Earth 2100
Just finished watching Earth 2100 on the History Channel. It originally aired on ABC in 2010. It was alright, but the entire show looks like it was lifted from Fallout 3, which tells a better post-Apocalyptic warning story. Earth 2100 was accused by many to be fear mongering and promoting a socialist agenda when it first aired, and I can see that.
Wikipedia helped me sum up the plot in the following section:
The special was told through the story of Lucy, a fictional woman born in Miami in 2009 who lives through to the year of 2100. A powerful hurricane hits Miami in 2015 and levels most of Miami. Lucy and her parents move to San Diego, where she eventually becomes an EMT and meets her engineer, future-husband Josh at a protest in 2030. They were protesting the high price of California desalinated sea water (Las Vegas had dried up, and now depends on California for its water supply). In 2050, Lucy, her husband, and their 19 year old daughter Molly move from San Diego to New York city by car. They pass through Texas, which has become a perilous border state flooded with people trying to get from the South to Canada or Eastern US. When they get to the clean powered, efficient, and community garden-fed city of New York City, Josh is hired as an engineer to work on a new flood barrier. The barrier is designed to help guard the city against rising ocean levels. In the years following, when trapped methane in the ice caps is released and rapidly increases the ocean levels, a last ditch effort by world governments is hatched. World governments agree to release sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere in order to cool the planet. This plan is abandoned when it is found that sulfur dioxide actually damages the ozone layer. Lucy meanwhile plays an integral role in neutralizing a new life-threatening disease. In a high tide storm in 2075, Josh is killed trying to fix a stuck barrier gate. As a result, New York City is flooded and Lucy’s daughter and her husband move to an agricultural community in Upstate New York. Lucy refuses to move with them, and instead stays behind to help quarantine a new disease sweeping the planet, which is actually the returning Caspian Fever she helped neutralize years before. Its resurgence is cause by the rotting decay in New York City. Caspian Fever soon becomes a pandemic and kills so many people on Earth that population growth starts shrinking, and eventually it dawns on Lucy and every American that there is no Federal response, no National Guard, no soldiers to keep order. Democracy and civilization at the National level have died in America. Lucy leaves the city with some friends and a dog in 2081, and eventually finds her daughter, now a widow like herself, and her grandson. Initially there is no communication with the world, until someone set up a two-way radio. In 2100, Lucy ponders what wisdom to pass along to her grandson, now denied the education she took for granted, as she is the oldest person in the world.
The actual story was told through “motion comics,” or limited animation. Think Reading Rainbow meets The Walking Dead Graphic Novels. I have never been a huge fan of motion comics, and this special did nothing to change my opinion. I praise ABC for making a two-hour special about the subject, but I wonder why they didn’t make it live action archive clips, re enactment clips or fully animated? I believe the impact of the message would have been made much clearer, as the motion comics can come across as uninspired or even corny at times. Indeed, for me, the most impactful moments of the special were those that were accompanied with real footage. An example of this would be at the end where Earth’s current beauty is highlighted through a series of nature documentary clips. Elizabeth Marvel’s voiceover as Lucy is also the best during these scenes.
The special also incorporates many expert and professional opinions and studies throughout the special. This is where some of the fear mongering and globalization comes from. Some of the experts take a mere scientific approach to predicting the Earth’s future, while others come off as pessimistic Socialist hippies. I have no problem with Socialism; It’s an ideal system that, if instituted properly, COULD work. This system will never work with humans as they are now tho. However, I am a Capitalist and would prefer to stay that way for the time being. Earth 2100 chooses to blatantly promote globalization and Socialism as the only solution this generation has available to save us from this future. This might turn some people off. Again, I am not against a more united Earth, but I do think we can all help each other out without having to be a World Nation.
At the end of the day, I love post-Apocalyptic movies, specials, shows, games, books, whatever. This special had a pretty cool story, but I have played, seen, and read much better. It does get its point across as far as warning us of the dangers we face, but I can’t shake the feeling that they intended to scare the audience more than inspire change and hope.
But maybe you should be afraid of how you’re treating the planet. I am a big proponent for changing the basic structure of our energy systems and power supplies, especially electricity, and it starts with reorganizing or eliminating the greed and corruption within the energy monopolies…
Don’t kid yourself, tho. We should definitely care for this planet, and lessen our carbon footprints, but planet Earth will decide when she’s had enough of the things living on it.
On a side note… Why does History Channel always play their Apocalyptic and Doomsday specials on the weekends? lol
Anyway, this song was at the end of the special, and is now one of my favorite songs.
Panda Bear – Comfy In Nautica
Ironically, History’s own ‘After Doomsday’ tells a way better story in my honest opinion
I’m so disappointed that this isn’t live action, the synopsis pretty much describes my ideal ‘docu-soap’ storyline! The BBC have made a few of these, the most notable is threads, it was made in the 1980s about the aftermath of a nuclear missile hitting the UK, it was banned for a long time and will never be shown on UK television again. It isn’t really gruesome but it is so horrifically pessimistic it put me off my dinner (and it takes something pretty special to put me off my dinner!). There was also smallpox 2002 not as good but still worth a watch. I might give this one a go but the idea of joining up animation with expert opinion and your review are making me wonder if it’s worth it?