I had a strange series of events happen the other day. For my series on The Gamer’s Codex, called B-Movie Inspirations, I have to find and watch really bad B-movies and find inspiration for RPGs plot in them. I do realize there are only really a fixed set of abstract plots most RPGs can explore. But in B Movies, there are many little areas that an RPG can draw inspiration from. I have been known to draw many ideas from these types of movies, from sci-fi to horror, pulp to fantasy.
It has been a long while since my last entry in the series and I search through the available movies at my disposal and have struggled to find something. I found an article that listed 10 or so underrated movies from 1985 and looked through that. One little gem was The Quiet Earth. It is a post-apocalyptic tale of a man waking up to a world with no people. It is almost as if everyone just vanished. A low budget New Zealand film, he eventually finds 2 other people – a young woman he falls for, of course, and a black man who completes the triangle of conflicting interests.
This started out very boring and headed down a preachy path that I lost interest in. Typical of the “last man/people on Earth” stories, it explores the human condition first and foremost, interjecting a little about they whys and what-fors of their situation while their individual interests start to conflict. They make the story more personal and low key because they can, despite the epic issues that put them in the situation they are in. Hollywood writers try to insert a political statement in the end, to illustrate some bad aspect of our society that would never change even at the end of the Earth – racism, jealousy, hatred.
In this case along with the expected love triangle, it also went down a racial path. I gave up on it after that. I just rolled my eyes and turned it off. Not only do I find that boring and unimaginative, I also do not find any inspiration in the movie at all. I researched the film and found that it was considered a remake of another movie called The World, the Flesh and the Devil, another movie with 3 survivors of a apocalypse. What is interesting is that it starts out with the black character trapped in a coal mine and just as people try to rescue them, the apocalypse occurs, leaving him protected in the mines and digging himself out.
Giving up on finding something for the article, I saw that they had finally made a movie for a book I read for high school lit, called Z for Zachariah. Already in the mood for a post apocalypse movie, this looked like it could be better. It has better stars and more modern approach. I was concerned however because I read the book and it had two characters through out, never three like movie poster displayed. It never occurred to me that they went to same route as The Quiet Earth. The first 45+ minutes were what I remembered of the book but then they brought in the third character. Instead of making the Loomis character the crazy, they basically copied the two other aforementioned movies and did the same exact plot. Even the third character brought in – played by Chris Pine from the new Star Trek – plays a coal miner that escaped the apocalypse trapped in a mine.
And what social issue do they try to take on that divides the threesome. Nope not race. Religion and faith. As soon as they started making an issue of that, I turned it off. That had nothing to do with the book, and I hate that they brought it in. The original story was about a young teenage girl who learns to survive despite a psycho survivor – Loomis – who makes things real difficult for her. A strong woman story. Why not stick with that. That is a good leftist story. Why does leftist hollywood have to go after faith!
Neither movie would prove very inspiring for an RPG. Maybe for a one shot or con game, but nothing ling term. I was just baffled that the movies turned out to be so similar. Hollywood truly does not have any new ideas.