Neil Marshall (known for the horror films "Dog Soldiers" and "The Descent") has a new film out today, which I’ve written about a couple of times: the appropriately named “Doomsday”.

In 2037, thirty years after Scotland was sealed off to contain a plague, Bob Hoskins sends Rhona Mitra back into Scotland in order to try to find the cure, as the disease has recurred outside. In the process she encounters Malcolm McDowell, doing a turn as Colonel Kurtz (but not o be too obvious, his character is named “Kane” instead of “Kurtz”).

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And I don’t mean the kind you hitch to your car (although that could be pretty cool).

No, this is the theatrical trailer for Neil Marshall’s new film “Doomsday”. Marshall’s previous credits are “Dog Soldiers” and “The Descent”

The story goes that in 2008 a plague spreads rapidly in Scotland; to save the world, Scotland is quarantined and basically written off as dead; forgotten about. 25 years later the plague reappears outside of Scotland. Because we know that there are survivors in there, Bob Hoskins sends Rhona Mitra in it find the cure (isn’t that what you’d do?) and return with it. In the process she finds Malcolm McDowell playing (what else?) an evil genius who’s holed up in a Scottish castle taking a Colonel Kurtz-like turn.

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I usually expect that The History Channel will run shows about… you know… history… things that have come before. But honestly, I couldn’t tell you the last time I watched something on it, so for all I know it’s running shows about stuff that hasn’t happened yet all the time.

In this case, it’s running a 2 hour special called “Life After People”, which is about what happens to the world if all the people are gone. Which, last I checked, hadn’t happened yet, so that’s why I’m making comments about things that haven’t happened yet.

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I’ve written about Neil Marshall’s new film, “Doomsday”, a few times before. Marshall brings with him a good resume of genre films: “Dog Soldiers” and “The Descent”, which leaves many people anticipating his new bigger budget, bigger concept film “Doomsday”.

In the world of “Doomsday”, Scotland is walled off to protect the rest of the world from a deadly virus called “Reaper”. 30 years pass and there’s a Reaper outbreak in another country, leading our heroes to enter the ruins of Scotland in order to try to find a cure. Malcolm McDowell stars as “Kane”, patterned after Kurtz from “Heart of Darkness” (or “Apocalypse Now” in the event that you’ve never read the book).

Someday we’ll progress to a point where scary, over the edge guys in media won’t be named variations of Cain or Kurtz.

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You’re looking for an older man with some flavor of British accent to play a crazy villain in a post-apocalyptic drama? The accent leaves out Dennis Hopper, but Malcolm McDowell is available after his stint on NBC’s “Heroes” and apparently he hasn’t played his share of crazies yet.

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Phil Plait from the Bad Astronomy website is part of a recent SETI Insitute podcast which talks about cosmic doomsday cults.

Via: Bad Astronomy Blog » Doomsday interview!
[tags]astronomy, seti, phil plait, bad astronomer, cosmic, doomsday, cults[/tags]

Middle school kids get that the human race is more vulnerable to extinction as long as it is confined to the Earth, and suggested creating a “doomsday base” on the moon as a place to hold backups of vital DNA. Presumably they don’t know that part about blasting it across the galaxy.

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Bob Hoskins is joining the cast of Doomsday, a film that takes place thirty years after a virus decimates the population. The film also stars Rona Mitra and Alexander Siddig (Bashir from Deep Space Nine).

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As I’ve been listening to Muse’s album “Black Holes and Revelations” recently, “The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists” really sounds like a track title from the album. Alas, it’s not… it’s the group of people who maintain the the Doomsday Clock, which today they moved forward by 2 minutes in recognition of the possibility of catastrophic, civilization-ending change stemming from human technology. The clock now stands at five minutes to midnight.

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CNN reports that this Wednesday The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is preparing to move the hands of the doomsday clock closer to midnight.

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