STRANGER THAN FICTION

Every now and again a movie depicting the “almost” destruction of the planet comes along.

The plot is always very similar, Earth is either going to be the target of a gigantic meteor, be invaded from a distant planet, or some other life altering menace.

Whatever the plot, it always seems to be that life, as we know it, is to be either ended or changed dramatically.

With every story there has to be at least one ‘villain’ who has plans to take over the world and make the inhabitants into mindless slaves who work tirelessly to do his bidding.

Of course, with every villain there has to be a hero, a knight in shining armour who struggles valiantly to defeat the villain and his evil ways. Usually the hero spends the first half of the movie trying to convince everyone that they are in mortal danger, but everyone scoffs at him and refuses to believe. An up to date Chicken Little.

As the story continues and the danger gets closer, the earth endures all sorts of catastrophes, water shortages, raging forest fires, floods and famine, zealots creating havoc with bombs and other assorted disasters. Exciting, but somewhat unbelievable.

At a time when world leaders should be coming together to combine their efforts to destroy the enemy, they seem instead to be working against one another, each with his own plan of ruling the world.

It is at this point in the movie when the hero starts to be heard and believed, suddenly people in power start to listen to him and by some unbelievable twist of fate, the world is saved from total destruction.

The hero and his leading lady stand in a landscape of destroyed cities, a few of the leading characters stand around in a daze, smoke is seen on the horizon and everything is quiet, no cars, no planes, no activity except a few people wandering about in the rubble of their former homes. Then the sun starts to appear over distant hills, a bird starts to sing and the hero and his girl hold hands and walk off to begin the job of building a new society.

How many times have we sat through this scenario and thought it was rubbish? Exciting and full of wonderful special effects, but basically rubbish.

However, this scenario seems to be playing itself out in front of our eyes every day. The earth is definitely in trouble. We are constantly under threat of terrorism, weather systems have changed dramatically, animals are losing habitat due to ice melting at a rapid rate and the oceans are warming which is causing whales to beach themselves and fish to move north, to find cooler water.

In our own district we have seen big changes, going straight from a flooded spring to a fiery summer.

Our world leaders seem bent on destruction as they fight against one another instead of working together. The threat of nuclear war is in the hands of very volatile people. Lots of talk, little action and nobody listening to Chicken Little.

I am not sure I want to see the end of this movie, everything seems to be heading to a climax but, as yet, there is no hero in sight.