I was drawn to how the films, like Professor Quinby noted in the essay, differed in their specific messages and the willingness of each film (or director/writer) to deliver a socially pertinent message.

I echo the sentiments that Eric made in his post – I found myself watching clips of Apocalypto before seeing the film as a whole, and struggled to make sense of how it “fit” with me. It is clear to me now that it lies within the film’s means of being unsettled with itself, by which I mean that it kind of splits between being post-apocalyptic and pre-apocalyptic, instead of having any definite message that underlies the piece.

I was largely interested in the gender dynamic and the idea of a futuristic, or urban setting versus the, as Colby worded, “rural,” setting of Apocalypto. In a way, the apocalypse that occurs within Apocalypto happens with such an emphasis on the “natural” – the birth, the wilderness, and of course the on-coming threat of the Spanish invasion that, to me, was a step into modernization and colonialization that can be considered “unnatural.” However, the theme in Apocalypto is split regarding its thematic message.

Then there is 28 Days Later which focuses on this very present, but also futuristic idea of a pandemic. This setting is also tied to this specialization – people being pets, people being prostitutes, and things serving both very specific animalistic and scientific needs. There is also this idea of experimenting – when Major West examines the man to see how long he’ll starve, which is a reiteration of the experimenting on the chimp, or the “natural world.” That obviously leads to a kind of destructive pandemic, which is both the natural – a bodily, biological thing – and also an unnatural.

Then, with Children of Men set in 2027, there is this totally futuristic setting but this problem, of science and nature, of people no longer being able to procreate. There is the attempt to save this one, natural, pregnant woman but it’s also a very unnatural event. This movie to me felt very layered and I still am thinking through aspects of it.