"5 Things Every Movie Gets Wrong About the Apocalypse" Topic

"Hollywood seems pretty confident that at some point humanity will find itself at the mercy of a world-resetting apocalypse. Over the years, movies have provided us with a complete visual library of survival guides covering each and every possible scenario, from the plausible (the world is enslaved by sentient robot overlords) to the ludicrous (the world is poisoned by angry trees, because for some reason M. Night Shyamalan gets to keep making movies).

Unfortunately, Hollywood will leave you ill-prepared, because it has managed to completely overlook several key aspects of life on post-apocalyptic Earth. For example …

Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

"…The Road Warrior, which takes place in a universe where muscle cars are more important than food or pants."

That was both hilarious and informative – thanks.

In the same vein, I liked "After the first year or two, everyone would be bombing around on roller skates and bicycles, which admittedly would've changed the entire tone of The Road Warrior"

and

"Help us, Jeff Goldblum's PowerBook, you're our only hope."

I'm am shocked SHOCKED!!!!! Too even think thar Hollywood could be wrong. Next you're say that they also don't fully think out plots. Everyone knows Hollywood does accurate research on everything. But to cut Hollywood some slack The Road Warrior is an Austrain movie

Funny--they didn't seem to have thick Austrian accents in that movie…

Rob

Ops sorry Mad Max was the Austrain movie the road warrior was the Hollywood sequel

Terminator would have been a much different movie with Paul Hogan instead of Ahnold…

Famine is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, but his skinnier, nerdier little brother Malnutrition is definitely an alternate on the team.

Ha! I need to do the other three now and have a scenario, "The Four Horsemen of the Really Bad Day".

It's a humour article and pretty funny, but it does miss on a couple things. The medical problems are real, but they don't amount to a massive percentage of the population as is implied. Also, people in more affluent countries tend to be overmedicated, so there's a big difference between prescription count and need.

I thought the people in the Road Warrior movies actually were fighting over gasoline. Also, if you have a standard transmission car, and know how it works, you can keep it reasonably going (certainly not high performing) on ethanol.

Which leads to the one most important thing about the Apocalypse no one puts in movies …

Alcohol is the Savior of Mankind!

It has calories (yeah, malnutrition, but billions of people survive in malnutrition every day; you can handle it short term if it helps you to survive and get to real food). It is an anesthetic and antiseptic. It's a decent solvent. It is a naturally volatile fuel, but can be diluted and work in a more controlled way, too. Alcohol is important as an catalyzer in many primitive medicines. It's a preservative, again important for the food thing. And, since it is a biotoxin, it makes a decent pesticide. Alcohol is also a decent poison (should the need arise; I'm thinking vermin control, here) and has an amplifying effect with many other natural poisons.

Black powder and alcohol,
When the states and cities fall,
When your back is against the wall,
Black powder and alcohol.

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I have been reading news articles over the past year as ethanol content has been increasing in gasoline, damage to ICE systems is being observed in more consumer vehicles.

I was a devoted fan of the American Le Mans Series. I remember E85 was a common fuel used in ALMS races without a loss in performance. I do not know of the long-term mechanical issues on the racing vehicles using that fuel.

The History Channel released an episode of its Mega Disasters series titled "Oil Apocalypse." It mentions ethanol and cycle gangs near the end of the episode. If you cannot find it online or wait until it is broadcast again, the DVD is worth purchasing.

On a related topic, here are plants you can forage for food:
link

Looks like my lawn is actually a survival garden— I've got enough clover for the Apocalypse!

Happy you enjoyed the article with fun boys!. (smile).

Quite interesting thread etotheipi!

Amicalement
Armand

Pork, is the answer, gentlemen. If you have pork, you have methane….

Ethanol is only a temporary issue. Electric cars will eventually replace ICE as the motors/power storage situation is slowly solved.

I am a mechanical engineer (the type that builds machinery and actually knows what AMPs and volts mean…)and as skeptical as I was about an employee's electric car purchase (Chev Volt), I am impressed but it really isn't too much more than an overblown EV1 Class II from 1998/99. Still, the tech is there so I think the general thought process in the industry is Ethanol might be eating your engine, but by the time it fries itself, you will have long since changed to an electric car – twenty/thirty years down the road.

There was a very interesting German made Zombie movie on the telly a few months ago. Maybe the sci-fi channel. I wish I'd saved it. Anyway the important thing is that people were dying from radiation sickness because the nuclear plants were breaking down. So it was covered but not by Hollywood.

I saw that I think.
Was there a church near the end and a mad priest or was it the one in disused military base?

Or another….

I do not know of the long-term mechanical issues on the racing vehicles using that fuel.

Running a gas engine on alcohol will tear it up. But if you have a simple car (manual transmission, no power brakes, no power steering), you can take care of it and keep it running.

It would be easier to cobble together a steam engine than an alcohol based internal combustion engine without an industrial base.

Which is why you should be hording the following:

Seeds
Arrows (oh and you will need a Bow or two)
Swords & Axes (oh you could for Maces or Hammers)
Tools (non-power like saws, shovels)
Books on to build and grow things (oh these need to be real books and not digital books)

Oh and toilet paper

Hording gold, gems or money will mean nothing after something happens.

Which is why the Movie 2012 was stupid since most of the survivors that were selected were the ultra rich who would be dead within a year.

Mithmee: "Books on to build and grow things (oh these need to be real books and not digital books)"

I would love for the next PA film to show someone frantically looking for a survival book, only find they never bought the printed version.

Dan

The mention of gasoline is…completely pointless. Organic biodiesels or vegetable-based fuels are fairly simple to home-produce, and this could conceivably be scaled up to run a fairly decent number of vehicles. For those of us who don't live in major cities, fuel wouldn't be as hard to come by as you might like to think.

(Miscellaneous vegetable oil, lye, and antifreeze or grain alcohol, plus mixing device. You're good to go.)

Whoops. I said grain alcohol (ethanol) instead of wood alcohol (methanol).