WEBVTT - What Makes Disaster Films Great 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:04.920 Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:13.520 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.160 Chuck and it's just us today. And that's okay because 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:18.919 we're just gonna be sitting around rapping about one of 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:20.440 our favorite things to talk about. 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:25.720 That is movies. Let's go to the movies. 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:29.920 You had a little Katherine Hepburn thing going on there, 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:36.440 ethel Merman, it was Katherine Hepburn singing ethel Murmy. Okay, 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:40.159 that's how I think that. Yeah, we are going to 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:43.000 go to the movies, Chuck, and in particular specific kind 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:45.800 of movie that the more I dug into, the more 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:48.199 I realize is one of my favorite types of movies. 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:52.159 Oh yeah, yeah, disaster movies. I had no idea, but 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:54.680 remember we were talking. This whole thing was kicked off 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:57.560 by me watching The Day After Tomorrow a couple of 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:00.800 weeks ago. Yeah, yeah, And I was like, yeah, it's 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:02.840 one of my favorite movies. And the reason why is 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:06.000 because I love disaster movies. Love them. 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:10.480 Yeah, I like a lot of these. It's not my 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.959 favorite gen overall, but like I found myself saying like, 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:15.920 oh yeah, that was pretty good. I like that all right, 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:22.200 But generally, if we're in this, this is a subgenre 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.160 of action movies, and I think I prefer action movies 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:26.919 overall more than disaster movies. 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:30.240 Okay, all right, well, yeah, we'll get into that because 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:34.000 it is a subgenre of action, and that makes a 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:38.320 lot of sense. Disaster movies are packed with action, and 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:41.800 there are some that are like, Okay, this is definitely 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:44.840 a disaster film, like The Towering Inferno. 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:47.600 Oh yeah, I'd be okay, But then. 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:50.480 There's also movies like Speed, and Speed checks off a 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:51.440 lot of the boxes. 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:53.160 Yeah, not a disaster movie. 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:56.000 You would not call it a disaster movie, even though 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:58.280 it really could. If you really wedged it in there, 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:01.120 it will qualify. But there's just a couple of little 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:05.680 things that are different that make it definitely an action movie. 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:08.840 And then you have other ones like The Birds. Alfred 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:09.680 Hitchcock's The. 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:11.680 Birds not a disaster movie to me. 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:15.600 It ends up on lists. It's part of the animal 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:20.640 attack subgenre of disaster films, which is a subgenre of action. Yeah. 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:23.120 It's interesting because I'm sure you did the same thing 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:25.360 when reading off some of these. It's sort of like 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:28.120 it just a gut feeling sometimes and you can't say 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:31.280 exactly what it is that you feel personally like doesn't count, 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:33.880 but someone you know, someone else might think it counts. 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:37.000 It's not like this is something you can say is 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:38.959 very cut and dry, you know, right. 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:42.560 And because of that, I looked everywhere on the internet 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:46.200 to try to cobble together this list of like basically 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:52.120 the basic defining characteristics of disaster films. Yeah, and it 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:55.440 was hard. Nobody's ever seen sat down and said here 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:59.120 they are right. People have kind of piecemeal but people 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:03.040 don't talk that much about disaster films, which I find sad. 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:06.079 Well, maybe this can be that, and maybe you can, 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:09.080 like I don't know, start a website. Josh defines disaster 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:09.760 dot com. 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:12.880 I'll just put this article on there and that'll do that, 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:13.720 all right? 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:15.400 Should we go through some of these? Because you did 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:18.120 a bang up job, thank you. The first thing you 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:21.840 needed in a disaster movie is a disaster. Sure, but 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:24.240 this can be a lot of different things. A lot 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:27.040 of time it's a human made thing. Then that varies 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:29.920 from climate change movies, which we've seen a lot more 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:35.600 of lately, to like pandemics. And sometimes I get, like 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:39.120 I guess some things like Towering Inferno or a bit 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:41.720 of a mashup, because you can have like the thread 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:44.240 of a structural collapse, so that is a human made thing, 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:46.520 but it might be brought upon by like a fire 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:49.119 or flood or something. Yes, there's overlap. 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:53.040 Nobody said you can pin down disaster movies pretty easily. 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:53.080 That's right. 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:56.800 What else there's like, extraterrestrial is a big one. It 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.240 can be an alien attack, it can be a comet 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:05.720 or an asteroid headed toward Earth. Yeah, transportation is huge. Yeah, 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:09.480 people love screwing up like cruise ships and trains and 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:13.960 boats and airplanes love it. And then one of the 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:17.560 other things about it too, The disaster is ongoing, right, 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:20.800 so it's not like the people survive a five minute 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:23.200 earthquake and then the rest of the movie they all 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:26.480 like go out to dinner and everything's fine. They spend 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:30.839 the rest of the movie negotiating all the problems that 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:35.919 that disaster created, So they're they're negotiating sub disasters. Or 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:40.280 it can be like an ongoing disaster like a flood 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:44.160 or something like that. Like that can happen the entire movie, 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:47.679 but one way or another, the entire movie takes place 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:51.120 over some sort of disaster and all of its after effects. 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:56.120 Yeah, for sure, impending or in in what. 0:04:56.400 --> 0:05:00.400 In Oh that's a good point too. Yeah, sometimes there's 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:01.800 a lot of lead up to. 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:05.120 It, Yeah exactly. But what am I looking for in process? 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:09.919 In progress? Sure? No, good lord, it's usually a pretty 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:13.039 large disaster, and for me this is like can be 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:18.440 a real big differentiator in my personal opinion. But again 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:20.680 it's a gut check. Like sometimes if it's just a 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.240 local thing to me, I'm like, well, that's not really 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:25.480 disaster movie because it has to be more big and 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:29.440 sweeping to truly qualify. But then sometimes it is sort 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.000 of a smaller thing, and I feel like it does qualify. 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:37.040 So like in the case of you know, like a 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:41.360 bridge collapse or a collapse tunnel, or like Daylight Stallone's 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:43.880 movie about the when that one of the New York 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:46.880 tunnels was collapsing or collapse, Like, I considered that a 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:49.960 disaster movie. So I'm like contradicting myself. And that's what 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:51.680 makes this all fun. 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:55.279 Yeah, one end of the spectrum, the world can actually 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:58.240 be ending then to be the premis or like you said, 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:00.279 a little tunnel collapse, the rest of the world just 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:04.520 going on business as you care. Exactly let them die, 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:06.400 like that guy an airplane. 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:08.760 I don't remember that. What happened. 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:13.440 There was like a debate TV show, like on the 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:15.480 News or something like that, and one was like, we 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.120 need to take better care of people in the FAA 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:19.919 has to step it up, and the other guy was 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:23.840 presenting counterpoint. He was like, I say, let them die. 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:27.120 It's way funnier in the movie. 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:30.400 Yeah, obviously, surviving the disaster is a big part of 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:32.760 the plot point. We know some people won't make it 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:37.440 out alive, but usually, like most of the A list cast, 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:39.800 will make it out alive unless they're really trying to 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:43.520 pull one over on you in a scream sort of way. 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:49.200 Yes, and you tease something just now. Some people will 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:53.000 definitely not survive. And one of the things about disaster 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:56.040 movies is all you have to do is basically see 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:59.200 one and the next one. Maybe you don't even need 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:02.280 to see a second one. You can pick out very 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:05.760 quickly who's going to die, yeah, who's going to live? 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:10.880 And the reason why is because the stereotypes are pervasive 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:15.480 in disaster movies, like you have like the dumb, brawny 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:20.800 guy or you know, a smart scientist damsels in distress. 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:24.760 Like to this day, disaster movies are sexist. I could 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:28.280 not come up with a single disaster movie where the 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.760 hero was a woman, not a single one. In all 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:35.680 the decades of disaster movies. It's men. Most of the 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:39.200 main characters and leads are men. Yeah, and the woman 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:42.080 is basically there to essentially be saved and maybe help 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:43.360 out some Yeah. 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:45.760 I mean, I guess more recently they may throw your 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:49.320 bone with like a woman as president, but then she's 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:53.440 like commissioning the team of men to usually solve the problem. 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:56.080 Good point, right, So you know very quickly who the 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:58.280 hero is, But there's also plenty of other people who 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:00.360 you're like, I think they're going to live, and you 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:04.280 can really kind of cut them into three moral categories good, bad, 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:09.000 and redeemable. Yeah, and redeemable can be like the guy's 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:13.480 ex wife's new boyfriend who you hate, but really he 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:16.559 actually turns out to be a good guy. He probably dies, 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:19.560 but he'll die a good, noble death. He could also 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:22.520 not die and become like a sidekick. And then there's 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:26.320 like the shady rich people, often the people who are 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:29.520 responsible for the disaster through like their greed or something 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:29.880 like that. 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:30.520 MM hmm. 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:33.680 You know they're going to die a very bad death. 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:38.760 And the point is like it's a really simplistic way 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:40.760 of looking at humans, and I think that's one of 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:43.239 the reassuring things about it that make them enjoyable. 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:46.079 Yeah, for sure. And I think we would be remiss 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:47.840 if we didn't bring up a little bit of a 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:52.160 prickly topic for our African American listeners. It has long 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:55.200 been a movie trope in horror movies, disaster movies or whatever, 0:08:55.800 --> 0:09:01.360 where the black characters will die almost certainly and usually first, 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:05.520 and that has such a trope it's become a joke 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:08.880 and lampooned in like you know, the parody movies and stuff. 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:12.240 But we have to mention that and what I'm curious about, 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:14.280 and hopefully we'll hear from some of our listeners if 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:18.000 that has now become so ridiculous and crossed over to 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:21.320 where it's now just sort of funny and expected and 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:26.040 a movie thing and not like truly upsetting. Right, So 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:29.600 I'm curious how our African American listeners feel about this 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:31.000 at this point in twenty twenty five. 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:36.079 Yeah, there's usually about as many black characters as there 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:40.760 are women characters in disaster movies. Yeah, but like you said, similarly, 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:44.520 they're often the president, like Morgan Freeman or Danny Glover 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:45.600 or something like that. 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:48.840 I'd vote for Morgan Freeman, yeah. 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:51.560 For sure. But I heard the reason. You know he 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:54.400 wears those diamond studs in his ears all the time. 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:56.720 Yeah, he's been rocking those for a while. 0:09:57.000 --> 0:09:58.920 I heard the reason why. This is an old pirates 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:02.160 thing where you wear some sort of jewelry or whatever 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:04.800 so that if you die away from home, you have 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:09.240 enough currency or value or something on you to pay 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:10.160 for your funeral. 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:11.760 That's why he does that. 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:12.480 That's what I heard. 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:13.520 That's incredible. 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.440 Yeah, it makes you want to vote for him even more. Huh. 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:18.120 I just want to hear that State of the Union. 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:23.480 Yeah, whatever speech he's delivering, it would be really smooth. 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:25.679 I was going to try and bust out of Morgan Freeman, 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:28.439 but I just I think I would embarrass myself. I've 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:31.520 never tried, so it's never good to launch into your 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:33.280 first attempt live on the air. 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:35.319 Well, maybe we'll workshop it off air. 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:40.240 Well, we have to talk about the hero. The hero 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:46.360 most times is not like a typical hero. It's usually 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:50.600 in every man kind of character who just like Armageddon 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:52.880 for instance. You know, they put together a rough and 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:56.400 tumble team, you know, Dirty dozen style. It wasn't a 0:10:56.440 --> 0:11:00.120 bunch of like elite problem solvers. It's they were like 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:02.480 oil rig guys, right, like drillers. 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:05.520 Yeah, they weren't even astronauts for Pete's sake. 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:08.040 Yeah, they had to train them. I only saw armagedon once, 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:10.720 so I'm pulling a lot of this from distant memory. 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:12.760 Yeah, I'm more a deep impact dude. 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:15.080 Oh yeah, that's what I heard. 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:18.000 As a matter of fact, I'm not entirely certain I've 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:19.079 ever seen Armageddon. 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:25.280 Uh, you know, it was okay, it was fairly you know, schlocky, 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:27.120 big budget sort of stuff. 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:32.920 You just described almost every single disaster movie you ever made, 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:36.400 and the response too, your judgment of it, almost every 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:38.679 single disaster movie you ever made. Like, they don't get 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:40.880 you to jump off off the couch at the end 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:43.839 and scream Bravo or Encore. You know what I mean. 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:46.160 You just kind of like them. They're just kind of fun. 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:49.559 Yeah, it's it's summer movie popcorn. Fair. I still love 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:51.360 these kind of movies. I think there's a place for 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:53.199 all kinds of movies, and I still love going to 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:56.160 the theater and seeing these sort of big budget like 0:11:56.200 --> 0:11:58.440 it probably isn't a great film, but it might be 0:11:58.480 --> 0:11:59.560 a fun movie. Right. 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:05.240 So within these the structure, these constrictions, people have learned 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:06.920 over the years how to kind of play with them 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:11.360 and make new forms of disaster films. And a really 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.760 good example, I think so we said that either a 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:17.760 big disaster affects tons of people or a small disaster 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:20.960 affects a little amount of people. Something that kind of 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:24.840 combines the two is Leave the World Behind Ethan Hawk movie. 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:25.920 I don't know that one. 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:29.800 Oh it's great. It was on Netflix, Ethan Hawk and 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:34.000 Julia Roberts. So basically there's a cyber attack that just 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:40.080 causes civilization to essentially collapse, but we're just following like 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:43.680 two families who are kind of having to figure out 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:45.439 what to do and what's. 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:46.840 Going on and all of that approach. 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:50.199 Yeah, it was it was definitely worth seeing. And then 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:53.640 other ones, rather than having kind of a schlocky humor 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:57.840 that really started to develop in the late seventies and 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:02.160 then it kind of turned in to like quips, I 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:06.240 guess in the nineties. Yeah, there's some very very serious 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:12.400 ones too, like the impossible, not a schlocky depiction of 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:15.000 the two thousand and four Indian Ocean tsunami. 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:17.280 It's incredible movie though, it is. 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:21.080 It's so it's probably the most realistic film I've ever 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:21.920 seen in my life. 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:24.280 Yeah, I mean I remember, I think I remember when 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:26.000 it came out. We might have even talked about that 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:27.920 on the air at some point when we did the 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:31.680 tsunami episode with the how they recreated that was just 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:33.360 herrowing exactly. 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:38.120 So that's disaster films in a nutshell. And I feel 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:39.760 like we could probably take a break here and then 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:42.280 come back and talk about the history of disaster films. 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:59.840 What do you think, Let's do it. 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:13.440 So Unlike some other things, disaster films are one of 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:17.400 those things you can explore and find that there's an 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:21.200 actual beginning and it's not like this thing developed over time. 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:26.960 There were disaster films because there's these definitions, these characteristics 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:29.840 that you have to have. There were films along the 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:32.440 way that just happened to have those, And the first 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:36.520 one was Deluge from nineteen thirty three, where if you 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.280 watch it, there's a several minutes of New York City 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:42.800 being destroyed by a tsunami and it's pretty impressive for 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:44.000 nineteen thirty. 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:47.360 Three, Yeah, for sure. And it also sort of as 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:50.280 we'll see, and usually they're the schlockier ones. But you 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:53.280 get a lot of these one word title disaster movies, right, 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:56.520 especially in the seventies, but then again, as we'll see 0:14:56.520 --> 0:15:00.600 in the nineties, resurgent things like tornado, flood stuff like that. 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:03.080 Yeah, you put an exclamation point at the ada of 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:06.440 a natural disaster or a force of nature in your set. 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:09.160 So I didn't know, I didn't know any of these 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:12.080 early early ones, but one from nineteen thirty six. It 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:16.120 was called San Francisco, right, yep, and it was made 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:19.520 thirty years after the nineteen oh six earthquake and about 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:20.120 that earthquake. 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:23.600 Yes, but it's also apparently people break into song in 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:25.520 it here or there, so it's sometimes listed as a 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:26.400 musical drama. 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:27.120 Yeah. 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:30.200 There's another one called Old Chicago, about the eighteen seventy 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:35.400 one Chicago fire that came in nineteen thirty eight. Titanic 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:40.080 apparently was a favorite subject of early disaster films and 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:43.640 actually stayed that way over time. Yeah, but it wasn't 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:47.080 until nuclear anxieties really started to develop as the Cold 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:50.040 War picked up and it was reflected in movies that 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:52.960 people started imagining what would happen if all these nuclear 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:56.320 weapons went off? Yeah, that actually kind of created the 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:59.400 first crop of what you could really point to was 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:01.200 the Earth disaster films. 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:03.360 Yeah, kind of like the ones as we know it 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:06.000 in the early sixties. Voyage to the Bottom of the 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.520 Sea was one in sixty one when a nuke powered 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:15.440 sub that was radiation fire coming from space. They were 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:19.320 going to bomb that radiation fire from below. Like anytime 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:22.880 you're using a nuclear bomb to you know, launch it 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:24.800 into a disaster, Like, I feel like that's happened a 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:25.600 couple of times at. 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:29.880 Least, sure for sure. What else? There's the day the 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:30.760 Earth caught fire? 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:31.800 Not a good sidy. 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:35.680 No, that kind of wondered what would happen if a 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:38.040 couple of nuclear bomb tests that happened to be carried 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:42.600 out simultaneously by the US and the Soviet Union, what 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:45.160 would happen? And they said, oh, well, probably the Earth's 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:47.840 axis would be shifted and we would be knocked out 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:50.000 of orbit and we would start heading toward the Sun. 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:54.960 That is cut and dry disaster plot. 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:57.520 Yeah, for sure. Also in the sixties we had crack 0:16:57.560 --> 0:16:59.600 in the world and for me, one of the great 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:02.440 movie of all time. Panic and Year Zero such a 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:02.960 great title. 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:05.280 It is a great title. And then of course The 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:07.440 Birds an undisputed disaster film. 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:11.080 Yeah, I take issue with that. The Knight of Living 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:13.560 Dead is listed that is not a disaster movie. 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:17.200 Well, that's a great question, because is a zombie apocalypse 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:20.919 that a handful of survivors have to survive and negotiate. 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:23.399 That's an ongoing disaster. You have a group of people 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:26.840 from different walks of life sometimes stereotype coming together. Yeah, 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:29.600 their lives intersect through this disaster. Yeah, and then they 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:32.240 have to survive. Some people do, some people don't. There's 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:35.600 a hero I mean in that sense, Night of the 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:41.600 Living Dead definitely qualifies. World War Z would qualify Nope. Yeah, 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:43.960 I think that there's like a I mean, there's room 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:46.800 for debate there. Like those could also be horror monster 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:47.560 movies too. 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:50.320 Yeah, I consider those sub gens. I think as soon 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:54.440 as you add any zombie, it becomes something else, something 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:57.200 else entirely. That's again, these are all just my dumb opinions. 0:17:57.400 --> 0:17:59.520 Did you see god Zilla Minus one? 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:02.239 No, but I've heard a lot about it. Is it 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:03.359 garbage or great. 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:06.760 No, it's great. Oh it has a great plot, great acting, 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:11.000 great dialogue, and then the action sequences unbelievable. 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:11.879 I gotta check that out. 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:15.119 Then it's a really good movie. Again, is it a 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:19.280 disaster movie? If you add Godzilla? I don't know. I 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:20.840 could make it a monster movie. 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:23.760 Yeah, let's see what Chuck says, Chuck, monster movie. 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:26.720 Okay, it is officially a monster movie. 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:29.800 Then. Well, you know I did host a movie show 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:30.520 for a couple of years. 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:32.479 I know you did. That's why I deferred to you. 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:36.400 That makes me an expert. The seventies is when really 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:41.320 things start get cooking with all manner of disaster movies, 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:45.159 from things like The Andromeda Strain in nineteen seventy one, 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:48.399 you know, a Michael Crichton novel, so one of his 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:49.840 early novels. It was adapted. 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:52.240 I tried to watch that the other day, and the 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:55.080 animal torture, I yea, get past man. 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:57.960 That's when they just didn't care about depicting that stuff 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:00.000 with any kind of tenderness at all. 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:02.080 You know, Well, I stopped the movie and went and 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:04.479 looked it up, like, did they actually kill this monkey 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:05.320 and these rats? 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:05.919 Did they? 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:09.919 And no, luckily they did not and the ASPCA was 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:13.000 on hand and signed off on it. But what they 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:16.560 did was they suffocated it with carbon dioxide until it 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:20.040 passed out, and then the moment it passed out, they 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:23.520 cut and then they revived it. But that that monkey 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:27.840 was still suffering from this phyxiation during that those moments 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:30.320 where they filmed it. It's awful. 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:32.840 Did someone do mouth the monkey resuscitation? 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:35.959 Well, there's this, there's this when the monkey dies. If 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:39.080 you look closely before they cut, there's a shadow of 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:41.600 somebody moving toward it. All righty to be serious, So 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:44.600 I think they used a little tiny oxygen mask to revive. 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:47.720 Oh god, but it's yeah, I mean that makes it 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:49.399 a little better. And that they didn't kill them, but 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:52.439 they still tortured them. So I couldn't finish that movie. 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:54.320 Yeah, I don't blame me. I never saw it, but 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:56.679 I remember that kind of as a holdover, you know, 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:58.959 came out here I was born, so but I remember 0:19:59.000 --> 0:19:59.720 it just being a thing. 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:03.680 Yeah. So okay, yes, you said we started off with 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:04.840 their drama Streen. 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:07.639 Right, Yeah, I mean Airport was in nineteen seventy and 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:09.879 that's the one that you know kicked off a huge 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:13.800 I mean it had sequels. It led to Airport seventy five, 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:19.000 Airport seventy seven, and then Concord Colon Airport seventy nine, Yeah, 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:23.560 which all eventually led to Airplane. As I mean, that 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:27.560 had to be the first spoof, right, like disaster spoof. 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:31.400 That's as far as I could tell, unless I would 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:35.040 qualify or include Attack of the Killer Tomatoes as a 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:38.000 disaster spoof. And I'm not sure if that came out 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:39.560 before or after Airplane. 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:42.800 I think it was before. But Airport was a very 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:46.400 lauded film. It got ten Oscar nods. It actually won 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:50.560 Helen Hayes one for supporting actress it. And this is 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:53.240 something that we'll see over and over again. Most of 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:57.280 these movies they make a huge, huge return on even 0:20:57.320 --> 0:20:59.080 if they cost a lot to make, Like that costs 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:02.000 ten million bucks in nineteen seventy, which was a lot, yeah, 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:04.560