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This project was inspired by some of the images that I'd come across in Science Fiction, but unfortunately, some defence of the topic might be needed. Certainly, as a genre, it does not have a great deal of respectability in academic circles and even in the broader consciousness.
Susan Sontag's 1965 essay on SF films, "The Imagination of Disaster", describes a genre which is incapable of genuine social commentary, instead solely expressing reactionary values. Fortunately, the genre does have its defenders: Vivian Sobchack points out that one of the reasons why critics have derided SF cinema is that there are so many mediocre films, disguising those of merit. However, this contempt for SF cinema is part of a wider prejudice in general, one which seems to be based largely on contempt for the pulp stories produced in the 1930s and since. Before then, there was an established tradition of more thoughtful, speculative fiction nowadays labelled 'scientific romances'. Several 'respected' authors produced works in this genre (including Kipling, Conan Doyle and E. M. Forster).
I think that there are three broad categories into which the vast majority of SF's ruined cities can be placed. The power of all of these comes from a subversion of a familiar landscape. Sobchack's remark about the vastness of alien landscapes in film can be applied in temporal terms - "Our civilization and its technological apparatus is at best a small town set on the edge of an abyss. Watching these films with their abundance of long shots in which human figures move like insects, their insistence on a fathomless landscape, we are forced to a pessimistic view of the worth of technological progress and of man's ability to control his destiny. We are shown human beings set uncomfortably against the vastness and agelessness of the desert and sea, are reminded by the contrast that land and water were here long before us and our cities and towns will be here long before us and our cities and towns and will be here long after we and are artefacts are gone."
It has also been pointed out that the moment of catastrophe is very different from detritus of the event, long grown over (Sobchack, 119). This certainly helps narrow down the field a bit, as there are many films and novels that describe this moment and its immediate aftermath.
Overgrown Cities: Twentieth Century Versions
Twentieth Century SF Images
Blasted Cities: Twentieth Century Versions
Dying Cities: Twentieth Century Versions
