LiveScience just released a pretty cool top 10: History’s 10 greatest explosions
If you’re lazy, here’s the list:
- The Farthest Recorded Explosion
- Shadow Casting Supernova
- Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (comet hitting Jupiter)
- The K-T Extinction Impact Event
- Mount Tambora (largest volcanic blast ever)
- Tunguska (a comet hitting siberia)
- The Trinity Blast (first a-bomb)
- Chernobyl
- The Halifax Explosion (cargo ship filled with explosives blowing up)
- The Texas City Disaster (another cargo ship)
You have to read the list backwards to get a good ranking for disaster movie titles. That suggests there is an optimal explosion size for disaster movies (you can’t make much of a movie about a supernova).
I would personally like to nominate The Halifax Explosion for the Hollwood treatment. Here’s why:
- Happened in WWI, which means cool costumes and the like
- The explosion created a tsunami, which means the movie could pull off the rare double genre of Accidental Disaster and Natural Disaster
- Scientists and historians agree that: “Halifax Harbour remains unchallenged in overall magnitude as long as five criteria are considered together: number of casualties, force of blast, radius of devastation, quantity of explosive material, and total value of property destroyed.” (courtesy the almighty Wikipedia)
- There was a blizzard the next day, adding to the drama
I’d pay to see that. I should mention that a miniseries was already made, but we all know that’s just not the same.
-Jim
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