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WI the disaster movie genre never takes off?

Hendryk

Taken back control yet?
Published by SLP
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Pun more or less intended, since film buffs consider that the movie that launched the genre is Airport in 1970. Those who watch it now may wonder why it qualifies as a disaster movie at all, since most of the focus is on the characters' love lives and (more interestingly) the technical minutiae of running a large airport; but it would appear that it gave Hollywood the idea of making more films about large numbers of people getting stuck in catastrophic situations (The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, etc.). The genre went into hiatus in the 1980s and early 1990s but came back with a vengeance once CGI effects had matured enough.

So what if Airport is never made?
 
The Poseidon Adventure might still be made, being based off a popular novel and Irwin Allen wanting to adapt it more as an adventure than a disaster (witness the cutting back of a lot of the novel's more grim subject matter).
 
Problem is there were already examples of disaster movies about the place- 1933's Deluge, The Day the Earth Caught Fire in 1961, Crack in the World in 1965, arguably Planet of the Apes in 1968, Dr. Strangelove back in 1964, Godzilla had already started, Little Shop of Horrors and The Day of the Triffids, War of the Worlds, Night of the Living Dead

The main distinction with Airplane is it seems to be the first big successful occasion where the threat isn't aliens or nuclear war, but something on a smaller more human scale, and even there I've found no less than 5 films involving plane crashes as the central subject in the 60s (Fate is the Hunter from 1964 based on exactly recreating a crash to find the fault, Flight of the Phoenix in 1965 involving a plane crash-landing in a desert, The Crowded Sky in 1960, The Doomsday Flight in 1966 and 1969's Lost Flight).

EDIT: And how could I forget the fact that Airplane itself liberally borrows from 1957's Zero Hour!
 
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Problem is there were already examples of disaster movies about the place-
Pop culture moves in sometimes unpredictable ways. Perhaps, while movies involving catastrophes whether natural or paranormal were around before, it was Airport that convinced Hollywood that the genre was worth exploiting as such.
 
Yeah, Alex means Airport which is what Hendryk said. Obviously no Airport means no Airplane though.

No, I mean Airplane!, which while it's generally thought of as a parody of Airport actually directly lifts footage from Zero Hour!, replicates some shots and actually bought the rights to use the script from it.

Also, @Alex Richards if you haven't seen Airplane! you really need to.

I have literally lost track of the number of times I've seen it.
 
No, I mean Airplane!, which while it's generally thought of as a parody of Airport actually directly lifts footage from Zero Hour!, replicates some shots and actually bought the rights to use the script from it.

Yeah but you also use Airplane in the second paragraph 'The main distinction with Airplane is it seems to be the first big successful occasion where the threat isn't aliens or nuclear war, but something on a smaller more human scale, and even there I've found no less than 5 films involving plane crashes as the central subject in the 60s ' where it seems like you mean Airport.
 
Yeah but you also use Airplane in the second paragraph 'The main distinction with Airplane is it seems to be the first big successful occasion where the threat isn't aliens or nuclear war, but something on a smaller more human scale, and even there I've found no less than 5 films involving plane crashes as the central subject in the 60s ' where it seems like you mean Airport.

Oh there. Yeah, thanks for pointing that one out.

Pop culture moves in sometimes unpredictable ways. Perhaps, while movies involving catastrophes whether natural or paranormal were around before, it was Airport that convinced Hollywood that the genre was worth exploiting as such.

Oh I think you could well end up with a different genre, but I think at some point one of the disaster films being made is going to break through. Which one of course could change how things are interpreted- perhaps they end up more in the vein of psychological thrillers rather than strict action films for example.
 
"Have you ever seen a grown man naked ?"

This thread confusion of airplane ! and airport is delightful. "Roger. Over ? huh ? What's your vector, victor ? and where is you clearance, Clarence ?"

Also the line about "finding a pilot that did not ate fish for dinner" was taken, verbatim, by the Z-A-Z, right rom the original movie Zero hour

Surely, you can't be serious...

but came back with a vengeance
Michael Bay. Freakkin' Michael Bay. Roast in hell, you idiot.
 
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