Best Post Apocalyptic Movies/TV/Comics EVER

:love


I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE Post Apocalyptic stuff. LOVE IT. And I searched around and didn't find a thread this like, and I'm SHOCKED. This is pretty much THE best kind of movie. I mean, come ON. Who didn't grow up on Post Apocalyptic movies, tv shows, books, and graphic novels?!

So here's the question. This should be fun. WHAT ARE THE BEST POST APOCALYPTIC MOVIES EVER???? (ALSO, IT CAN BE BOOKS, TV SHOWS, OR GRAPHIC NOVELS)

My vote is for MAD MAX 2, or THE ROAD WARRIOR. What's your fave? I look forward to hearing about something I haven't seen yet but need to check out!




:cheers

I can't just do one.

Planet of the Apes, of course. Reign of Fire. I really like Boy and his Dog. Does Circle of Iron count? I love The Postman, and I don't care who knows it. Logan's Run, definitely.

If you haven't seen the TV Tropes page on this topic prepare to lose the next few hours of your time: After the End - Television Tropes & Idioms

I'd recommend the comic series Y The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughn. It's finished so you won't be left hanging and it ends well.

I'm a fan of The Postman as well and Waterworld, never figured out why people hated those movies. Of course I also like the Judge Dredd movie and I have no excuse for that. :angel

Ignoring the theological/political/religious debate about L. Ron Hubbard himself and that horrible movie adaptation I actually liked the book Battlefield Earth. The movie only covered about the first 1/3 of the book and did it poorly at that.

jackdoud said:

If you haven't seen the TV Tropes page on this topic prepare to lose the next few hours of your time: After the End - Television Tropes & Idioms

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Oh, great; I have stuff to do still today.

Book of Eli! I really liked that one, too. Wizards! 12 Monkeys! I'm going to be reading this page until I finish, I know it.

The Day After - I remember watching this with the family way back in 1983 when it first aired. It probably doesn't hold up well... but the memory of it is fantastic.

Jericho was great, too!

Kudos to the mentions of Y The Last Man, 12 Monkeys and Planet of the Apes.

I've always been a big fan of KAMANDI, too.

Here's the pitch I gave to DC back when:

Loose Cannon: Issue #36 - Comic Book Resources

The cool thing about this is that a corporate pitch is basically fan fiction, but I got paid for this article, so that one's in the W column, you ask me. I love how I wound that up: "So, there you have it. Long hair and cut-off jeans, talking animals, and an actual reason he's called Kamandi.

"Ya gotta admit, it's better than Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes…"

heh heh

Trying to think of less common ones - I have always loved the following two books that would fall into that category:

Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien

Star Man's Son by Andre Norton

For comics I like: Post Nuke Dick (a quirky private eye surviving the end of the world)
The Last American is a good one too.

I love how after the success of ROAD WARRIOR, DC took Jonah Hex and bamfed him into the future for post-apocalyptic adventures. And after a disappointingly short run, returned him to the "present" where he could still be killed and stuffed.

Hmmm... Mad Max (the first one) has a place in my heart.

Might not be what you are looking for but "The Terminator" started with a post apocalyptic opening (and it's one of my three favourite movies). Reese's "future flashback" had some great post apocalyptic imagery- the "watching the fire in the television set" shot was classic.

And another epic film (again post apocalyptic, but not "far future")- "The Day After": following the events of the aftermath of a full nuclear war.

EDIT- JD beat me to this. It's what I deserve for not reading all the posts. :$

I watched The Day After on television as well in '83 (and I was 13 years old... It scared the kaa kaa out of me!). I bought the dvd a few years ago- Although it is definitely "dated", the explosion effects still hold up, and the movie is still a gritty, pull no punches look at nuclear war.



Oh and "Star Trek: First Contact". (No not really- sorry I just had to. :angel)


Kevin

I love post apocalyptic stories, too. Seems like most tv shows in this genre stink, though. I did like Jericho, however, and was sorry to see it go. I've read a bunch of zombie fiction for this reason, though I don't like the ones that get too gory or horror-ish. I like the ones with zombies as more of a background element. Worldwide plague stories are good, too.

I recently read a book trilogy about a nano-virus that escapes a lab and kills all warm blooded life below 12,000 feet (or some elevation like that). The only survivors are those who were above that level or who made it to that level. They have to make quick dashes down below the line to get food, and this is starting to have physical effects on people. The first book was called Plague.

There was a plague/virus book called Survivors that the BBC turned into a tv series. You can watch it on Netflix (streaming).

The Road was a highly praised book and then a movie last year. A bit too depressing for my likes, though. The only Steven King book I've read is The Stand. Good book, but terrible tv mini-series.

I found Waterworld to be okay, but loved the concept. I'd love to see a version done without the Road Warrior aspects in there. What life would be like without silly jet skis chasing you around. The Postman was a good book, but only a fair movie. I think I liked the movie more because of the book.

The Last Ship is a good read. It's about a Navy ship trying to find safe harbor after world wide nuclear war.

S.M. Stirling has a series of books that take a new angle on things. The first book is called So Dies the Fires, and it's about a mysterious event that renders all electricity, gasoline, and gunpowder non-functional all at once. So survivors (those who weren't killed in airplane or car crashes in the first seconds) have to figure out how they're going to get food and security from sword and crossbow wielding bad guys.

A scary read is William R. Forstchen's One Second After, and about EMP attack on the country that destroys all electronics (and therefore modern cars). Food distribution stops. What's scary is this is a very real threat. Three or four nukes fired from cargo ships in the ocean, exploded in the atmosphere, could have this effect.

That's off the top of my head!

Scott

The Postman was a much better book than movie. Oddly enough Waterworld was a better book too as it explained so much more than the film did. I love this genre. I have nearly 20 years of one book series called Deathlands and several other series from the early 80s. Sadly the genre isn't what it used to be. There are some good non-virus or nuclear war ones. I forgot the name of one but it takes place after a microbe made to clean up oil spills goes on to eat everything made of oil.
THe novel Earth Abides is a must. It's not very action filled but is good and I'd love to see it made into a small film. I actually even know locations in my head that I thought would be great here in PA.

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. Not just one of the essential vampire stories, but one of the most interesting apocalyptic novels, ever. Was adapted into an equally good comic. The films weren't as good (the closest to the novel you could get is The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price, and that's even barely close).

The Will Smith was the worst of the three, it basically was just a remake of The Omega Man version.

Don't forget your classic reads: A Canticle for Lebowitz, Lucifier's Hammer, World War Z, and the grand-daddy of them all: Alas, Babylon.

And for some reason, I thought the movie of the Postman was much better than the book. The book seemed to try to do too much all at once.

Charlie

I have to mention the worst award (in my opinion) goes to the book and movie version of The Road. I've read a lot of bad books but this one took the cake. None of the characters were likable and i kept wishing he'd sell the kid to the cannibals just to shut him up.

I believe the title of the book is "White Plague" by Frank Herbert, about a man-made virus that only kills women.

Sparticle said:

I believe the title of the book is "White Plague" by Frank Herbert, about a man-made virus that only kills women.

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Sounds like the opposite of Y- the Last Man, which is a good comic book series.

I like the first Madmax film myself but other,odd ones?

These are all anime.

Getter Robo:Armageddon,they blow up Jupiter at the end...

Macross AKA Robotec:face it,the only people left were the crew of the Macross and some on the moon and mars-can't get more apocalyptic then that!

Galaxy Express 999,Captain Harlock,Star Blazers AKA Space Battle Ship Yamato:all set in the same universe;humanity has lost a war against aliens (in SB that war kinda just started,and we won-for awhile) and humans are hunted for sport,can't get much worse then that!

Fist of the North Star-Bruce Lee look alike goes and kicks hind end all over a nuked out waste land.

Vampire hunter D-set about 10,000 years in the future humanity has blown itself up and Vampires,Werewolves and all kinds of nasties are the dominate population,humans are..food for the most part,enter D a half vampire,vampire hunter who happens to be a son of Dracula himself! yes,very wild concept.

There are others,a lot of anime goes into such settings and a few are really good.

Always the Heston trilogy for me, Omega Man, Soylent Green and Planet of the Apes. The Omega Man is still my favorite of all. I suppose the last 2 are more dystopic than postapoc. As for books, The Stand has a warm place in my childhood heart as does The Gunslinger. a fun comic series I enjoyed was Bulletproof Coffin. Very tongue and cheek but the protaganist was Coffin Fly who scoured the desolate earth collecting pop culture memorabilia to preserve the memory of our civilization.

Also, agree on A Boy and his Dog and Alas, Babylon. As for schlock, some 50s flicks like Panic in the year Zero and The Day the World Ended. Also, Damnation Alley. Now, has anyone seen Radioactive Dreams? Two swinging kids survive in a bomb shelter with nothing but film noir pulp. Giant rats, radioactive zombies, cannibal surfers, and several swing dance numbers as I recall. Wow, just wow. Great with the proper excess of beer.