Collateral Damage in Movies

Does anyone but me actually take the time and think about the scale of destruction represented in some movies? What are the mental ramifications of see events like that unfold in real life? Also the needless collateral damage that seems to be inflicted in a lot of action movies. I love it when movies casually say that 99% of the world's population were killed or an entire city was destroyed, and the characters in the movie just casually brush that fact to the side. Are you kidding me, if I saw that a major city was completely destroyed or the world was being consumed by the zombie virus I would be losing my shit mentally.

 It would take a sane person a while to process that information. It took me a while to fully process what happened on 9/11, I can't even imagine how long it would take me to process New York City being completely destroyed. Hollywood writers need to start injecting some reality into some of these movie. 2012, not realistic, and even worse than that movie is just about every zombie movie that has ever been made. I'm not saying that the zombie apocalypse won't happen, because it will, but the way the characters handle the situation is ridiculous. I mean survival mode can only last so long before you mentally breakdown from the stress. The most accurate portrayals of these situations are 28 Days Later, The Walking Dead, Stake Land, and unfortunately I Am Legend (that movie is more useless than Will Smith's son). I am fully aware that by taking a realistic approach with these movies it would be really depressing but I've seen a lot of boring depressing movies and these can still be action filled depressing movies with a lot of entertainment value. I have gotten off track the last few sentences and for that I am sorry, and back to the reason why I am writing this article. Transformers has to be the most noticeable perpetrator of unmentioned on screen collateral damage in the history of movies. Robots throwing each other though buildings during business hours, do viewers think that there are just sections of entire cites with uninhabited buildings. People are dying in those buildings and in those movies it is kind of ridiculous. In the second Transformers movie they just seem to ignore the entire set of consequences of the first movie. So I guess no one's relatives died in the first movie due to robot on robot violence. Optimus Prime alone had to have had 50 confirmed kills from getting his shit kicked around the city. They are not puppy dogs they are robots that weigh several tons rolling around the streets of the city during broad daylight, someone got run over. Independence Day does the same thing with an alien invasion. A couple of billion people wiped out instantly and Bill Pullman is holding it together, screw that.

It is a sad day when I can say that War of the World was a decent portrayal of what would happen if aliens invaded. Hollywood just needs to grow some balls and inject some real emotion into their productions. If I have to see another generic zombie, vampire, or alien movie I am going to snap. My last real hope is Darkest Hour (it looks good) but I am still skeptical because I have not seen it for myself. Action movies are also pretty bad with this overall. By the body count the two main characters in Bad Boys would probably be considered mass murderers and Kiefer Sutherland in 24 would be convicted of genocide. Hollywood, get your shit together and try making a realistic movie. Take some lessons from The Hurt Locker, 28 Days Later, and The Thing, solid story+great characters+realistic setting= potentially fantastic movie.

On a side note, watch The Thing and tell me how you would react in that situation. I think I would be like MacReady, trying to stay strong but kind of freaking out inside. I for one would be really paranoid in that given situation.