http://gothamist.com/2009/11/30/new_york_cinematically_destroyed.php

a) the line “Run from the wind!” was actually uttered in a film

b) in an attempt to visually illustrate something invisible we were exposed to a crane shot of wind rippling through long grass. Least. menacing. disaster. ever.

c) since there’s no way to insulate yourself from “the wind”, but the characters lives must be spared, Shayamalan just has the wind stop for no apparent reason. Spirit of man doesn’t triumph, the bad just stops.

I will take the metaphorical value of a fire in a library over the hollowness of a sweater-vested Marky Mark standing in a field of grass any day.

Okay, I haven’t seen The Towering Inferno or Airport (sorry- I suppose this means I fail at life?), but I can tell you why I don’t think The Poseidon Adventure or Titanic are disaster movies. See, they may be about survival (and both on boats, interestingly enough), but they aren’t man-v.-nature. What causes the most disastrous disaster in both is natural, yes, BUT, that event isn’t the main force being fought against in either case. The survivors in The Poseidon Adventure aren’t running from the wave the whole time, and the survivors in Titanic aren’t running from the iceburg. I guess you could say they’re all running from water, but what they’re actually doing is trying to stay alive on a sinking ship. But no, I’m sorry Stokes, I’m certain *you’re* the one with delusions, at least about those two. ;p

And after looking at Wiki and IMDB, I’d say Towering Inferno is a no and Airport is a mostly-no-ish. I have already said unnaturally made fire doesn’t count for me, so that should explain Towering Inferno. And as for Airport- that one would depend on how much of a factor the blizzard plays, but I’m leaning toward no because it seems like the overall plot is driven forward more by the hijacked plane and other person/character/human interaction plotlines, not the blizzard one.

If you go through the pantheon of disaster movies, you’re going to start with The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, and Airport. And if you’re going to talk about the most important disaster movie of the past twenty years, start with the last reel of Titanic. No definition that excludes these movies is going to be satisfactory.

The reason I count Outbreak is they are fighting off the VIRUS, which serves as a force similar to a hurricane or something and still making the movie an us-v.-it situation. The virus in Outbreak may have been covered up by the military at first, but it was discovered *naturally* before said cover up. In I Am Legend, there was a time where mankind was, indeed, fighting off the virus, but two things make it not count for me: first, the virus came from experiments with measles gone awry, meaning it was man-made; and secondly, while humans were fleeing the virus at certain points in the movie, those were flashbacks- by the time we get to the current situation, it has become an us-v.-them scenario. Outbreak is never an us-v.-them movie*.

(And I’m basing my conclusions about I Am Legend on the movie alone- I still haven’t read the book. HOWEVER, I think the book is probably even less of an us-v.-it situation because, from what I have seen online, the “zombies” in it are a lot more conscious and calculating, to the point where they have their own society or something going on. That’s a clash of civilizations, not a man-v.-nature or man-v.-it in the slightest.)

But yeah, my main reason for counting Outbreak is because that virus is natural and remains the main foe, while I Am Legend has a lab-grown virus and becomes a secondary source of conflict to the zombies.

@Lara- I understand the definition of “disaster” and realize a lot of movies I wouldn’t consider disaster movies have them in them, but like I said, I always tack “natural” on in my head. So I’m just a stubborn ox. ;p

*One could make the argument that it becomes scientists v. military or something, but I’d still say that’s secondary to the ultimate goal of “FIND THE CURE!!!” It’s the source of the climax, but not the driving force of the movie.

Time to copy and paste a definition?? (From Chambers.co.uk)

“disaster – noun 1 an event causing great damage, injury or loss of life. 2 a total failure. 3 extremely bad luck • Disaster struck. disastrous adj. disastrously adverb.
ETYMOLOGY: 16c: originally meaning ‘bad influence of the stars’, from French desastre, from astre star.”

Of course if you go with “extremely bad luck” you’re going to include an awful lot of movies…

Having recently seen Independence Day again, that escape is definitely the best. It’s completely ridiculous. I love it.

But even after agreeing with that definitely, I’m not sure we agree on I Am Legend. If you say Outbreak IS a disaster movie, then I Am Legend must be too. Keep in mind, the virus itself kills 90% of the human race. The zombies are in addition to that. So I’d say that while I Am Legend is a zombie movie, it is ALSO a disaster movie. I still say Mark’s choice is great, because (SPOILER ALERT) it is a cool and unexpected twist when the attempted escape ends in total disaster.