Apocalypse Eve, My New Favorite Holiday

So let me summarize. It's been an eventful night. My celebration of Apocalypse eve consisted of a long apocalypse movie marathon which is still going on as we speak. I have a collection of 6 apocalypse movies, and my goal is to finish all 6 before the day is over (assuming, of course, that the apocalypse does not happen, which is what I believe will happen today).

So why celebrate 12/21/12, you might ask? Well for me, this day is a significant historical landmark. This day has been an event of interest for centuries. It is, in essence, the 1 year birthday of the Mayan calendar. In another way, this is also kind of the death of the Mayan calendar. Either way, I thought it would be interesting to treat it as a holiday. It is sort of the Y2K event of the two-thousands.

I am delighted to report that the night has been a smashing success. This has been, without doubt one of the best nights of my life. I felt like I was celebrating history, in my own kind of geeky way, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I dove into the suspense, gasped with the heroes  and celebrated the victories. I let myself into every moment, as if it was happening from a window of my room, and the result was humbling and exhilarating.

I have seen many different apocalypse movies tonight (and also, as a bonus, I can now spell apocalypse correctly 100% of the time). Many of the more widely known apocalypse movies I have already seen. I am, after all, a huge movie nerd. I was aiming to watch new material instead of re-watching things I've already seen, so I went shopping and found a value pack with 6 apocalypse movies. I was sold.

The first movie I watched was "2012: Supernova". It was the least impressive of the movies I watched tonight. Mostly, I felt like the whole thing was too easy. I mean, by no means is a supernova a boring catastrophe, but pretty much all the things the team needed just kind of magically appeared. It seemed like they were too prepared for a phenomenon which is traveling at light-speed. How did they manage to detect it in the first place? The movie was all-right, but not impressive.

The next movie, "Storm" was a little more interesting, but still left things to be desired. The "natural disaster" was not one at all, but instead was a storm which people manipulated in order to direct and strengthen it. It was an interesting concept, but not really an apocalypse.

The third movie was one of the very best movies I've seen so far this Apocalypse Eve. It is called "Catagory 7: End of the World". Despite the melodramatic title, the movie was amazing!

There were just so many plot twists and parallel plots all happening at the same time. The characters were engaging, and I liked them immediately. Because of this, I was drawn more deeply into the plot. The movie was extremely long. It had two parts. I liked that there was just the right balance of complete and utter destruction, and joyful salvation. There has to be enough destruction to make the movie feel like the entire world really could just disintegrate. However, there also needs to be a long-shot plan which results in some sort of victory. This movie had all of these element, balanced perfectly. I genuinely applaud the directors of this film, it was truly well done.

Needless to say, after the previous masterpiece, the next movie had big shoes to fill. I was worried that all the rest of the movies would be downhill from there. However, the next movie was equally as good. So good, in fact, that I can not decide which I like better, the third or fourth movie in this marathon. The title is "10.5 Apocalypse". I think that perhaps both the third and fourth movies in this marathon were directed or produced by the same person or company. Both movies have the same sort of balanced parallel plots and engaging characters. Also, both movies have two parts, making them both extremely long.

Anyway, 10.5 Apocalypse was different because it featured a sort of chain event catastrophe sequence where each catastrophe was partially caused by the previous one. Also, only in this movie did I see such a wide variety of destructive forces. In most of the movies, one or two focused things cause the apocalyptic event. In this movie however, there were earthquakes, volcanoes erupting, sinkholes forming, tidal waves smashing, volcanic acid eroding structures, buildings collapsing, and at one point, there was even an impending nuclear accident/fallout which would kill millions. Overall, just when I thought that the suspense couldn't get any stronger, something else would happen which would push the whole situation higher. Great movie! Great movie indeed!!

The fifth movie might possibly be the worst movie I've ever seen. The title "2012: Doomsday, didn't seem too much different from the others. But it was comically dramatic, the acting was terrible, and the plot was heavy and laborious. The entire movie was also filled with this overly dramatic background music which made every scene just as sickening as the last. It was crammed full of mismatched religious traditions and prophesies. The goal never seemed worth the amount of drama required to reach it. For example, the brave trek featured in one part of the plot was all so that a statue could be returned to a temple. The statue looked like it had been made hastily and then covered with gold spray paint. It was.....pathetic. Anyway, you can't win them all. On to the last film.

The final movie in this marathon was simply named, "Apocalypse". This movie, although it seemed like a blockbuster in comparison with the last one, was fairly strange. The apocalypse mentioned in the title was less of a natural disaster, and more of an inter-terrestrial terrorist attack. The terrorist was a mentally ill woman with a fetish for word play and puzzles. The vessel was an ancient spaceship which everyone assumed was abandoned. There were some charming things about this movie, some of the characters were engaging, but overall this movie isn't one I'll watch again.

So there we have it. I have officially watched somewhere between 10-12 hours of apocalypse movies, and it is now close to noon on 12/21/12. Happy apocalypse day everyone! I'm going to go get some sleep!