There’s something cathartic about disaster movies. Maybe it’s a little bit likehorror movieswhere we can get that sense of being smarter than the protagonists who put themselves in bad situations, or just sit back and be glad the events going on in the movie aren’t happening to us. Whatever the case, disaster movies have been hitting theaters for almost as long as movies have existed, but there was something special about the oneswe got in the 90s. This was the cusp of where visual effects were transitioning from practical to digital, and the result is a mixture of amazing stunts and real props, and delightfully cheesy CGI.
Modern disaster movies don’t have that same level of camp or fun to them. That’s probably because they’re all based on events that are becoming more and more likely to actually happen in our lifetimes. 90s disaster movies, besideshaving amazing fashion, weren’t afraid to really swing for the fences in terms of their premise. Today, all we seem to get are movies about plagues, global warming, and very possible wars, but where’s the fun in that? The 90s was undoubtedly the golden era for disaster movies.
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Unnatural disasters
Turning nature into the monster
Going back to my horror film comparison, a large part of why 90s disaster films felt so unique is because they treated natural disasters like monsters. Just look at a film like Twister, for example. That film doesn’t so much treat tornadoes as acts of nature, but as a being that actively hunts people down. Main characters have personal vendettas against them, and the filmmakers even added what can only be described as a growl to them in certain scenes. That’s all completely ridiculous, but because it’s played straight you can buy into the fiction of a tornado chasing the heroes around.
because it’s played straight you’re able to buy into the fiction of a tornado chasing the heroes around.
Similarly, Dante’s Peak once again gives our main character a personal grudge against an act of nature, this time volcanoes. It’s a strange choice, but far more entertaining and engaging than more accurate depictions of natural disasters. Where I think we went wrong in this regard after the 90s was attempting to make these disasters more realistic. There’s nothing fun about actually being caught in a volcanic eruption or earthquake, but we can enjoy the absurdity of someone trying to outrun a river of lava chasing after them.
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Sci-fi minus the science
The rule of cool
anything was on the table in the 90s.
Almost every disaster movie has to twist science around a bit to make a compelling movie. 90s movies took advantage of the fact that looking up some basic information wasn’t nearly as easy and people were more willing to go along with things if someone in the movie said it with enough conviction. Look no further than Armageddon for the perfect example. Watching it when I was younger, I had no qualms with the movie. Big asteroid heading to Earth? Sure. We can’t stop it by just shooting a bomb at it, but we could break it apart if we plant a bomb inside of it. Makes sense to me. Let’s train some oil rig drillers to go into space, land on the asteroid, and drill a hole…Okay, even for the 90s that was a bit out of pocket.
As long as it was cool and made for an exciting story, anything was on the table in the 90s. Things could go even further off the rails when the disasters were truly sci-fi, such as in Independence Day. We have giant alien ships showing up, the Area 51 conspiracy being real, and the only way to save the world is flying up into space to upload a computer virus into the mothership. Compare that to another alien invasion movie after the 90s like Battlefield L.A. That movie has almost the same premise but is a complete slog because it tries to be so grounded. There are no clever tricks or over-the-top heroics. It’s just boots-on-the-ground soldiers behaving like trained soldiers would.
90s movies revel in their unbelievability and twisting of reality. That art and commitment to fun over realism seems to be lost in modern disaster films, which is a shame. I don’t want to see a realistic depiction of what chasing a tornado or living through an earthquake would be like. It would either be extremely boring or depressing. 90s movies understood we were there to have a good time and go along for a crazy thrill ride.
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