The History of the Post-Apocalyptic Genre ( & Changes to Conventions)

The post-apocalyptic scenario is a sub-genre of science fiction. We normally imagine science fiction to be full of aliens and other paranormal monsters or technology, however, this sub genre focuses on one area of science fiction which has interested many over the years, the post-apocalyptic genre focuses on the downfall of civilization and what would happen to the survivors and how would they cope?

The post-apocalyptic genre can be traced back to biblical stories such as Noah and the Ark, the story describes a man being told by God that he will flood the world to wash away those who have sinned, in other words, he will start anew. An obvious post-apocalyptic situation as those who were aboard Noah’s Ark were the only ones who survived. The first modern pieced of post-apocalyptic fiction was The Last man by Mary Shelly. The novel tells the story of a future world which has been ravaged by plague and there are few survivors, each one is slowly killed off (this convention can still be seen today in modern works of the post-apocalyptic genre). The story ends in 2100 where only the last man is left alive. Most post-apocalyptic publications often spoke of current threats, so during this time, people would have taken interest of this book as it contained an almost factual element which was the plague at the time. Through time however, pandemics have come and gone, such as meteors and wars. A novel has been written for almost every possible scenario, this shows how the conventions of the genre will constantly change through time, this also shows how limitless the post-apocalyptic genre really is.

Changes to the conventions were starting to emerge during the cold war, where stories of nuclear war and global annihilation were written from the inspiration of the war itself, because of the interest within this scenario stems came into the post-apocalyptic spectrum, such as extra-terrestrial invaders, which can be seen in the works of H.G. Wells in War of the Worlds. This is where most modern conventions of the genre were being created.

The idea of a global pandemic has always been the case within the post-apocalyptic genre, this scenario can be seen within The Last Man, and in the more the more recent film Resident Evil (2003) which sees the world overthrown by zombies because of a special serum entitled only as the infamous ‘T-Virus’. The idea of a global pandemic means that the majority of the worlds population is wiped out, and the story is set around a small group of survivors, this again can be seen in The Last Man. Where the group is slowly killed off, this convention has not changed over the years as it remains a critical aspect of the post-apocalyptic genre to add suspense and the constant idea of loneliness and isolation. Resident Evil grossed a total amount of $102,441,078 worldwide, this total alone clearly shows that although there have only been a few changes to the convention of the post-apocalyptic genre, the genre itself is not going to disappear any time soon.

The genre itself has now found itself into different types of media such as video games, but it still keeps the same conventions, however, this gives the producers to show the genre in a different light, for example Destroy All Humans! (2005) gave players the chance to play as an alien with the instruction to…well, destroy all humans. Showing the genre on different platforms has opened up the genre to a wider audience which gives filmmakers the chance to create an endless amount of scenarios tailored for any audience be it teenagers or adults, whilst still keeping to the roots of the genre conventions created by the cult classics such as The Last Man and War of the Worlds.

Our group is actually focusing on a sub-genre of the post-apocalyptic scenario, which is entitled ‘cosy catastrophe’. This genre first saw light after the end of World War 2. This sub-genre normally tells the story of a group of survivors who are trying to rejuvenate civilization after a world wide pandemic or catastrophe, for example, a nuclear war. While the films do no show the characters actually rebuilding, it gives us the hint that this will be done after the film ends, for example the ending of The Matrix Revolutions (2003) the real world is left battered and destroyed, but as there are survivors we are hinted at the idea that they will try to rebuild after the war is ended by the protagonist of the film Neo (Keanu Reeves).

Throughout time the conventions of the post-apocalyptic genre have been moulded to suit the time period it is in, for example most recently we are seeing films such as The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and 2012 (2009) which can only be described as natural disaster films, due to the growing interest in global warming and the Mayan calendar conspiracy theories. The release of these two films show that the conventions are being changed once again to suit the time period, it also shows that the genre will constantly change throughout time, proving that the post-apocalyptic genre is truly limitless.