The Different Types of Movie and TV Show Apocalypses – and How We’d Survive Them in Real Life

There is one theme that movies and TV shows love to explore: the ending of the world as we know it. For content creators, there’s a freedom in getting to reimagine society and how it might function, no matter what it is that’s brought about this fictional end of days.

But have you ever stopped to ask yourself how you’d deal with it if these scenarios happened in real life? Would you follow in the footsteps of your favorite characters, stepping up to the plate as a hero and leader, or would the reality be more mundane?

That’s what we’ll consider in this article.

The technology apocalypse

If there’s one theme we’ve seen examined time and again, it’s the technology apocalypse. This fictional event sees an invention of some sort take down society as we know it, with The Terminator being a prime example. In other instances, technology fails, usually because of war, governmental corruption, or aliens, plunging society back to a primitive state.

So, how would we deal with it in real life? Well, more than likely, we’d start with a tech survival kit. You’ve heard of emergency bags with the usual suspects like food, clothing, and medical gear, but the tech survival kit is a savvy pouch that contains all the equipment you’d possibly need for communication. For example, as ExpressVPN highlights in their infographic, the tech survival kit usually contains items such as satellite phones, power banks, and analog watches. These materials would help to prevent us from being entirely cut off from the world or modernity.

Beyond that, we’d find somewhere remote and make a start on our to-read list, as well as play plenty of board games and charades. After all, have you ever heard of robots bothering to storm a small cottage in the Scottish Highlands? Neither have we, so we reckon we’d be safe enough holed up there!

The alien invasion

Next up, how to survive an alien invasion. Well, that one’s easy enough. While we’re not ruling out the possibility of life existing on another planet or in another galaxy (there’s water on Mars, after all), we think the films have got it wrong.

Why? Because aliens wouldn’t be cut out for existing on Earth – no more than humans are for living in space. Like astronauts, they’d need all sorts of fancy tech and breathing apparatus to keep them alive, so the likelihood is only a handful would make it over.

Aside from not having sufficient numbers for world domination, we imagine it’d play out not dissimilarly to War of the Worlds, with the common cold or another human virus eventually killing off any invaders.

Until that time, we might just befriend the handful of new inhabitants and see if we could learn a thing or two from them. After all, even aliens must get lonely so far from home. Besides, there’s no way they’d be scarier than some of the creatures that exist and have previously existed on Earth. Megalodon, anyone?

The pandemic

The pandemic

Whether it leads to zombies, à la 28 Days Later and The Walking Dead, or snuffs out large swathes of the world population, lots of content creators have explored the idea of a deadly pandemic visiting Earth’s population.

Sadly, this is one we don’t need to imagine anymore. We know how it would play out. We’d stay home as much as possible, maintain the highest standards of personal hygiene, and wait for the brave and brilliant scientists that exist among us to develop treatments and vaccines to keep us all safe. Afterward, we’d appreciate friends, family, and community in a way we never did before.

When it comes to fictional apocalypses, there is no shortage of them in books, films, and TV shows. However, in reality, we reckon Earth’s population would be much more adept at surviving. After all, if there’s one thing we’ve learned in recent years, it’s that humans are brave, tenacious, and can thrive even in the face of overwhelming odds.