Apocalypse Then: Benefits of the Bomb in Fifties Science Fiction Films

Abstract

To be at all familiar with science fiction cinema is to observe how commonly the genre rehearses traditional religious themes and motifs.1 One thinks immediately of the theological implications of the mysterious, omnipotent alien presence as the agent of human evolution in 2001: A Space Odyssey and its sequel, 2010; of the Christ-like attributes of E.T. and of the alien visitor in Starman; of the godlike, benevolent aliens of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Cocoon, and even the vaguely Eastern religiosity reflected in the centrality of Force in the Star Wars cycle. Such religious resonances are not, of course, confined to relatively recent films. As has often been noted, the invasion/catastrophe narratives of the fifties quite often employed what is perhaps the most common religious motif in science fiction film: that of apocalypse. The prevalence of this motif in films of the period is hardly surprising. Following the demonstrations in 1944 of the devastating potential of atomic weaponry and the augmentation of international tension produced by Soviet nuclear testing, science fiction films quite often deplored the world threatening capacities unleashed by modern science. In Them (1954), rampaging, monstrous ants, the result of mutations caused by atomic testing, threaten human civilization.2 In Forbidden Planet (1956), advanced technology, prematurely wedded to the human mind still enmeshed in primitive, unconscious impulses and aggressions, leads to the destruction of an entire world.3 One could, of course cite numerous other examples of this tendency, but I wish to direct attention to other films, those that seek in the apocalyptic climate of the period the possibility of an ultimately beneficent outcome.