"the (Un)Christian Road Warrior: The Crisis of Religious Representation in the Book of Eli (2010) (Critical Essay‪)‬

Introduction [1] The genre of science fiction is often dismissed as mere spectacular effects-driven entertainment with little or no narrative or philosophical depth (Schatz, 1993). Taken as a whole, however, science fiction is arguably one of the most valuable genres for exploring contemporary fears and anxieties in cinematic narratives. Indeed, science fiction is able to "[have] it both ways" (King, 2000:8) in that such explorations can often co-exist alongside spectacular imagery, thereby providing a narrative that is both entertaining and socially aware (Sontag, 1967). In particular, films that deal with apocalyptic 'end of the world' scenarios have, from the 1950s onwards, offered commentary on a variety of contemporary concerns, such as the threat of nuclear destruction, environmental disaster, and geopolitical disorder to name but a few. This has become particularly so over the last decade, where such movies have in a number of cases explored through their narratives and imagery the post 9/11 socio-political terrain. The apocalypse movie has not only provided entertaining spectacle in movies such as The Day After Tomorrow (Emmerich, 2004), I Am Legend (Lawrence, 2007) and Cloverfield (Reeves, 2008), but these same movies have articulated fears and anxieties circulating in society around the environment, pandemic diseases, and war / terrorism. Indeed, as we have argued elsewhere, in contrast to the wave of highly optimistic apocalypse movies released in the 1990s (Ostwalt 1998, 2000, 2003; Walliss, 2009) that the post-9/11 cycle of films are characterized by a spirit of explicit pessimism where the contemporary social order is critiqued and ridiculed, humanity is often not saved, and where the question is raised of whether humanity deserves to be saved at all (see also Bendle, 2005). More recent movies, however, have begun to shift back toward more optimistic and affirmative apocalyptic narratives, often exploring the trope of renewal or humanity starting over again (2012 [Emmerich, 2009], Knowing [Proyas, 2009]).