MovieChat Forums > Where Have All the People Gone (1974) Discussion > Solar Flare then virus

Solar Flare then virus

posted 15 years ago by antpage2
5 replies | jump to latest

I was trying to figure out the plot to this and i guess its possible a solar flare knocked out the power to a lab where they were working on viruses and one particularly deadly one got out. But turning the bodies to dust is way out there. I suppose its better budget wise for the movie and a possible tv series to have sand instead of FX bodies lying around. Also the shock factor goes way down, remember this was 70's TV. Also having a bunch of bodies lying around would be a real sanitation problem causing more disease. But how can you explain a virus that turns the body to dust in 24 hours?

[–] cool_splash1 15 years ago

Well if you look at the movie closely it was probably a pilot. So many tv movies were just pilots in disguise. This probably would have come out or implied either later in the season or in the series.

[–] Poisoned_Dragon1964 15 years ago

The idea of turning the bodies to dust is derivative from a 2nd season original Star Trek episode, The Omega Glory, in which nearly the entire crew of the USS Exeter contracts a virus and dies in the same fashion.

§« The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. »§

[–] Error_PC_LOAD_LETTER 15 years ago

There was no "virus" in this movie. Just solar flares.

And 'cause' never was the reason for the evening,
--Or the Tropic of Sir Galahad.

[–] Poisoned_Dragon1964 15 years ago

There was no "virus" in this movie. Just solar flares.

When our protagonists reach Malibu Beach, they discover Mrs Anders' clothes with powder on the upstairs bed. Before turning to dust, she'd had the fortitude to leave them a note that reads, in part, "Within sixteen hours we managed to isolate a virus. Some - not many - have a built-in resistance."

Her explanation does make the whole thing less coherent, but the writers put it in there, all the same. It seems to be 'genetic predisposition + virus + solar flare = death.' Perhaps they introduced the virus into the equation to help explain why the solar flares didn't reduce all animal life to dust, just most of the humans.

§« The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. »§

[–] andybob-3 14 years ago

It's never explained why but the movie does clearly say at one point that a virus was what killed the people, somehow triggered by the solar flare.

I once read a novel where a common cold virus was being triggered to mutant into something extremely deadly by certain light waves being deliberately sent through TV's, so they could have tried to write it off for that reason if they wanted to.