REMNANTS: The best TEOTWAWKI movie trailer ever!

Film Synopsis: In the tranquil suburb of Excalibur Estates, ART, his wife GWEN, and their CHILDREN lead contented lives. Art cajoles with his neighbors,MERL and LANCE, then spends another quiet evening with his close-knit and loving family. They don’t notice news reports about an odd cosmic anomaly – an unusually bright star and a series of impending gamma-ray flares. Despite these strange warnings, Art prepares for another day at work.

At the office, the routines of daily life are interrupted when breaking news broadcasts a government press conference. Authorities describe recent cosmic activity from a type of super-dense star that has released a burst of gamma rays. This massive electromagnetic storm is heading toward Earth and will affect every part of the planet – disrupting electricity grids, cell phones, and every other modern convenience. As the government declares martial law in urban areas, requests to remain calm go unheeded as everyone in Art’s office panics and flees to get back home before the gamma rays cripple the planet’s infrastructure.

Art and Gwen struggle to get through the dangerously gridlocked traffic to reunite at home. When the catastrophe hits, there is little outward effect – the skies light up as the electricity and all communications are disabled indefinitely. Art and his family provide emotional support to one another, wondering what it is that is happening – some sort of end times? No one knows, but they are resolved to stick together as a family and a community.

The development buzzes with activity as they pool their skills and supplies, create stockpiles of food to be rationed, work out hunting and gardening systems, develop a defensive perimeter. Soon, they’re having fun and bonding in ways they never did when they were reliant on mindless entertainment – now they’re enjoying each other’s company in a more pure way than ever before.

Their peace is disrupted when they find that Morris has been stealing food. According to their rules, Morris is imprisoned. When he tries to escape, his sentence is lengthened. Meanwhile, Art, Lance, and Merl see a box of Red Cross supplies dropped a few miles away. They arm themselves and venture out. They are ambushed by THUGS but manage to escape, now aware that other neighborhoods haven’t fared as well. When Morris is released, he tries to attack Art’s family. Restraining his desire to kill Morris, Art banishes him from the community. The maligned Morris wanders to another town, run by THUGS. He negotiates his own survival by telling them about the wealth of supplies within Excalibur. These lowlifes send spies, which alerts Art, Merl, Lance, and the others to the possibility of attack. As Morris deceptively fuels the flames of hatred, the thugs arm themselves with makeshift weapons and launch a brutal invasion of Excalibur. Residents fight back to defend the prosperity they’ve built with their own blood, sweat, and tears. As the two villages clash, many good people are lost in the bloody, intense suburban war.

I think it’s a minor quibble about the 3 hour advance notice. Clearly, that’s a writer’s device. For narrative reasons, it works better with a 3 hour warning. For the same type of reason, I created a fictional stadium sniper/stampede massacre to jump the story along in overdrive. And I will also invent towns and move counties across rivers to better a plot.

I have long believed it’s the punch you don’t see coming that will knock you out. Who knows what the immediate precipitator of grid-down will be? It could be a mega tsunami, nuclear war, pandemic, financial panic etc. The exact plot device used to make the grid collapse doesn’t matter.

We can all agee that if the grid goes down hard, it won’t matter much what caused it. Shoot, it would be good NOT to have to worry about lingering radiation effects or pandemic disease at the same time that you are dealing with no electricity for the foreseeable future.

But no matter what the direct cause, we can all agree, “Lights Out” will peg the suck-o-meter.

I remember there was a similar movie about EMP and solar flares that was made in 1974 where the flare made some people sick as well. I remember one family in the movie had their alternator burned out in their Chevy Blazer so they had to keep recharging the battery to run their vehicle. They later found out that if the vehicle was turned off during the event, their alternator would have been fine.

I don't think EMP is the big 800 pound gorilla it is made out to be, during tests by the Navy, almost all cars would start up again although there were a few that would not and/or still run but with problems like the gauges on the dashboard not working correctly and so on. Most transistor radios would be OK if the antennas remained folded and so on. Still, it is a 500 pound gorilla where it would wreak havoc with our power grid and telephone system. So your car should be OK but pumping gas would be hard unless you had a generator, a 12 volt DC pump or a hand pump.

Here’s the synopsis on the website...hopefully it won’t be too lib:

“In the tranquil suburb of Excalibur Estates, ART, his wife GWEN, and their CHILDREN lead contented lives. Art cajoles with his neighbors,MERL and LANCE, then spends another quiet evening with his close-knit and loving family. They don’t notice news reports about an odd cosmic anomaly – an unusually bright star and a series of impending gamma-ray flares. Despite these strange warnings, Art prepares for another day at work.At the office, the routines of daily life are interrupted when breaking news broadcasts a government press conference. Authorities describe recent cosmic activity from a type of super-dense star that has released a burst of gamma rays. This massive electromagnetic storm is heading toward Earth and will affect every part of the planet – disrupting electricity grids, cell phones, and every other modern convenience. As the government declares martial law in urban areas, requests to remain calm go unheeded as everyone in Art’s office panics and flees to get back home before the gamma rays cripple
the planet’s infrastructure. Art and Gwen struggle to get through the dangerously gridlocked traffic to reunite at home. When the catastrophe hits, there is little outward effect – the skies light up as the electricity and all communications are disabled indefinitely. Art and his family provide emotional support to one another, wondering what it is that is happening – some sort of end times? No one knows, but they are resolved to stick together as a family and a community.

The residents of Excalibur Estates awake to a very different world. As they survey their neighborhood, they learn that they must survive in a simpler lifestyle than they’d previously enjoyed. Merl, a former military man who has been prepared for such an event, is stocked up with supplies. The neighborhood falls into contentious chaos, conflicts arising particularly from the antisocial MORRIS. Art becomes an unexpected peacemaker as he takes a stand and gives an impassioned speech – imploring his peers to take charge of this situation and band together to turn their community into one that thrives despite this adversity. Art’s leadership inspires the residents of Excalibur to brainstorm, discuss how to manage their resources, and create their own list of rules for maintaining law and order in a world where those systems have disappeared. The development buzzes with activity as they pool their skills and supplies, create stockpiles of food to be rationed, work out hunting and gardening systems, develop a defensive perimeter. Soon, they’re having fun and bonding in ways they never did when they were reliant on mindless entertainment – now they’re enjoying each other’s company in a more pure way than ever before.

I think the electronics on cars today can’t be compared to even 20 years ago.

Yeah, true, although the Navy did test cars made from 1986 to about 2002/2006 or so. I work in auto parts myself so I do see a lot of auto electronics. Well if that ever happens, I might be an auto parts tycoon. B-)

Speaking of movies, I'm also a Harry Potter fan, I liked the old English 1961 Ford Anglia The Weasley Brothers used to bust out Harry with. It was enchanted to fly, but I have a kind of interest in those old English Fords. I saw the hood open up on one of those and you just has a small 4 cylinder engine, a radiator, a master cylinder and a battery and that was it. It looks like a monkey could fix it. There is a guy on YouTube called "Dave's Farm" where he manages to get cars to run that haven't ran for 10, 20, even 40 years. He went to Holland to visit a guy who does the same thing and got a 1961 Ford Anglia to run after 10 years.

I think it’s a minor quibble about the 3 hour advance notice. Clearly, that’s a writer’s device. For narrative reasons, it works better with a 3 hour warning...

Just a thought here - what about a solar event that is known to precede a massive gamma ray burst by about three hours?

Say that in the past a similar event was witnessed by a research satellite and the star it was studying got suddenly brighter and noisier on the electromagnetic spectrum by a certain amount in a certain period of time, then three hours later the satellite picks up this huge increase in gamma rays just before it gets fried...

Then cue the scientists back on earth observing the data from that research satellite saying "Gee, lucky for us that gamma ray burst wasn't aimed at earth..."

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