I’ve simply completed watching MGM Plus’ Earth Abides, and for a post-apocalyptic thriller, it was a pleasant change of tempo to the standard grim battle for survival in a future world suffering from zombies and/or cannibals you discover in films like The Highway or the lengthy, plodding The Strolling Useless TV collection, or the place all people lives underground like Silo or Fallout.
Earth Abides, the TV present, is predicated loosely on the basic 1949 sci-fi novel of the identical identify written by George R. Stewart. The story follows protagonist Isherwood ‘Ish’ Williams (Alexander Ludwig), a geology pupil who’s engaged on his thesis within the mountains someplace in California. Bitten by a rattlesnake he manages to make it again to his cabin within the woods earlier than passing out in a fever from which he doesn’t wake for days, probably weeks.
When he does come spherical, he finds that nature biting again was a foreshadowing of what’s to return. Nature has certainly struck again and he’s fully alone. Civilization has been destroyed by a lethal pandemic; everybody he is aware of is useless, the streets are empty and the TVs and radios are all quiet. Wandering into town he finds a few oddball survivors who have been proof against the virus, but it surely’s solely when he retreats to the suburbs that he finds Emma (Jessica Frances Dukes), a lady who appears to be more proficient at surviving in a post-apocalyptic world than he’s. They resolve to make a life collectively and he positive factors course as they slowly begin to construct a group round them.
If, like me, you trudged by way of each collection of The Strolling Useless out of some misplaced sense of responsibility, solely to seek out out that it primarily repeats the identical ‘dangerous man’ plot line time and again each season, you’ll discover it refreshing that the primary focus of Earth Abides isn’t on how people are inherently egocentric and evil, however on how we have to cooperate to outlive in nature.
Positive, they often meet different teams, not all of whom have their finest pursuits at coronary heart, however most of the time the purpose is solely to remain alive and the individuals select to band collectively as a result of they wish to kind a group. As people it seems that working collectively offers us our greatest likelihood of survival – who knew?
Whereas Mary Shelley’s The Final Man was the primary post-apocalyptic novel, Earth Abides is most definitely the unique supply materials for all of the ‘waking as much as uncover civilization has collapsed’ plot strains that you just see repeated many times in sci-fi and horror – 28 Days Later, I’m taking a look at you. And speaking of basic literature, all through Earth Abides the worth of a very good old style public library is regularly emphasised, as a result of if you wish to know find out how to do one thing in a post-apocalyptic world, like say, set up photo voltaic panels or ship a human child, you’ll be able to’t merely hearth up YouTube. The native library seems to be a lifesaver.
Because the title suggests, all through all of it, the Earth abides. We get to look at nature get better and reclaim the world. As each final brick, fibre-optic cable and bridge that people have created begins to rot away, cities are turning again into forests and wild animals are frolicking within the streets. There’s loads of motion, heartbreak and drama alongside the best way, however we get to see a world the place people reside with out the idea of cash or a social standing to chase after, the survivors slowly lose their hangups and turn into freer to turn into the type of individuals they actually wish to be, particularly relating to human relationships.
For those who’re on the lookout for one thing totally different in your subsequent binge watch of one of many finest Prime Video reveals (for those who’re within the UK), then I prefer to suppose that Earth Abides presents you a extra lifelike have a look at a post-apocalyptic future than we’ve seen thus far, one the place we don’t all immediately default to cannibalism as our first technique of survival, and other people discover out what it actually means to be human in spite of everything.