io9
Ever since On the Beach was published in 1957, Australia has been the country we think of when we think "global apocalypse." That might be because people fantasize it's the one continent that will escape nuclear fallout. Or because it's so remote that people north of the equator imagine it as a savage wasteland of mutations. Either way, Australia is the coolest spot to stage the end of the world. The inspirations for that come from fiction and nonfiction. Check out our list of the reasons Down Under is going down.
Australia could be the last refuge in a world plagued by radiation. On The Beach, about a group of Australians waiting for the fallout cloud from a massive nuclear strike to float across the Pacific to kill them, is the most obvious fictional tale in this vein. Written by Australian Nevil Shute, the book was made into a famous U.S. flick with Gregory Peck in 1959. It was perhaps one of the bleakest nuke nightmares of the 1950s.
Australia is going to be the first country with water riots. Climate change has hit Australia pretty hard, and the country has been suffering one of the most profound droughts in its history. In fact, the rainfall patterns in the country have shifted almost completely since the country was founded and built up: the formerly rainy and more populated southern regions are now bone-dry, while the formerly uninhabited and unpopulated northern climes have become suitable for cities and farms.
Mad Max is Australian. OK, nuff said.
Australia is located next to New Zealand, one of the world's most fertile regions for post-apocalyptic stories. Despite living in beautiful Middle Earth, residents of New Zealand seem to have a gift for the apocalyptic. Not only did NZ's fortunate son Peter Jackson cut his teeth with apocalyptic flicks like Bad Taste (alien invasion) and Dead Alive (zombie infiltration), but one of the most disturbing end-of-the-world movies ever made, Quiet Earth, was made in New Zealand. The coolest post-apocalyptic blog in the universe is named after Quiet Earth.
Kangaroo mutants are cooler than all other mutants. Tank Girl is one of the greatest post-apocalyptic comics ever, and features a cute mutant kangaroo-human, Booga, who is the lover to our eponymous hero. The comic includes some great surreal jokes about colostomy bags and the Australian president, which aren't exactly post-apocalyptic or kangaroo-related, but are post-rational. While most fans of the comic hated the movie version, it's actually a pretty fun flick if you set aside your wish to see the more hardcore aesthetic of the comic brought to life.
Animal invasions are a regular feature of Australian life. As we demonstrated a few weeks ago, wild animals going nuts are a basic part of post-apocalyptic stories. And Australia has always had a problem with masses of crazed animals. Rabbits became so difficult to control at one point that a series of gigantic fences, spanning 3,256 kilometers, were erected on the border of Western Australia to keep the bunnies out of farmlands. Also, the terrifying spread of cane toads across the country has become a major problem too.
Vegemite. Any country that invents a black paste of "concentrated yeast extract" to smear on toast in the morning is already thinking apocalyptically.
BONUS: Y the Last Man even has an Australian subplot. Yorick's girlfriend, whom he's yearning to reunite with, is trapped in Australia. The message here? You just can't end the world without bringing Australia into it somehow.
Comments
I've always through of Australia as a perpetual apocalypse in action. I'd elaborate, but this explains it far better than I do: [www.badassoftheweek.com]
Vegemite. At the very least, a crime against humanity. Or zombie food.
@Huxleyhobbes: Oh, yeah! annalee, you left out the fact that the country was founded as a prison colony! How dystopian is that?
@Frozen-Tex: Sorry, that's "A"nnalee. and it's entirely possible I misused the word "dystopian"; but I'm sure you get what I mean.
Re-read Alan Moorehead's "Coopers Creek." A fucking terrifying land.
Vegemite is just a Marmite ripoff. And its quite yummy.
Count me a fan of the Tank Girl movie. Yes, I know it has problems. Yes, I know it isn't the movie the director was trying to make. But as Annalee said, if you go into free of preconceptions, it really is pretty cool.
There was that X-Men run where they were all hiding out in the Australian outback until the cyborg Reavers came along and crucified Wolverine on an X. And then a small Chinese-American girl rescued him. And Psylocke turned Chinese.
Not really relevant to the conversation, but that's all the comic-related Australian nightmares I could think of. They were pretty bad reading.
You know, it doesn't help when your 90% of your country looks like it suffered through a nuclear holocaust. Non-apocalyptic films like The Proposition and Japanese Story reinforced the notion that the Outback is just hell on Earth.
@Jamesema: And lets not forget the Guinness Marmite: [www.coolest-gadgets.com]
@7Zark7 Iz In Ur Internetz: I wonder if Joss Whedon was thinking of Marvel's cyborg Reavers when he made up his Reavers for "Firefly"?
Guinness Marmite is the coming together of a great Irish brand and a great English one, to make one of the most collectible comestibles (I enjoyed typing that!) the world has ever seen.
Whereas Vegemite is just foul, Aussie, muck.
@Frozen-Tex: I have never watched Firefly. I realize that I should be killed with a Kryptonite lightsaber, but it's true.
Maybe Doomsday will usher in the age of apocalyptic films set in Scotland.
"Australia is going to be the first country with water riots. Climate change has hit Australia pretty hard, and the country has been suffering one of the most profound droughts in its history."
Mmmmmm ... the errors of quoting a 2006 article. Go find some early 2008 weather reports ... Eastern Australia is currently having problems with flooding, and has been for the last month. The drought - it be broken.
#8: Only the most awesomely apocalyptic continent could produce Platinum Grit.
i might point out that the original inhabitants of Australia had beaten the convicts there by around 40 - 60 000 years. But the idea of the oldest continuous human culture on the planet being invaded by an empire looking for somewhere to dump their political prisoners* is pretty apocalyptic.
also, when you grow up in a place where most of the animals and plants will kill you, it gives you a certain grim outlook.
*most of those transported were being punished for crimes such as stealing bread - serious crimes were punished with hanging.
well as an aussie, I have to agree with Oz being pretty un-hospitable. And the whole nuclear thing... well in the '50's the british did actually nuke a large chunk of our outback, so that was just to add to the fun of the outback I guess.
As to australia being built by convic's not all of Australia was, only the eastern states were. South Aus was pure free people, who paid for their land and built it all with their own money.
but its ok living here, just gotta watch out for the small things, like the red back spider, tiny thing, kill ya in 2 mins, or the blue ring octopus, size of a 20c or a US quater and kills you in 5 (a tad nicer)
But other than that, its nice here!
Oh and Vegemite is great for a hangover or cold, its almost pure vit B. Great stuff!
@7Zark7 Iz In Ur Internetz: Umm, didn't Psylocke turn Japanese?
The worst thing about Vegemite is that it's spineless and much, much weaker than Marmite. Marmite is simply food of the Gods and the perfect post-apocalyptic way to mainline Vitamin B12 while keeping your salt levels up around Dead Sea levels.
@zeppelined: Agreed. Tank Girl Rocked.
@capncalamity: This is comics your talking about. Psylocke has probably turned Russian at one point :P
and Australia is so badass it has an official "Chief Inspector of Rabbits". What I wouldn't pay to be a Chief Inspector of Rabbits.
Hell, I'd settle for Deputy Inspector of Rabbits!
Marmite is too sweet, a baby-food preparation for those whose taste-buds haven't grown up to the taste of Vegemite.
I suppose that if you rustled up all your nation's crooks dumb enough to get caught, sent them to a desert island in the middle of nowhere, and told them to replicate the wonders of Marmite, they'd probably come up with something like Vegemite.
Oh aye, they already did.
New Australian post-apocalypse novel online called ED Day. Super bird flu kills millions in Sydney one sunny morning (ED Day), a few hundred survive. They spend most of their time clearing corpses from the streets and stockpiling booze, pills and cigarettes and watching tourist DVDs of the city when it was filled with people. They can't leave the Sydney CBD because there's all these armed robot sentries blowing away anyone who ventures beyond 'The Zone' covering a few square blocks. I like it because it's done in a blog, so I can comment on whether a chapter sucks or not, serialized, and we harass the author for new chapters every few days. I think writing the novel and copping so much crap has broken the author's mind. Some fun.
And they have like 6/10 of the worlds most poisonous creatures.
[www.australianfauna.com]
Imagine having to spend your post-apocalyptic life there.
It's Fallout all over again.
Alice Springs is pretty much apocalyptic already.
Melbourne, OTOH, is one of my favorite cities on the planet. And it's not all that dry there either.
What about the dropbears? If there's any post-apocalyptic Antipodean legendary-type malarkey happening, dropbears must be involved. Imagine it - radiation-crazed dropbears the size of a feral pig, able to take out a petrol tanker in one hit.
Speaking of which, that's nothing to say of what the wombats will be capable of...
@Retropants screams about KFC: A friend of mine once got mauled pretty bad by a dropbear. Those things are no joke, even before you irradiate them.
Kudos for mentioning Tank Girl, that was a great movie. Ice T as a mutant kangaroo? Hilarious.
The film 'until the end of the world' sums it up
the bit with the didgeridoo player with the hook for a hand says:
'wouldnt be goin' anywhere without this old hand crank! bloody dangerous times were living in I can tell you eh?' Charlie McMahon, inventor of the didjibone
Very underrated apocalypse film that
and of course set in the far future of 2000! argh!
I love the TANK GIRL comics, great writing and nice Hewlett art.
The movie, well, it stank up the theatre. Too bad, cuz Lori Petty brought the cute.
I'm sorry that no one has commented on QUIET EARTH (I almost typoed it as Quite Earth- dunno what that is). I caught that a few years ago, one of those flipping channels after my wife went to bed events, and I was blown away by the quiet majesty of the thing. Haven't thought of it since. I'm going go home and program the Tivo to look for it- surely SciFi runs it once or twice a year, eh? Maybe when they're not running the same four episodes of FIREFLY over and over again.
@Monotreme: Whilst that's true for QLD and NSW, SA and Vic and WA are still quite drought affected. The flood waters haven't flowed into the Murray/Darling basin yet, and the rainfall hasn't been adequate enough to fill dams and catchment areas in those states.
Also with regard to Water Riots, there's been one case of "Water Rage" already: [www.smh.com.au]
I've always maintained that even though I'm an unfit and uncoordinated slob, that when the bombs do drop I will be able to survive because I've watched Mad Max numerous times, and even know the people who own one of the original Ford Falcons used in the films ;)
Another film you missed mentioning was Salute to the Jugger (aka Blood of Heroes). It shows that beyond thunderdome and Aussie Rules, we still know how to make kick arse cool team games and true underdog inspired stories in post apocalyptic times. ;)
@Markkardwell: it appears we learn more history & geography down under than in UK, which may explain that statement. I replicate the wonders of Marmite every time I visit the bathroom. It's then exported back to UK.
I lived in Perth (Western Australia) for five years as a teenager, and in my mind Australia already FEELS apocalyptic! That place is not supportive to human settlement... scorching hot temperatures, the most species of deadly snakes and spiders in the world, not a drop of water to be found anywhere... it's a rough place.
Not to mention the Greatwinter trilogy by Sean McMullen, where whales have devasted Australia by luring people into the sea, and war satellites attack anything electrical or fast...
Another great apocolyptic story set in Australia is the Tomorrow When the War began series. Basically Australia gets taken over by Asians.... Great series that everyone should read....
And vegemite is awesome... great for healing mouth ulcers
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