"Revolution." Topic

NBC will also go sf this year with REVOLUTION, for which you can check out the first image showing the whole cast.

The new show is being described as a high-octane action drama following a group of characters struggling to survive and reunite with loved ones in a world where all forms of energy have mysteriously ceased to exist. The show is produced by STAR TREK's J.J. Abrams.

trailer here.
YouTube link

Would be good? What's your opinion?

Amicalement
Armand

I love me some Post Apoc! The trailer felt off… I love the idea. The actors didn't seem to click. Might be better with some context.

They all look terribly clean and well groomed.

EDIT: Just watched the trailer – looks really bad to me.

The Road kind of has the right feel for post apoc to me.
Though it is very very bleak.

Just watched The Book of Eli, less bleak but still more plausible than Revolution I reckon.

I think they can do the more clean cut version. It's 15 years down the road. Established governments and an economic system. No zombies or viruses to kill everyone. It would be crazy for a few years but eventually roll back to a middle ages style society. You work your farm in a small family unit and someone comes by to collect taxes.

Traveling takes for ever and is dangerous because of highwaymen.

I get a Terra Nova vibe from it. Nice and organized on the surface with some crazy stuff underneath.

Thousands would die in the first few years from starvation and the exodus from the cities. Things would settle rather quickly. Water is readily available so people can wash on a regular basis. No toxic or nuclear waste to deal with.

But neat trimmed hair as from a set of electric clippers?
Clean teeth, where has the toothpaste come from?
Clean clothes, who made the washing powder?
Machine made clothes from the production line?
Make up?

Just not for me.

Don't get me wrong, I hope you really like it.
I just know I won't.

:D

I am interested as I love post-apoc stuff.

I see that young girls can still get collagen injections in their upper lips after the apocalypse.

If anything, this show looks even worse than Terra Nova.

Pass.

If it's decent at all, they'll cancel it after 7 episodes.

A "high-octane" show about a world where "…all forms of energy have mysteriously ceased to exist."

Stupid concept. If electricity no longer works we and every other animal on Earth would die.

But neat trimmed hair as from a set of electric clippers?
Clean teeth, where has the toothpaste come from?
Clean clothes, who made the washing powder?

Haircuts hardly require electric clippers- in fact, only time I've ever had clippers near my head in my entire life was the one time I shaved my head, and then only because my hair was a metre long and horribly knotted (6 weeks in a hospital bed, and 20 months bedridden/in a wheelchair, had defeated my best efforts to try to keep it brushed out at the time).

Toothpaste is only marginally more difficult, and so, still well within the "easy" category- sodium bicarbonate, aka "baking soda," works perfectly well as a very good toothpaste, is easy to acquire, and if that weren't enough, is out there in truly massive quantities that've already been "harvested" (for lack of a better term) if you know where to look.

Washing clothes, also not difficult- washboard, little muscle, and some lye soap easily made, et voila. Not convenient, but hardly a Herculean trial.

Mind you, I think the show itself looks utterly vapid, and a complete waste of time (like most television)- I just didn't see anything about their appearance or overall standard of living that struck me as remotely difficult to achieve with a minimum degree of dedication and applied knowledge, really.

- Monk

Very "Dies the Fire" meets Terra Nova with a splash of Hunger Games.

Looks a bit cheesy, but my daughter says it reminds her of Legend (a book she recently read).

Rob

Mass starvation in short order, particularly in the cities.
Energy=oil and coal and natural gas.

Result:

No trains. No trucks. No farm equipment. No medicine. No modern medical equipment. No refrigeration capabilities (thus, not only no frozen foods, no fresh fruits for certain regions, and also no antibiotics, which usually have to be kept refrigerated). No clothes distribution. Infant mortality (and child mortality) rates would sky rocket. Cancer would be always fatal, as would many easily treatable diseases. Cities would erupt into violent riots and starvation, especially among the elites and the lowest classes. Oh, and wait till winter hits the northern climes, with no functioning heating oil, coal or gas systems.
At least it would finally shut up the "back to nature" twits when they learn what "back to nature" really means. If they survive that long, that is.

On the other hand, the idea is absurd. There are always sources of "energy" available; what, will we forget how to make alcohol? If we can make that, we can make ethanol, methanol, methane, etc., etc.. And even then, will electromagnetism somehow cease to function? Balderdash. The premise is nonsense. At most there might be a temporary disaster of some sort that affects the distribution of energy for a limited period, but nothing can get rid of energy itself.

And not only gets rid of the energy, but apparently can turn it back on again, too. Magic!

My wife and I discussed the alcohol issue, too. And magnets. And watermills. And electrical impulses in brains, muscles, etc. of *all* animals.

Stupid.

Oh gawd, I missed the part about ALL forms of energy- for some reason, my brain just parsed it as "modern forms of energy," i.e., electricity, gasoline, diesel, etc.

Maybe because the alternative is just so flatly stupid as to boggle the mind?

- Monk

Were do you get the all forms of energy bit? It specifically mentions car engines, turbines, and batteries. It also says all electricity. It is built on the premise that the black magic that is electrons flowing stops working.

Gas engines don't work because there is no way to easily create a spark. It would probably sell it better if they introduce more steampunk into it. Steam engines would work. You could even rig some strange gas engine that runs by little flint strikers to create the spark.

Gas still burns. No way to refine it so it will not last long.

You might be able to justify the nervous system because it is primarily a chemical reaction. It does involve small amounts of current so it's a stretch.

I can get my head around the idea that some sort of phenomenon warps physics itself to stop the flow of electrons. It does strange things on the micro level but could be a force that limits the macro transfer of electrons. Things would get interesting fast.

You could get the same premise to this show by blaming it on a massive solar flare that slammed enough radiation and EMF into the planet to kill everything electronic. It would take decades to rebuild the infrastructure.

Looks great!

hahahaha some of the people complaining how "good" people look in the show if this was real.

1. you do realize its a show…. for entertainment. lol
2. People survived and got along fine with out electricity for over 2000 years… lol Matter fact we have an amish community near me. Other than their style of cloths and NO electricity. They are the same as the rest of us. Haircuts, clean cloths, well fed and probably in better shape cause they don't sit around and watch tv.
3. I'll wait until its been on for one season before I watch it. I hate getting involved in a show and after a couple months the network drops it.

Of course we know it is not real.
I just think it looks BAD so will not watch it.

More talk here about it:

link

Heck, why not just use the real thing as the premise? Nobody wants to face the reality of using up all the fossil fuels. So they keep putting it off and putting it off until it's too late to switch over to something else. Civilization collapses and billions die. Except it's not fiction. This is really going to happen. Glad I won't be around to see it.

SM Stirling has a remarkably simular concept already in print!

link

I knew that sounded familiar…

…ditto what Angel Barracks said, and Parzival, and others.

All forms of energy cease to exist? Kinetic energy is gone? The laws of physics cease to exist?

This is "the post-apocalyptic high-school musical" …

the post-apocalyptic high-school musical" …

I did a proper actual LOL at that!
Spot on!

So if a young cast equals "High school musical" does that mean a older cast equal "Golden girls"? seriously I'm honestly asking because the whole HSM comparison does not make much sense to me.

For me, it's not the age of the cast, it's the feel of the whole enterprise. It feels fake and plastic and pandering and Disney, from the setting to the cast to the central mystery to the reason for the journey to the angsty drama.

But, hey, if it floats your boat, enjoy it.

"The flow of electrons stops working."

Seriously? If that happens, then the brain and muscles cease to function. For that matter chemistry of any sort ceases to function. Ionic bonds, covalent bonds, whatever, all kaput. The universe falls apart into individual sub atomic particles. What utter nonsense.

But let's suppose it's some change in the Earth's magnetic field that affects the transmission of electricity. (How? Beats the heck out of me.) Even if that were the case, did we completely forget how to build a Faraday cage??? Surround your electronic device with aluminum foil or a big steel mesh and voilá— it's shielded from whatever electromagnetic effects are going on outside the metal. Do the same thing with transmission wires to carry the power, and it's pretty much back to "business as usual." Even a car's engine area could be encased in a Faraday cage. The only thing that would vanish would be wireless communications— no more radio, broadcast television, GPS, or cell phones… hang on, maybe that's not such a bad thing…

I do recall a short story from several decades ago in which alien lifeforms (not intelligent, just some sort of space-drifting microbes) reached Earth; they literally "ate" significant electrical activity, so they more or less instantly consumed everything from static sparks to lightning— and of course, radio signals and other man-made sources of electricity. The point of the story was how everything returned to this idyllic early 19th century lifestyle full of piece and quiet, where everyone got to enjoy the pleasure of books and violin music, and rode around in horse and buggy. It was, of course, utter tripe. I'm suspecting that the creators read that silly story and decided to run with it. Pffft. :-P

A classmate of mine way back in high school started writing a sci-fi story in which the coefficient of friction of every object in the world suddenly dropped to zero. He gave it up when he fully realized the implications – not to mention the impossibility of the concept.

This show reminds me of that story, but with a better looking cast. :)

In S.M Stirling's "Dies the fire" books which has a very similar idea as this show people actually wondered why technology including steam engines and gunpowder have stopped working but the chemical reactions in the human body haven't and how impossible it should be. I don't know if it ever became a major plot point since I never finished the series but it's still better then not acknowledging the impossibility of the situation at all. Hopefully "Revolution" will do the same.