The Road

[Meister]

The Road is an upcoming film after a book by Cormac McCarthy, who you'll probably know as the guy who wrote No Country For Old Men. The plot is easily summarized, civilization as we know it has ended and the last remnants of humankind are living out the rest of their lives in a dead world. Protagonists are a man and his son moving from place to place, trying to scavenge enough food to survive and hoping to find a pocket of civilization after all with no idea if one even exists.

It's a very bleak world unlike the usual pop-culture version of post-apocalypse where people just bolt metal shields and spiked cowcatchers to their cars and call it a day; the book and film take place years after whatever ended civilization happened. The sun's largely blocked out by ash clouds, most plants and animals are dead and everything civilization produced has long run out.

I just recently read the book and it's really quite good. Usually that would be enough for me but I think for this one I'll stray from my "no adaptations" rule: for one, the film's directed by John Hillcoat, who also directed The Proposition, an incredibly depressing Western written by Nick Cave, so I think the feeling of hopelessness the material requires won't be entirely lost; for two, like The Proposition Nick Cave and Warren Ellis* (nope, not the comic writer; don't worry, I got confused at first too and was almost as disappointed as you probably are now) are doing the soundtrack, which feels incredibly appropriate re: that hopelessness I mentioned.

Here's the trailer; seems a bit more action-packed than the book felt but the scenery looks very good. It opens tomorrow in the US and as usual probably a few months later over here. If it's largely accurate to the book I recommend seeing it; makes for a bit of change if nothing else.

[A Zarkin' Frood]

It looks interesting, but not the kind of movie I'd go to the theater for (I rarely ever visit theaters), or the kind theaters close to me would show. But it does seem like the kind of story that interests me. If it's based on a book I'd much rather prefer reading that. I haven't read a book in a while.

Also very slightly off-topic: Was that scream at circa 2:00 from Starcraft? I think it was the sound you hear when clicking on some Terran Building

[phil_]

You call that an apocalypse? The Earth freaking exploded in 2012. This little "everybody's dead" song and dance just isn't enough in a post-2012 world. And New Moon has only been out for a week. This film was released with rather poor timing.

Originally Posted by InsaneGenius

Also very slightly off-topic: Was that scream at circa 2:00 from Starcraft? I think it was the sound you hear when clicking on some Terran Building

Wilhelm Scream

[Meister]

Not only is everyone dead, everything is, too, and on the whole there's precious little to suggest life on Earth will be able to sustain itself very much longer. Pansy-ass 2012 with its arks and survivors .

Quite good review from Esquire. Seems the movie itself, like the book, won't explain what happened and the introductory news and catastrophe footage in the trailer is a studio addition. Not that this isn't awesome news for the film itself but goddamn it, studio, would it kill you to make a trailer that represents a film accurately rather than try and draw in the crowd that is looking forward to Roland Emmerich's 2013 just so they can sit in the theater and proclaim how boring the movie is and where are the explosions and hurricanes?

[Kim]

Meister, every word you say about this makes me more and more optimistic. I read the book a couple of months ago and was very, very worried the movie would be an abomination. Now I have hope!

[Dørmatte]

I don't know, seems a little like "Knowing", but without the space angels, and then the sun exploding.

If the biosphere really is so destroyed that all plant life is dead and the animals and (atleast top-level) seal-life along with it, then no human on the planet is going to survive no matter how "good" they are or how many cannibals they avoid. A story that starts with the promise of everyone dying, shows us some dudes dying, and then ends with the promise that everyone who didn't die by now are going to die from starvation soon anyway... just doesn't sounds all that appealing.

If there really was hope for survival, then sure, I could get into that, but if everything is dead, then no matter how you twist and turn it - unless they come across some magical underground vault with its own self-sustained biosphere to feed them - they are going to die. Very, very soon they will be dead. Where's the fun in watching that? It doesn't even sound depressing, just grueling. Like Saw, but without the gore (or maybe with the gore, judging from what I read about the book).

I'll still watch it though. I mean, I watched Saw.

[Kim]

Just go read the book.

[A Zarkin' Frood]

Originally Posted by phil_

Wilhelm Scream

1. I finally know what the Wilhelm Scream sounds like
2. No, I don't think that's the one I heard.

[Meister]

Well, the everything-is-dead angle isn't a big plot point in the book, it's more something you realize when you think about what you read a little (and anyway it's probably up to interpretation). I think in the end it's less about the setting itself than about human interaction in the face of such an extreme situation, possibly also about commenting on the durability of civilization and a little about taking the "after the apocalypse" theme to a grim but logical conclusion.

[phil_]

Originally Posted by InsaneGenius

2. No, I don't think that's the one I heard.

I feel informed. Thanks.

Also, we aren't getting this at my theater. Sad face. I mean, it wouldn't sell anyway beside 2012, New Moon, and The Blind Side (which is surprisingly selling-out shows), but I could have watched it.