Disaster of a Thousand Places

We all agree that there are archetypes in heroic/epic/myth stories. You have your young hero, your peppy sidekick, your old mentor who will die right when they need him most, your princess. There’s also the magic sword (or lightsaber) which our young hero needs to defeat the villain and save the world. From King Arthur to Harry Potter, we find these same characters over and over again. That’s why Joseph Campbell wrote that awesome book The Hero of a Thousand Faces, because these archetypes occur over and over again.

I began to wonder, are there archetypes in disaster movies, especially bad disaster movies with really horrible special effects? (I’m looking at you, Sharknado!)

So we began to take notes, and we found:

• the smart scientist with the unbelievable theory that turns out to be right
• the weak political leader who refuses to listen to the previously mentioned scientist
• the divorced man who wants to get back with his ex-wife
• the new husband who refuses to listen to the divorced man and dies as a result
• the old mentor who dies just when they need him most 
• disasters of mythic proportions, such as a tornado that wipes out an entire tri-state area or a series of earthquakes that literally circle the globe
• one last ditch effort, often using a “magic” weapon, that will save the world 

So I guess that these disaster movies aren’t that much different from the epics that have delighted the world ever since Gilgamesh. If only they had better special effects!

Oh, and if disaster strikes, whatever you do, stay away from the Statue of Liberty. She’s been taking hits ever since Planet of the Apes!