Awesome In Media, Terrifying In Real Life

[cojo965]

I made it no secret that I loved the new Godzilla and Pacific Rim. However, lets take a moment to think about how terrifying it would be to worlds such as these and others. Take G '14 for example. The monsters only became public knowledge AFTER they leveled a major city in a fight and now the threat of other monsters appearing elsewhere looms over the world's head. For Pacific Rim it is the same story, however, there, it was far more sudden and far more deliberate.

So what worlds in media do you find would be terrifying in real life?

Edit: It just occurred to me there is a great video of why a world with kaiju would be scary in detail:

 

[Lilani]

Zombies, and the zombie apocalypse in general. They're cool in The Walking Dead and all, but REALLY living in a world with no comforts and a slim chance of survival would just suck in ways us soft, spoiled first world country dwellers cannot even comprehend. Then there's the guilt that comes with knowing they were all people once, and knowing that even if you die protecting someone they might not be safe from you, and they may be forced to live with the guilt of putting you down.

Just...so much suck, and so much fear.

 

[Jacco]

I think something like the Human-Covenant War would fall under that. Imagine living day to day for 30 years knowing that at literally any moment, aliens could drop out of the clouds with the intent of indiscriminantly killing you and everyone you know and that there is little to nothing anyone can do about it except to try and run. They have the capability to completely destroy your planet. Alternatively, imagine being a typical UNSC solider. Your chances of being KIA are almost 100% since the Covenant don't take prisoners and their technology is so far ahead of ours that even if you managed to escape the immediate battle, they will probably destroy your ship as it leaves orbit. On Reach alone, there were almost 300,000,000 active military and they wiped them out almost completely.

THAT would be terrifying.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

Armed conflict in general. It's real fun until the enemy shoots back. Or until you contemplate the consequences of your actions that have deprived a family of their loved ones.

 

[lacktheknack]

An XCOM/War of the Worlds situation.

Aliens have arrived, and they only want to murder us all. I don't think I could cope.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Warhammer 40000. Yes, it's a black comedy satire parody GRIMDARK, but it's also just about the worst place imaginable. This is where the Catholic Space Nazis are the good guys, for Emperor's sake.

 

[Keoul]

Pokemon.
Pokemon centers will DEFINITELY not be free of charge, hell people don't even want free healthcare for people in America, why would they have free healthcare for pets? Not to mention people would most likely use these pokemon for crime considering some of them are basically gods, even the non-legendary pokemon can do some pretty extreme shit. If you just release a Wailord in the wrong place you could see a huge amount of chaos.

Such a friendly and nice place would go to complete shit if it was brought into reality.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Anywhere where there is a romance that involved the woman either not liking or actively hating the guy, but changes her mind after creepy stalker type behaviour.

Warhammer 40000. Yes, it's a black comedy satire parody GRIMDARK, but it's also just about the worst place imaginable. This is where the Catholic Space Nazis are the good guys, for Emperor's sake.

Depends, though, there's a million worlds in the Imperium, you might be a farmer or a factory worker on some world nobody else cares about that millenium.

 

[Kitsune Hunter]

Pokemon.
Pokemon centers will DEFINITELY not be free of charge, hell people don't even want free healthcare for people in America, why would they have free healthcare for pets? Not to mention people would most likely use these pokemon for crime considering some of them are basically gods, even the non-legendary pokemon can do some pretty extreme shit. If you just release a Wailord in the wrong place you could see a huge amount of chaos.

Such a friendly and nice place would go to complete shit if it was brought into reality.

I second this, not to mention when you add politics to mix, different countries will try to use the Pokémon for military purposes with different countries going to war just to capture a Legendary, it would create a new and more serious arms race

 

[kasperbbs]

GTA universe - every single person is an asshole.

 

[Something Amyss]

Superheroes.

Seriously, I think they do more damage monthly than Godzilla does in a single picture. And even scarier if you live in the New York City area, since half of the Marvel Universe resides there. I think Galactus even has a SoHo address.

Anywhere where there is a romance that involved the woman either not liking or actively hating the guy, but changes her mind after creepy stalker type behaviour.

"Maybe if I just stalk you harder, you'll love me!"

 

[Something Amyss]

GTA universe - every single person is an asshole.

I'm not sure that's so different from real life. <.<

 

[Zhukov]

Fighting with edged weapons.

A sword/knife fight looks cool in movies.

Actually facing someone knowing just how soft your skin and organs are and that that length of sharpened metal in their hands is one wrong move from being rammed into your abdomen? Not so fun. It takes an act of will just to step within their reach, let alone be effective once you're there.

 

[Kerethos]

I'll just go with any scenario that involves fighting and killing. Meaning at least the majority of large franchises; be they movies, comics or games.

Just about all of them glorifies the massive destruction caused and for the most part just ignores the fact that - to most people - taking a life is a horrible thing (not to mention the unintended deaths of bystanders).

I mean, let's face it, when a superhero tosses a villain through a building then people in that building would die. If Superman misses with his heat vision, some poor bastard 10 blocks away might just get sliced in half. When shoots wildly during a car chase, people in surrounding cars, buildings or just in the general area will probably catch stray bullets and possibly die.

Not to mention that many game protagonists (and/or party members) all have kill-counts that easily number in the hundreds. And I'd really not want people who's killed hundreds of people to be the baseline for good

 

[Scarim Coral]

Anything with mechs.

Me toward a mech show "Oh cool! That mech is so awesome with it's firepower!"

Me toward mech in real life "Oh god why did they build a war machine that is so brutal with its firepower??!!"

I can somewhat see myself being the civilian that get caught in a crossfire in one of those Gundam shows.

 

[bluerocker]

Medieval Fantasy RPG settings in general. Welcome to the old ages, where modern technology, medicine, or science doesn't exist! Here's your monarch and plague!

Now, as much as I love these sort of settings in video games, living in a world where modern technology and medical sciences don't exist would not be a very great place to live. This is especially so in regards to childbirth or common illnesses.

EDIT: Man I can't words right now. @_@

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

I think I've already answered this one in a similar topic before, but lemme say it again for emphasis:

"Barney's Hide and Seek."

A cute little jaunt across a multicoloured landscape where you, playing as the iconic purple one himself (not the jelly from MacDonalds, the other iconic purple character) must find these kids who're hiding from you behind shrubs and so on. It's so precious! There's no death state in this world, no way to fail, and if you put the joypad down the game will literally play itself!

Or to put it another way...

...There's a bunch of terrified kids in a garish multicolour wasteland, abandoned without their parents, remorselessly hunted by a giant invincible immortal beast of terror with a mouth that's large enough to fit any of them into. (Yeah, why'd you think Barney evolved into a creature with a perfect child-sized mouth anyway?)

No damn wonder these kids are hiding. It's never even explained why they're there, except that the giant dinosaur apparently loves being around kids (yeah, that's not creepy AT ALL), so I choose to believe that Barney demands a yearly sacrifice from the nearest town of its most delicious-looking youngsters. In return, he won't charge in to destroy the town and everyone in it.

So instead he takes their young. To eat.

 

[RicoADF]

Starship Troopers.
Great movie to watch seeing bugs get gunned down, but I'd hate to live in a world where I could actually face one of these:
Warning : video has some rather graphical scenes.

 

[Drake the Dragonheart]

Anything with mechs.

Me toward a mech show "Oh cool! That mech is so awesome with it's firepower!"

Me toward mech in real life "Oh god why did they build a war machine that is so brutal with its firepower??!!"

I can somewhat see myself being the civilian that get caught in a crossfire in one of those Gundam shows.

In my battletech 3058 technical readout book, one of the notable pilots for an 85 ton inner sphere assault mech, the longbow, has a bounty of a million c-bills on their head for their repeated practice of wading into crowds of civilians to stomp them to death.