The Fire Next Time

This is good stuff. A TV movie about Global Warming in 1993? Believe it, and I've been thinking lately how predictive it was. I think more than just the events surrounding them are the people's response to them that grabbed me. The human drama derived out of the confusion is very gripping. There's a sense of emergency in the air with all the wildfires and smoke. Bad weather, emergency response stretched thin. You definitely get the sense of these characters are worn out and exhausted from the heat and insanity of what's going on around them. The family drama, though, doesn't seem as canned as the Day After Tomarrow, another state-of-emergency type film. The cast was also top notch for a made for TV movie. I only saw this when it aired in my teens, but it's stayed with me since.

Taking place is the not too distant future of 2017, when climate change has devastated our natural waters and wildlife, causing massive global droughts and food shortages while temperatures continue to increase. We follow Drew Morgan (Craig T. Nelson) as he flees his now flooded home in Louisiana north along the Mississippi, with hopes of making it to the families ancestral home of Nova Scotia. This two part, made-for-tv event was clearly ahead of its time, although look at contemporary reviews it seems to not have landed quite like they'd hoped. Quite accurate to the climate disaster realities we've seen, they don't go overboard with death and destruction, instead hinting at the slow but inevitable collapse of society as poverty and starvation spread through the masses. There are definitely some eye-roll parts, it does feel like a 90s made-for-tv movie, but its message is quite poignant given modern times. And at one point Paul Rudd even shows up for a small part in what I can discern must be his first significant role in anything. At an over three hour run time, its not the most exhilarating of experiences being quite slow through much of its run, but its a decent watch if you like dramas.

This movie about disasters is itself a disaster. Do not waste your time watching it. If you do, prepare to laugh out loud at some of the script and "special effects". My husband and I started watching it and have only continued to see if it could get any worse. I will say there is one highlight. When the lady sings the old Gospel song on the barge, it is worth hearing. There are some things in this movie that are very big brotherish as one person already wrote and that these "predictions" have happened was the scary part. As it concerns global warming? BAH! It's another fad, just as the global cooling predictions of the 60's. The big difference this time is that there are people like Al Gore who stand to make millions on this scam.

I can't say this more strongly, stay away from this movie, very far away!

I didn't see the original airing of this mini series but watched later about 3 years ago on USA. Seemed prophetic then and even more so now with huge fires here in SouthWest and Katrina in NOLA. I live in Arizona so I can speak more to the drought of SW. I had a 275,000 acre fire come within about 6 miles of me. Just a few days ago we had 20 fires start up in one day. I live in N central AZ and we have had less than an inch of rain from Oct of 2005 to mid July, date of this comment. Yes we have weather cycles but there are too many bad cycles all at once all over, I am from Maine originally and winters up there since I was a kid, have generally gotten warmer and less snow. this mini series is eerily coming true. I enjoyed it, lots of food for thought,acting is not great but adequate and suffice to keep you hooked. I was probably kept on board too by references to Acadia and Evangeline as my ancestors were Acadian and story of Evangeline has been in my heart since my childhood. I say watch it for first time and if you have seen it before get a refresher.

A recent poster commented that "it's 2005 and nothing has come to pass like predicted in this film." That's hardly true anymore. The beginning shows a major hurricane decimating the city of New Orleans (my original home town, necessitating its evacuation. This, as we all know, has come to pass with the advent of Hurricane "Katrina." And the images we are seeing come out of the gulf coast on the news are far more horrific than anything in this movie.

Aside from this prophecy now come true and then some, the movie was otherwise a little too Orwellian for my tastes. I should also note that the recent hurricane activity is not necessary global warming. There's a cycle to these things. We saw hurricane activity of this magnitude in the 1940s, the 1960s (Camille), the 1990s (Andrew) and in this decade (Charley and Katrina).