining resources, collapsing civilization and often an outbreak of man made disease.

I already mentioned The Happening along with a couple of non-zombie movies. This one isn't really a zombie movie though and the threat is at most indirectly caused by humanity.


28 Days Later... is a real classic. Human made disease released by misguided animal rights activism. Its sequel isn't as good though.

Also, I have to mention Dawn of the Dead and Zombieland although they are a bit stereotypical and doesn't explore any natural resources conflict or any other deep theme as far as I remember. But they are quite entertaining and has some canned food and survivalism.

While also technically not a zombie movie the recent The Road takes place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where human flesh and hidden stashes of canned food are the only resources available.

And in The Crazies we follow a group of uninfected running from both government extermination and crazy slaughter in the aftermath the army spilling a plane-load of a biological weapon compounds into the drinking water of a small town.

As the user "K J E" writes in her Flixter review:

In this day and age, the true horror of The Crazies is in the fact that any of us could find ourselves in a similar situation. This is definitely a film which should make you think, and think hard and long about this world in which we live.

I'll have to watch The Book of Eli some time soon. (Hope it's better than The Road!) Which zombie movies would you suggest? Please comment!

Perhaps you have been sceptically reading my blog for some time and now wonder if I finally lost it? But zombie movies are, sadly, perhaps more efficient at educating scaring people of the frailties of society than any rationalist blog preferring solid research and eloquent essays.

Ecowar movies: Edutainment suggestions

Noticing the clamour over the new animated movie Battle for Terra (or just Terra) and it's interesting theme I put it on my Must See list - right next to Blood Diamond which is way over due. Then the logical idea came: make a list of movies for Ecowar!

Only four movies made it onto the list so far. But I would love to get recommendations for more! Please spam.

Battle for Terra

"A peaceful alien planet faces annihilation, as the homeless remainder of the human race sets its eyes on Terra. Mala, a rebellious Terrian teenager, will do everything she can to stop it." - IMDb plot

US Republican reviewers are all up in arms about this one. They say it's "Bush Bashing". I don't know what to think about that - especially since I haven't watched it yet. But in an interview with the writer he explained the rationale for the story as him not buying into the premise of War of the Worlds - that an entire species should be "evil". Seems very reasonable to me! Thus far in human history new territory has been considered something to exploit. Why not an inhabited planet? We might be in need of some planetary migration before we know it.

The Happening

"A strange, horrible and unprecedented crisis begins in Central Park. A high school science teacher, his wife and a young girl do what they can to survive it." - IMDb plot

Many would argue the science in this one is about as far out as the science in The Matrix. I don't think it is, although it's taken to quite a cinematic extreme. It's Gaia Theory. Somehow the human population pressure provokes a seriously negative feedback. It's not a very good movie due to various factors but it has it's moments. Like this line:

Nursery Owner: "You know plants have the ability to target specific threats. Tobacco plants when attacked by heliothis caterpillars will send out a chemical attracting wasps to kill just those caterpillars. We don't know how plants obtain these abilities, they just evolve very rapidly."

There Will Be Blood

A story about family, greed, religion, and oil, centered around a turn-of-the-century prospector in the early days of the business." - IMDb plot

No way I could omit this masterpiece although the conflict is largely explained in metaphorical measures and business rivalry.

Blood Diamond

A fisherman, a smuggler, and a syndicate of businessmen match wits over the possession of a priceless diamond. - IMDb plot

My final choice is also the least fictional - I suppose because as I mentioned I haven't watched it. Yet! Said to be a bit "tough" to watch.

Of course, there are movies about some of the wars that I have blogged about here. But I have a hard time thinking of any that really touches upon the ecowar issue. Also, I have excluded The Matrix trilogy - because blocking the sun is simply so stupid no one would ever consider it (think twice) and because the science in it isn't always that educational (human batteries?).