This weekend, audiences will be perched on the edges of their seats as Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) works to save Vatican City from the destructive potential of a single gram of antimatter in "Angels & Demons." Unless Hollywood’s power players lose their collective minds, it likely won’t be the last time the human race is threatened by a fictional destructive device either. It certainly isn’t the first. Just take a look at these other Hollywood-spawned weapons of mass destruction. Look at them and take heart in the fact that most of them won't ever exist. Probably.
Death Star
"Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope"
"That’s no moon. It’s a space station."
Sorry Obi-Wan, but things are a little bit worse than that. The not-moon you’re referring to is actually the fearsome Death Star, which contains within it enough destructive firepower to reduce any world to space dust. The ability to destroy a planet may be insignificant next to the power of the Force, but it’ll be enough to require a change of underwear if I suddenly see the Death Star hovering in the sky one evening.
Genesis Device
"Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"/"Star Trek III: The Search for Spock"
Long before director J.J. Abrams made the ballsy decision to destroy the planet Vulcan with a Red Matter-spawned black hole in his "Star Trek" reboot, there was the Genesis Device. Ostensibly a terraforming planet-builder sealed up inside of a torpedo shell, the Genesis Device works by completely obliterating a planet’s surface and then rebuilding it into something habitable. In the right hands, it could be used to create new worlds for humans to colonize. Of course if Hollywood has taught us anything, it’s that such a potent force for good will inevitably be twisted for evil purposes.
GORT
"The Day the Earth Stood Still"
In "The Day the Earth Stood Still," both the 1951 original and the 2008 remake starring Keanu Reeves, GORT (short for Genetically Organized Robotic Technology) is designed as a sort of intergalactic peacekeeper. When you’re talking about keeping the peace on a galactic scale, it means ensuring the protection of all-too-rare life-supporting planets. Given humanity’s tendency to muck things up with CFCs, nuclear waste and other byproducts of technological advancement, it’s something of a miracle that we survived not one but two brushes with destruction at GORT’s hands.
All Spark
"Transformers"
Once again we have a device which isn’t inherently dangerous, though it offers plenty of doomsday potential to one who would abuse its powers. In the 2007 live action debut of the classic "Transformers" cartoon series, both the Autobots and the Decepticons come to Earth in search of the All Spark. Capable of imbuing electronic machines with sentience, the peace-loving Autobots want to see nothing more than the restoration of their homeworld to its former glory. The Decepticons on the other hand are wired for pure evil. They intend to use the All Spark to create a massive robot army, first conquering Earth and later, the universe. Doomsday may not technically be directly caused by the All Spark, but you’re going to have a hard time arguing that point when you’re reduced to little more than a sun-bleached skull just waiting to be crushed beneath a sentient robot’s metal foot.
Doomsday Device
"Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb"
The Cold War-era doomsday scenario laid out in director Stanley Kubrick’s hilarious "Dr. Strangelove" involves a rogue United States general ordering a nuclear strike on Soviet soil. Unbeknownst to him, such an attack will trigger a last-ditch doomsday device which is designed to destroy all life on the planet. The U.S. President and his staff try in vain to recall the bombers, though their strike order includes a command to maintain strict radio silence throughout the mission. In the end, all but one of the bombers are either recalled or destroyed. The one that makes it through manages to drop its payload, and so the world ends. At least it ends in style: sitting on top of the bomb when it drops is pilot T.J. "King" Kong (Slim Pickens), who rides the doomsday-triggering explosive down to the ground as if it were a rodeo horse. Yee-haw indeed.
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