Disaster movies. These matinée flicks have been a staple of exploitive Hollywood in its Golden Age. Why do we watch disaster movies? Because it's like passing a car accident but without have ten cars behind you hitting the horn to move you along. No matter how terrible a disaster is we can’t look away. To commemorate Earth Day, here is a compilation of ten disaster movies involving our glorious planet.

EARTH IN THE BALANCE

When Worlds Collide (1951)

There aren’t many films that actually deal with the destruction of the planet. Most disaster flicks merely concern with the safety of humanity. When Worlds Collide is one of the earliest films to have the audacity to concern itself with the safety of the planet when, Bellus, a rogue planet entering out solar system is predicted to crash with our mother Earth. Humanity's answer to save the Earth is... to not save it. Instead, a select few of the world’s brightest and wealthiest build spaceships to rocket off our planet to a near by Earth-sized satellite named Zyra. Rumor has it that Steven Spielberg is in talks to do a remake of this classic disaster movie. No doubt it will be the heavy-handed political commentary of our time. That is of course assuming a planet of similar size enters our solar system completely ignoring the laws of gravitational orbit.

Deep Impact/Armageddon (1998)

Though this seems like a cheat to combine two movies into one, Deep Impact and Armageddon deserve to be placed side by side as companion films. There's the one that sucked and the one that didn’t suck as much — you can decide which is which. Ever since Meteor (1979) and Asteroid (1997) the fear of space rock crashing into our planet has been on our minds. We have different plans whether its having Morgan Freeman compile disaster relief responses or Ed Harris recruiting a ragtag gang of construction drillers to go into space and save our planet. Personally I prefer the duck and cover method, knowing full well that the area under my desk will be immune to the million-mile crater left around me.

The Core (2003)

Despite screenwriter John Roger’s insistence that The Core is based on actual science it still remains an unbelievably stupid concept. The notion that the Earth’s core has stopped spinning resulting in multiple ecological storms that are destroying the planet is just plain idiotic. Even more ludicrous is DJ Qualls is given the task to keep the plan to save the Earth secret in an exchange for Hot Pockets. But at least a love interest between Hillary Swank and Aaron Eckhart can redevelop out of this obscene predicament. And isn’t that what saving the Earth by detonating a nuke at its core is all about? No.

An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

The biggest disappointment with Al Gore’s documentary concerning global warming is that he didn’t re-grow his depression beard after he lost the 2000 election. Regardless, Gore’s film illustrates how humans as a species are destroying the Earth. More accurately, the documentary describes how we are damaging the ecological stability and biodiversity of our planet. My personal favorite part is when Gore relays an anecdote about his classmate that was laughed at when he deduced that South America and Africa used to be a single body of land. Did you also know that if you place South America horizontally on top of Africa it looks like the head of a Tyrannosaurus Rex?

Sunshine (2007)

Here is another film where detonating a nuke is necessary to save the Earth. In 2057 the Earth’s Sun will be dying, threatening all life on the planet. Humanity sends the spacecraft Icarus to detonate a nuke at the center of the Sun to restart the star. However, the film follows the crew of Icarus II to shoehorn a slasher subplot to investigate the failed Icarus mission because the initial concept of Sunshine isn’t exciting enough. The movie also seems to ignore the fact that before a star dies it expands into a gas giant, therefore the Sun would most certainly have engulfed our planet and fried it into a desolate black rock. But at least there’s a translucent Michael Myers villain to keep us from being bored.

EARTH STRIKES BACK

Waterworld (1995)

Poor Kevin Costner, he tries so hard. Poor Dennis Hopper, he tries less hard. Waterworld tops off our list of Earth fighting back against humanity as it shows the planet flooding out our species and forcing the survivors to become pirates of the sea...actually this doesn’t sound half bad. For readers that are unfamiliar with Waterworld, the story describes a future where the entire planet is flooded and rogue survivors search for oil for fuel. However, a child with a tattoo on her back holds the map to what may be the only land left above water. Spoiler alert! The land is Mount Everest. Incidentally, this concept was my theory on what the island was during the first season of LOST.

Twister (1996)

Though the Midwest has been prone to a surprising amount of earthquakes in the past week, tornados will always remain our biggest concern. I mean, have you heard the tornado siren everyone month? That thing is eerie. Twister involves a bunch of tornado chasers in a plot that sandwiches around a love story between Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton. It also introduced the term F5 into our vernacular of ridiculously strong winds. I’m still waiting to a see a flying cow in Champaign before I graduate.

Volcano/Dante’s Peak (1997)

The year before our pair of asteroid disaster movies in 1998, we had a year of volcano movies in 1997. Dante’s Peak attempted to take the realistic route, placing more science in its Pacific Northwest volcano whereas Volcano had Tommy Lee Jones bicker with Anne Heche over a California volcano. To be fair though, Pierce Brosnan bickers with Linda Hamilton just as much in Dante’s Peak. Regardless, these films illustrate the continuing trend of the planet hating on the West coast.

The Perfect Storm (2000)

The ocean hates fisherman. This is the lesson one must learn when watching The Perfect Storm. With an all-star cast, this film shows us that piss poor weather is serious business. The difference between this movie and the rest on the list is that The Perfect Storm is actually based on a true story. And when a movie is based off a true story the audience can rest assure that they are seeing completely unaltered, non-exaggerated, dramatic fact. Though I thought this was a pretty decent modern disaster flick, I do believe that the movie would’ve been better is Poseidon ended up saving the crew after they had presented some sort of animal sacrifice on the boat.

The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

This is the ultimate Earth takes revenge on humanity flick. It is An Inconvenient Truth on steroids. Melted polar ice caps have disrupted the Northern Atlantic current causing sudden global warming, flash freezing the northern and southern hemispheres of the planet. In a twist of irony, the survivors of modern America, Europe, and Asia refuge in the countries of the Third World, the only areas of the planet with habitable climates. It just goes to show that the Earth does take favoritism against industrialized nations. That and the Statue of Liberty looks pretty sweet when frozen.