Some thoughts after having been to see The Day After Tomorrow this evening:
- I was reminded a lot of the book Mother Of Storms by John Barnes. Barnes had better science, I seem to recall. The global disaster played out over a longer timespan, and didn’t involve quite so much ice. Lots of wind and rain, though. Worth a read if you enjoyed TDAT.
- As is always the case with large-scale disaster scenarios, I start to wonder just how much of the world’s population we could lose, and still retain a technologically advanced civilization. Whether it’s a comet impact or a plague that kills 9 out of every 10, how much of a knock could our society take, and still remain standing?
- The trailer for I, Robot made my blood run cold. Asimov’s robot stories centre around a fundamentally logical, rational premise: the three laws of robotics. The stories are generally intricate, thoughtful, and calm. Seeing masses of robots running amok in the trailer, looking and acting like a bunch of mechanical Star Wars stormtroopers, made me break out in a sweat just thinking how bad this film might be.