For years sci-fi films have tested the limits of what truly is a possible outcome of the future. A world destroyed can only have so many results, and yet there have managed to be an endless number of films on the subject.
With so many ways the future can play out, often a consensus finds that the likely fate of the world is that it is destroyed somehow. In some version of an apocalypse, a new world is born out of the ashes. However, overall, there are quite a few different tropes that one can expect from a post-apocalyptic sci-fi film.
CRYOSLEEP
The advancement of technology places a substantial role in films that involve cryosleep. Still, it is often meant as a device to explain people traveling far distances or waiting out destruction for years. Cryosleep is used for the value of time.
By entering cryosleep, characters remain the age and health they had been when going under as years pass them by. Once they wake up, the world is a different place than they had known, and it is up to them to determine what happened in their absence. It is an excellent way to show the change of the world through a character’s perspective.
ROBOTS
Robots stem from the use of technology and AI advancements. While a scientist or engineer may invent a robot for the sake of helping humans, the robot may have other ideas. The problem with robots that learn as they grow is that they know too much, but not nearly enough.
If a robot gets smart enough to understand that the person who built it is inferior to them, the robot may determine that they should go against its programming, or change it. By doing so, the humans are left trying to defend themselves.
TIME TRAVEL
Back to the Future may not qualify as a post-apocalyptic franchise, but it did explain time travel rules for multiple generations. It is nearly always used to go back in time to fix the past and save the future. Recently, this device was used in Avengers: Endgame.
Time travel does come with a similar rule throughout each use. If the person going back in time lives in the year they have traveled to, that person can not interact with their past-self. Such a rule exists to defend the time stream even when your purpose is to change the events occurring. No matter what, interacting with another version of yourself could create an unwanted, massive paradox.
PLAGUES
As a way to make the environments of people weak, diseases play a role in keeping people from uprising. In Zombieland, the apocalypse is represented by the world slowly turning from humans into zombies. The key is survival and avoidance.
If someone is sick, they are often left for dead if they are not important enough to the story. Assuming a character is significant enough to live, the main characters search for a cure to the plague that is taking over the world. With diseases, the stakes are high in that they are often easily contagious.
INSANE TECHNOLOGY
Where there are robots and aliens, tremendous technological advances share a similar ground. Weaponry has become remarkably more dangerous and larger than what people would expect. Sometimes, the machinery is comically large, and that brings up more questions about how it could have been made.
However, depending on the franchise, there may be an explanation of how that technology came to be. The science behind it may be stretched as the device is not available in the current day. Giant destructive robots and time machines are two great examples of things not actively seen today.
ALIENS
A visit from another planet or world is something that scientists had been looking out for over the years. In some films, this does happen. Unfortunately, it may often occur as a visit to take over Earth, rather than discuss trade opportunities.
Another planet to inhabit may make sense to the visiting aliens, but for humans, it is genocide waiting to happen. In the film The 5th Wave, aliens are in the process of taking over Earth as they destroy it to kill the humans and make more room for themselves.
PARALLEL WORLDS
The ability to travel into a world that looks like ours but is not is a curious thing. A parallel universe might show a version of a character if they had a different lifestyle, or what would happen if something in the timeline had changed.
Often this event occurs because the main character or characters have questions about their lives that they can not answer, and by visiting another plane of existence, they get the time and experience to work it out. Returning to their homeworld is an extensive journey, but before they even have a hope of making it home, they must complete the obstacles in the parallel world first.
DYSTOPIAN GOVERNMENT
Perhaps one of the most common attributes of post-apocalyptic films is the use of an evil or corrupt government. This trope has been seen in recent film adaptations such as The Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Maze Runner.
The government tends to have one specific agenda that caters to them alone. Even if they try to justify that their torture of innocent people is meant to bring the world back to a natural state. By the end of the film or franchise, the government is taken down, and a new society begins.
REBELLIONS
Where there is an evil government, there is a rebellion ready to stop it. People can only take so many rules that prevent them from living, and eventually, they snap. Often a catalyst involves the main character, but sometimes it is already happening around them.
The rebellion consists of people of all ages who have escaped or been rescued by those wanting to fight. Sometimes, resistance can be low profile,where it is dangerous to let yourself be known. Other times the rebels prepare until the perfect opportunity to strike.
DESTROYED EARTH
People destroy the Earth. Whether it be from war, pollution, or natural chaos, when the world gets damaged, it stems from a human choice. Many times, the fascinating part of a post-apocalyptic film is watching how the characters have rebuilt society.
Whoever remains on Earth has to reinvent a world with what is left. The environment has gone from the buildings and technology to nothing but farmland. Planet of the Apes took another approach, merging time travel with a destroyed Earth. By doing so, it allows its ending to be a tragedy for humanity.
