One thing bothers me - The Quiet Earth (1985) Discussion

[–] greg-233 9 years ago

"There are electricity, gas, water services and lots of fresh food ready at all times? None of them will work after a day or two, and fresh food will be gone next. It'll be full of rats, cockroaches and dogs."

Rats, cockroaches and dogs wouldn't be a problem. They disappeared along with the people.

"The Effect" made every living thing disappear, so there's a chance that this would also apply to microbes/bacteria. Therefore, fresh food would not decay readily.

In the book Earth Abides the electric lights were working for a long time after most humans were killed by a plague. The survivors had running water for more than 20 years.

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[–] minniemouse-11315 9 years ago

Not necessarily. There are 3 people left in that movie. Joanne, Api and Zac could have been the ones to clean it all up and to reorganize the food. Just because noone else was left does not mean that there is no way to have food, wouldn't have meant that the animals were dead too. It was a computer programme designed to kill humans only, not animals. Other humans were able to create food by themselves too so why shouldn't these 3 people have been? This point is not that unlogical in itself.

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[–] eightbitsofhorror 9 years ago

I always imagined what would happen when the realization that one person couldn't keep the normal day to day operation going do to lack of knowledge, it's not really explored. In a time before the Internet you'd be *beep* Also gas has a rather short shelf life

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[–] kiboshz 8 years ago

Definitely a lot of circumstance and chance involved. One windstorm knocking over a single power line could mess up the grid. Having this happen in winter could easily cause the food supply to disappear in a hurry. In the northern states, no power in winter means all the water pipes would freeze and burst, so many buildings by spring would become unstable quickly. Gas would start to deteriorate in about 6-9 months. Vehicles even without gas can't sit for more than 6-12 months without some maintenance. Many fruits and veggies sold in stores contain seeds which do NOT germinate (this is how Monasato makes money, by selling seeds to farmers every year). Much of the open water these days has significant contamination. Medicine usually expires within a year to 18 months. If you're in a warmer climate, lack of power and air conditioning will destroy food quickly (even in cans, being over 100F for a while the food inside will start to cook).

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[–] avortac4 (3744) 7 months ago

"Having this happen in winter could easily cause the food supply to disappear in a hurry."

What?

Could you elaborate on that, please? How is grid disappering going to make some storage full of canned food empty all of the sudden? There would not BE a 'supply' per se, because no one would be 'supplying' anything, as there wouldn't be anyone TO do anything like that.

There would be multiple vast piles of canned food, though, so how would all that disappear? You are not making a lot of sense here.

Grid wouldn't need some powerline to be knocked over (how does a 'line' going to get 'knocked over' anyway? You mean a cable would be cut because some pole or metal structure got damaged and fell over? Mere wind would not be able to do that, and is it really called 'windstorm', or maybe a hurricane, tornado, whirlwind, or or..?)

In any case, why does it have to be 'windstorm', and not 'snowstorm' or something else? Does it HAVE to be a storm, can't it be just a dead tree falling or some natural rock fall or or or..?

In any case, gas would probably last for some time, but not that long. Electric cars powered by solar panels would be the best bet for that sort of transportation, because those don't usually get 'knocked over', and an automated solar panel farm should be able to provide enough electricity.

The visitors, however, would come. How come people are all jazzed up about all these mysterious 'SCI-FI'-premises, but no one thinks about the UFO phenomenon that has been happening on this planet as far as anyone can remember and beyond?

Would make no sense to leave a whole planet empty, when it could be easily inhabited.. this is a beautiful planet - well, it would be, if all the warring, polluting apelike half-animal bipedal mongs were removed from it.. or if the populaces were replaced with actually good people.

This is not a particularly interesting premise, and NO ONE seems to be able to explore it in movies without introducing people eventually anyway..

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[–] avortac4 (3744) 7 months ago

It WOULD be more interesting and more 'SCI-FI' (or at least futuristic), if someone could live by themselves on a planet where everything was automated, so that it would function 'forever'.

For example, robots doing EVERYTHING important and menial, all the necessary jobs. So when the robots start breaking down, there would be repair robots that would repair or replace those, and they would keep making new robots.

I would love to see a movie that PROPERLY explores this premise, so it's not so mundane and boring. What would a 'King of the Planet' do if they were the only individual and did _NOT_ have to worry about survival, infrastructure, food, shelter, electricity, transportation, etc. and they COULD travel to any location easily and comfortably, nothing would ever run out.

I would love to see what would happen in THAT scenario, because otherwise, this stuff always devolves into the basic things of 'survival', 'whee, I am the king', 'I am going insane', 'thank God I found other people', 'now I am jealous and want to kill the other people' and so on.

It always devolves into something crappy like that, when it could just be this 'forever loneliness' that never ends, and there would NOT be any other people whatsoever.

I think the movie 'Moon' pulls off this kind of thing pretty well, but even THAT can't fully commit to the 'alone' premise, so it becomes yet another hollyweird movie instead of actually exploring an interesting premise.

I guess no one has the guts to make the kind of movie I am talking about.. sure, it'd be difficult and annoying to be the only one because you have to 'survive' so much, but if everything was taken care of and everything was always automatically repaired and maintained, THEN what..? You would never have to think about survival or longevity. You could just do whatever you want.

In the end, I don't think much can be done with this premise, because characters are what drive stories so much.

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[–] Kementiri (57) 7 months ago

There is always canned food , army rations, which could last for YEARS. Also I am thinking there were seeds you could grow for things. You don't need meat to survive I guess.

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