The Dog from A Boy And His Dog

This movie, based on a story by Harlan Ellison, contains a heartwarming relationship between 18-year-old Vic (Don Johnson) and his telepathic, super-intelligent dog Blood. It's just like Peabody the time-traveling professor dog in those cartoons — except that Blood helps Vic find women to rape and food to eat. At the end of the movie, Vic has to choose between the love of a (not terribly) nice woman and keeping Blood from starving — and a shot of meat roasting while Blood talks about how the woman didn't have such great taste gives you a hint of what Vic chooses.

Wall-E

Okay sure, you expect robots to survive the death of the planet — it's what robots do. But you might not expect there to be only one robot left on an otherwise desolate world — and for it to be a cute trash-compacting bot that befriends a cockroach and is obsessed with Barbra Streisand. Admit it — you didn't see that one coming.

Pets, generally

Check out this amazing clip from Exterminators: After The Year 3000, the film with the best title ever. Scroll forward to around 1:00 in — the cute kid in the convoy fleeing from the evil punk-rockers has his pet hamster with him! It's the amazing post-apocalyptic survival hamster. A lion survives in Twelve Monkeys. There's also a lion, as well as Kevin Costner's mule, in The Postman. And the tough post-apocalyptic hunter Harry in the movie Hard Knuckle has a little rat dog in his front pocket, sort of like a post-apocalyptic purse dog. (See awesome picture at the link.) Why is there always a lovable pet after a disaster has wiped out most of humanity?

Kids, generally.

As random dissheveled guy points out in this clip from the upcoming The Road, you don't really expect to see kids surviving a disaster that kills most of the adults. And yet, lots of them do somehow. Including the kid narrator in Mad Max, the gang of children in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, Newt in Aliens, and Ed in Cowboy Bebop. Thanks to Madeline Ashby and JungleMonkey on Twitter for suggesting this one!

The mall girls in Night Of The Comet

The deadly radiation from the red comet passing over the Earth wipes out everybody — except for Sam and Regina, two valley girls, who just want to have fun. And go shopping, at the mall, even if it's full of zombies. (It's a well known fact that zombies love shopping malls.) Thanks to Misty S. and S.J. Edwards for suggesting this film!

The Book Of Dave by Will Self

Dave is an obnoxious, mentally ill cab driver in London, who scribbles in his notebook about the rules for surviving London traffic and his hatred of his ex-wife, who's keeping him from having custody of his son. He buries his book, and 500 years later, it's dug up after a flood destroys everything. And it becomes the foundation of a whole new misogynistic religion based on this crazy guy's ramblings. There have been plenty of other stories about bits of cultural flotsam surviving after everything else is gone — Mickey Mouse does it quite often — but this may be the weirdest.

Dinosaurs in Yor, The Hunter From The Future

You have to admit, you didn't expect dinosaurs to survive after the human race was all but wiped out, did you? Just like Planet of the Apes, Yor features a weird primitive world that appears to be the past at first, but which turns out to be our distant future. And somehow the dinosaurs have bounced back, maybe thanks to the radiation. They were only taking a siesta! There's also an android army, which makes a bit more sense.

Amazons in Warriors Of The Apocalypse

Nobody ever expects Amazon warriors to survive a global genocide. And even if you did, you wouldn't expect them to be amazons with eye-lasers, who get into an eye-laser-battle with some other dudes. Another runner up is the 1982 movie SHE, in which a giant in a tutu, a mummy in sunglasses, a Samurai, and bondage freaks all survive the end of the world.

Bob McKenzie in The Mutants of 2051 A.D., as featured in Strange Brew

Okay, so maybe you expected dinosaurs, purse dogs and Valley Girls to survive a planetary die-off. But Bob McKenzie? The co-host of Great White North, that recurring sketch on SCTV, eh? You really really didn't expect him to be the last human still alive. Check out his amazing technique for dealing with a post-apocalyptic mutant who's really not friendly. Thanks to Jeff Sparkman for suggesting this one! Another somewhat unlikely "last man" is Yorick in Y: The Last Man, who's just sort of a slacker escape artist — but he survives the disaster that kills all other men because he eats monkey poop.

Nuns

Nuns often seem to survive the death of humanity — maybe it's their religious faith, maybe it's the fact that they're sequestered from contagion and zombie outbreaks. Most awesomely, Donald G. Jackson's fantastic movie Rollerblade features a world where rollerblading nuns (with Nazi-esque emblems on their uniforms) keep the world safe from evil mutants — while rollerblading. (And they also use a switchblade to heal all wounds, causing a glowy smiley face to appear.) There are also some nuns holding out against the evil dolls-head-loving bikers in Survival Zone. And of course, who can forget Michelle Yeoh as a lone nun after the fall of civilization in Babylon A.D.? I'm sure Yeoh still has nightmares about it.

Thanks to S.J. Edwards, Madeline Ashby, Rory aka Cthul-who, Glamtasm, Jeff Sparkman, Luis Alberto Urrea and anyone else who helped.

Films:

Freejack (1992)
According to Wikipedia:

In the polluted, dystopian year 2009, the super-wealthy achieve immortality by hiring "bonejackers," mercenaries equipped with time travel devices, to snatch people from the past, just prior to the moment of their deaths, for use as substitute bodies.

Those who resist being used as substitute bodies are, of course, the titular "freejacks." One of these freejacks is a Formula One racecar driver snatched up from 1991, played by none other than Emilio Estevez, being chased down by the ruthless mercenary, Mick Jagger. Yes, Mick Jagger. If that's what 2009 has in store, sign me up. Then again, you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get . . .

2009 Lost Memories (2002)
This is a scifi action thriller from South Korea, taking place in an alternate 2009 where the Koreas are still part of the Japanese empire. The plot involves terrorists, an archaeological artifact of some kind, and, eventually, trying to restore history to its rightful path. More importantly, however, the plot also seems to involve a couple of good-looking Korean guys, which is always a plus of sorts.

I Am Legend (2007)
Although the film primarily takes place in 2012, it begins in 2009, when a supposed cure for cancer doesn't go quite as well as planned. Will Smith, welcome to the zombie apocalypse. (Using the term "zombie" kind of loosely, I guess.)

Cloverfield (2008)
The film takes place on May 22, 2009, presented as a recovered camcorder found in what used to be Central Park. This camcorder tracks the attack of a giant monster in New York City from the point of view of five people attending a going-away party. Here's where you make a note to avoid the city on May 22.

Eagle Eye (2008)
The events occur between January and April, as Shia LaBeouf plays a young guy terrorized by a terrorist organization, teaming up with a single mother (Michelle Monaghan) to do whatever the voice on the telephone tells them, in the hope of getting out alive. Meanwhile, Billy Bob Thorton and Rosario Dawson play the feds trying to get to the bottom of all this.

Television:

Family Matters: "Father of the Bride" (Season 5, Episode 17, 1994)
Carl falls asleep and wakes up fifteen years in the future (2009), where his daughter, Laura, has married Urkel and given birth to four little Urkels. Talk about a disheartening vision of the year 2009. (Especially since they all seem to play the accordion . . .)

Charmed: "Morality Bites" (Season 2, Episode 2, 1999)
Phoebe Halliwell (Alyssa Milano) has a vision of her own death: burning at the stake on February 26, 2009. The three sisters then travel ten years into the future and see their future selves, with Prue as a single workaholic, Piper as a divorced mother, and Phoebe, well, burning at the stake. At least they all now have really good answers to the question, "Where do you see yourself in ten years?"

Blue Gender (1999-2000)
In this anime, Yuji Kaido is diagnosed with a disease called the "B-cells" and therefore put into a cryogenic state in 2009. When he's brought out of it twenty-two years later, however, he finds himself in a world where heavily armored soldiers are fighting a war with "insectoid beings" known as the Blue. As it turns out, the soldiers are from a place called Second Earth and are also trying to recover any left behind humans, known as "sleepers."

Batman Beyond: "Out of the Past" (Season 3, Episode 5, 2000)
As it turns out, back in '09, Batman had a run-in with Ra's Al Ghul that was loving referred to as the "Near Apocalypse of 09." Although, since the series takes place in the future, it's good to know that it was only a near apocalypse. Meanwhile, Ra's Al Ghul is once again voiced by David Warner, who is, scientifically speaking, constructed entirely out of awesome.

Dark Angel (2000-2002)
At the age of nine, the genetically-enhanced supersoldier-in-training, Max Guevara, escapes from their secret government training center with a group of her peers. That same year, an electromagnetic pulse destroys the country's computers and communications, thereby throwing us into chaos and disorder. Ten years later, the country still isn't what it was and Max (now Jessica Alba) is still trying to avoid the secret government organization that created her.

The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007-present)
The series takes place a year and a half after the Doctor Who episode "School Reunion," thereby placing it in 2009. Elisabeth Sladen reprises the role of Sarah Jane Smith, former companion to the Doctor. This time around, she's fighting aliens with the aid of her adopted son, Luke (Tommy Knight), and a few other neighborhood kids, not to mention Mr. Smith, a giant, flashy, sentient computer. The series is intended as a more child-friendly, lighthearted counterpart to Doctor Who, and the Brigadier himself appeared on the show in the two-part story "Enemy of the Bane."

Books:

The Year of the Quiet Sun by Wilson Tucker (1970)
Set partially in 2009, the novel is about (according to Wikipedia):

Brian Chaney is a demographer and futurist approached while on vacation with the news that his contract has been purchased and he is required for a physical survey of the future via a secretly constructed time displacement vehicle. At a military installation south of Joliet, Illinois, the reluctant Chaney is teamed with two diversely talented military officers and a civilian liaison.

The Postman by David Brin (1985)
Set in a post-apocalyptic country, Gordon Krantz dons a postal uniform for lack of better clothes, and finds people desperate to believe that he is, in fact, an actual postman. As he travels about the country, he assumes the persona of the postman in order to help keep hope alive. The novel was made into a film in 1997 (and set in 2013), directed by and starring Kevin Costner.

Research by Nick Denton

It's happened to all of us. We read a novel that blows us away, and a few years later its title appears on posters underneath the face of Harrison Ford or Natalie Portman. But at some inevitable point in that darkened theater, the movie takes a turn we didn't expect. Our eyebrows go up, our lips turn down, and the disappointment begins. Maybe the wrong director or writer can curse an otherwise excellent project — or maybe some things were just never meant to be filmed. Here are 10 books that we think should never have been committed to celluloid.

DUNE by Frank Herbert

There's no doubt about it: Herbert's Dune is a bona fide classic. It won the first ever Nebula award and the 1966 Hugo award, and most consider it to be the best-selling sci-fi novel in history. Set in a future where a feudal empire controls the planets of the unvierse, the novel tells the story of young nobleman Paul Atreides and his family's rule of the desert planet Arrakis. Arrakis is the only source of "melange," an addictive spice that lengthens lives and makes interstellar travel possible. Herbert's book explores the power struggles that arise around the spice, and the complexity of human society that exists even in the far future.

Big shoes to fill for a film producer. Yet in 1984 David Lynch wrote and directed a movie version of Dune, rescuing it from development hell and plunging it into bad-adaptation hell. Reviews panned the movie — Roger Ebert deemed it "the worst movie of the year," and others expressed similar disgust. Despite the movie's 40-million-dollar budget, its effects were notably cheap, and the screenplay did not hold up to the challenge of translating a four-hundred-page book to screen. You'd think you couldn't go wrong with Patrick Stewart, Sting, and Jürgen Prochnow, but evidently you very much can.

FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury

Who could forget Fahrenheit 451, "the temperature at which book-paper catches fire, and burns …"? Bradbury's classic 1953 novel takes place in a dystopian future where television has entirely replaced the printed word, and firemen burn books instead of saving lives. The author himself has stated that the point of the story was to showcase how owning a TV set can destroy all interest in literature — so making a movie version seems pretty damn ballsy to say the least.

With that in mind, the 1966 film, helmed by French icon François Truffaut, seems doomed from the start. It certainly didn't help that there were many notable omissions, like the disappearance of the novel's nuclear war (which is, let's face it, a pretty big cut). Julie Christie plays the main character's wife and his illicit lover, which adds an extra level of pointless weirdness. The bottom line is, there are plenty of books for which you can tell your friends to "just watch the movie." But in the case of Fahrenheit 451, that probably makes you kind of fascist. Just sayin'.

V FOR VENDETTA by Alan Moore and David Lloyd

The book is probably one of the best graphic novels ever produced. Detailing the adventures of a masked anarchist and his sweet blond protégée, Moore's writing also delves far deeply beyond his two main characters into complex themes of fascism, anarchy, identity, and the meaning of life itself. Nobody is without a story to tell: Even his villains are creepily sympathetic. By the end of the comic, every reader will have at least one Lloyd image burned in their brain, and be wondering — with no small amount of fear — exactly how much control their government does have.

Enter the movie. For the Wachowski brothers, the boys who gave us the two-thirds-sucky Matrix trilogy, setting this story to film was easy. They just had to cut out all of the character depth, change Moore's nuanced portrayal of British fascism to the cookie-cutter Hollywood standby of Suited White Men, and (of course) turn the subtle, understated relationship of the main characters into romantic pining. But hey, at least they got the costume right.

A WRINKLE IN TIME by Madeleine L'Engle

Though it's often marketed as a young-adult fantasy novel, make no mistake: This book is without a doubt a sci-fi classic for all generations, an incredible tale that deftly blends science, speculation, and humanity. L'Engle's 1962 story invented the concept of a "tesseract" — the fifth dimension, a phenomenon that folds the fabric of space and time. It introduced a mother who cooks dinner on a Bunsen burner, a father whose research leaves him imprisoned on another planet, and a brother and sister whose loving relationship turns out to be the most important thing in the universe.

Mostly we make an effort to ignore it, but it's true: Many of the great sci-fi writers were (and are) better at dreaming up nifty science ideas than they were at weaving together a compelling story. L'Engle, however, belongs in no such group. Her work was never meant to be a crappy Disney movie, and yet in 2003, a crappy Disney made-for-TV adaptation appeared that one critic described as "lightweight, saccharine, rather slow going most of the way, and somewhat simplistic" as well as "sometimes clunky, and... often uninspiring". Let us speak no more about it.

THE MINORITY REPORT by Philip K. Dick

Dick's 1956 short story introduced the chilling concept of "precrime," a police system whose officers arrest would-be murderers, rapists, and thieves before they get a chance to do their dirty deeds. His futuristic New York City is a world where three future-seeing mutants control who goes to prison and who doesn't, and free will is a gray area — a luxury that not everyone possesses. One veteran cop, after seeing a prediction that he will kill someone he doesn't even know, is having none of it.

So what did Steven Spielberg's 2002 movie add, besides a gross eye transplant? Well, for one, it brought in Tom Cruise — balding, out-of-shape 50-year-olds are never attractive narrators as far as Hollywood's concerned, no matter what they might be able to share with us in real life. The setting's different, too, and names have been changed, but at least it presents the idea with a lot more nifty special effects and a lot less storytelling, right? And that, my friends, is frighteningly endemic of the print-to-film adaptation.

I, ROBOT by Isaac Asimov

This is a revolutionary sci-fi classic, a collection of nine short stories exploring the limitations and dangers of human-created artificial intelligence. Asimov's 1950 publication of I, Robot established the Three Laws of Robotics, supposedly unbreakable rules which govern the actions of these metal beings, and his short stories read like the best sci-fi mind puzzles you will ever find.

2004's movie adaptation was undeniably well done, and it ended up being one of the best of the year — due in no small part to Jeff Vintar's tight script and the total awesomeness of Will Smith and Chi McBride. Asimov certainly meant to get us thinking, so one could imagine he'd be pleased that his work inspired a smart sci-fi thriller like this. As it happens, however, the main plot of the movie is actually lifted from a 1939 short story by Eando Binder that bears the same name; Asimov's publisher gave his collection the same title, against Asimov's wishes. The Three Laws of Robotics were only added to the script after the film's producers secured the rights to Asimov's anthology. This project, then, has been plagued from the beginning by intellectual property snafus: It's a confused collaboration of several minds, and it seems that not all the minds involved were properly credited. And since it's caused most of the problems, can we let go of that title already?

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE by Philip Gordon Wylie and Edwin Balmer

It's a crusty old staple of hard sci-fi, a 1933 novel that first saw print as a magazine serial. Wylie and Balmer's story begins with a South African astronomer, Sven Bronson, who discovers that a pair of rogue planets are headed for Earth's orbit. Only a small group of scientists believe his claim; they work to build two ships that will carry the beginnings of a new human settlement to one of the rogue planets, which is projected to replace Earth in its orbit. This is the kind of pre-NASA speculation that works best in old-fashioned typewriter font on yellowed paper.

But of course, Hollywood felt the need to put it in Technicolor. The film adaptation did win an Oscar for special effects, but it was 1951, so you decide for yourself if that's impressive. The movie's story doesn't so much explore sci-fi ideas as showcase human hysteria when tidal waves sweep the Earth and survivors are chosen by lottery — and it naturally also allows for the most groan-worthy of romance subplots. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the way the film's hero pushes his handicapped financier off the boarding ramp as the ship leaves, despite the fact that he funded the entire project. "Politically incorrect" doesn't begin to cover it. Apparently there's a remake of the film scheduled for a 2010 release — isn't one mistake supposed to teach you a lesson?

STARSHIP TROOPERS by Robert Heinlein

War sucks, and Heinlein proved it with his 1960 Hugo-award-winning novel. Told from the point of view of Johnnie Rico, a young soldier, this futuristic tale explores a world where only veterans can vote or hold public office — and where humankind battles endlessly with giant bugs. Rico's flashbacks to his time at school, and his experiences in the military, serve to illustrate the total destruction that war causes.

In the book, the bugs barely ever appear; Rico views them only through a giant battle suit. For the 1997 film adaptation, though, that was not an option — after all, there ain't a moviegoer born of woman who doesn't want to see giant grasshoppers. Special effects left little screen time for Heinlein's philosophy discussions, but director Paul Verhoeven admitted he never got past the first few chapters of the novel anyway. If he hated the story that much, what do you think was keeping him from writing and directing his own friggin' screenplay?

THE POSTMAN by David Brin

Originally published as two novellas (both of which won Hugo awards), this post-apocalyptic story grapples with the concepts of survivalism, civilization, and hope. In a world destroyed not by disasters but by its own people, one man discovers a worn-out United States Postal Service uniform — and discovers that his fellow humans are so desperate they'll even take hope from that. The complete novel, published as the two novellas combined, was named the best science fiction novel of the year in 1986 in the John W. Campbell awards.

And then Kevin Costner decided to direct and star in a film adaptation. The 1997 story, while still broadcasting a message of hope, centered that message more around the Postman as a war hero — and don't forget his tagalong baby mama. The New York Times blasted the movie for its "bogus sentimentality" and "mawkish jingoism," but Roger Ebert warned that we "shouldn't blame them for trying." Well, I think perhaps we should.

THIS ISLAND EARTH by Raymond F. Jones

The year 1952, I'm sure, saw many new creations in sci-fi, but I'm willing to bet that almost none of them were as silly as the interociter — an alien transmission device, which despite its apparent sophistication is about as big as a truck. Jones gave us the interociter in his novel This Island Earth, which told of an alien race that recruited Earth's greatest thinkers for a group called the "Peace Engineers." Not surprisingly, the "Peace Engineers" were actually helping the aliens wage an intergalactic war. On a planet that had already seen the genius of 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still, this should not have seemed a good candidate for a film adaptation.

Since the movie version of This Island Earth now gets most of its viewings in the form of Mystery Science Theater 3000's lampoon, the folly of bringing it to film is assured. Plastic skulldomes, toilet thrones, and raspberry bushes are not the stuff of eternal movie classics. Before you adapt a book, my advice is to run it through a quick Mike-Joel-Crow-Tom Servo test. You might be surprised how much money you save on camera equipment and actors.

Famous names: Kevin Costner, David Brin

Crunchy goodness: 2

Copycat: This much-maligned flick is based on a much-loved novel by David Brin

Elevator pitch: This movie is like Road Warrior, except with a postal carrier instead of a motorcycle and a fascist dictator instead of a gang of asswipes.

Most painfully dated moment: That anybody thought Kevin Costner could direct a movie is such an entertainingly 1997 idea that you've gotta love this movie on that basis alone.

The Postman: The Movie - An Impression by the Author of the Original Novel by David Brin, Ph.D.