The Night the World Exploded (1957)

Nature gone mad? Nature doesn't go mad!

There’s something called the Pathetic Fallacy where the emotional state of man is thought to be reflected by nature. Originally it meant a kind of emotional falseness in literature, a kind of personification. For example a “cruel tide crawling toward its victim.” Well, tides may be dangerous, but they neither crawl nor are they cruel. Another example more often seen is in every story where people are sad and it’s raining outside. Pretty obvious stuff.

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Here's the invention that predicts all the madness of Nature.

In The Night the World Exploded, we see the Pathetic Fallacy at work. In what is obviously a natural phenomenon…some element in the Earth’s core reacting naturally and expanding the earth’s crust potentially completely out of whack…is perceived as the earth striking back at the human race for all its mining and oil drilling. You can see this in a repeated sentiment throughout the film:

“In those places where the Earth’s crust has been weakened by oil production or mining or by natural causes. … How close my assistant had come to the truth when she said it was almost as if the earth were striking back for the way we had robbed her of her natural resources.”

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This is a well-acted, nice little film. The science is a bit wonky, however. Element 112 is the culprit, but we passed that in 2003 with the invention of Ununtrium. Now we’re up to 118 elements, though many are synthetic. I’m only putting all this information in to impress my science teacher buddies. It has nothing to do with the film or the Pathetic Fallacy.

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You men should listen to me...I'm a scientist!

In a typical Man v. Nature sci-fi flick that brings the human race to the brink of destruction causing mankind to HAVE to work together despite their differences…one character says, “I have great faith in man’s genius. That’s the way he’s constituted. Crisis always brings out the best in him.”

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