Terrorism Turned Monstrous: An Examination of Post-9/11 Science-Fiction-Horror Films Adapted from Pre-9/11 Source Texts

Abstract

This thesis explores three post-9/11 film adaptations, War of the Worlds (2005), I Am Legend (2007), and The Mist (2007), in an attempt to better understand societal influences on the adaptation process by examining the alterations that a literary adaptation prepared to go to film undergoes in order to suit a contemporary audience. The ways in which we negotiate cultural trauma are not direct and it may take time and mediation in order for the trauma to be healed. This thesis argues that mediation of the cultural trauma associated with 9/11 is directly connected to Hollywood blockbuster science fiction and horror adaptations from pre-9/11 literary source texts. Adaptations offer stories often known by their audience, ensuring a comforting familiar narrative with a reassuring ending. Simultaneously, adaptations also introduce differences that make them likelier to appeal to contemporary audiences, such as updates, new characters, or modified endings. Beginning by examining imagery that evokes the memory of 9/11 and then comparing each adaptation’s source text and its popular adaptation, this paper seeks to answer how post-9/11 film audiences affected and were affected by the adaptations they watched. No longer are narratives in these adaptations concerned with Social Darwinism, the effects of nuclear war, or technological hubris. In the years following 9/11, these three particular adaptations come to directly reflect major societal concerns: the recognition and negotiation of trauma and loss, the importance of maintaining hope, and the danger of abandoning hope too early.