I saw the new movie Knowledge, starring Nick Cage. (Note: there may be plot spoilers coming, so if you want to see the movie, stop reading.) On principle, I have a problem with apocalyptic movies. Armageddon (Bruce Willis) was good, at least in part because the threatened apocalypse did not come about. The Left Behind series of movies was problematic because there's just a generic problem with apocalypse movies, as there is with the "evolutionary" kind of science fiction (you know, when humanity transforms into something other, with concomitant millennial consequences). I think the issue is that in general, audiences identify and sympathize with the hero, and when the hero dies, it produces the tragic effect. However, when the whole of humanity is wiped out, it goes beyond tragedy, as sci-fi goes beyond romance when humanity changes beyond recognition.

I am, however, interested in the repackaging of religious themes in contemporary movies, and Knowledge had that in abundance--Left Behind meets Erich von Daniken meets Armageddon.

So, why am I intrigued, though not completely sold on, Knowledge, while dissing the Left Behind series? I don't really know, if one leaves out better CGI. I suspect that apocalypse is a problem because there's an end to all tension if everyone's dead. Even if a new Eden or millennial existence results for a few, there's something inconceivable about humanity, essentially as we know it, suddenly coming to a complete end (maybe more than 5 billion of the earth's 6 billion being wiped out in an instant, with maybe a few thousand saved? There's a Schindler's List for you). Plus, for Left Behind, if one reads biblical prophecy, there's a millennial existence and Heaven at the end. John struggled to describe it, and such an existence would almost certainly be impossible to describe adequately by an earth-bound human. Literature is based on tension and conflict, so it's not clear where that goes.