Blast from the Past

"Oh, my lucky stars! A negro!"
—Adam, on meeting his very first African-American

Imagine spending all your life in a fallout shelter, completely devoid of contact with the outside world. Now imagine that, after many years, circumstances force you to say goodbye to your former home. No, this isn't that one game, but Blast from the Past, a 1999 romantic comedy starring Brendan Fraser as Adam, a man born in a fallout shelter, growing up in near total seclusion--immersed in a world stuck in 1962.

Like many Americans, Calvin and Helen Webber (Christopher Walken and Sissy Spacek) were a little caught up in the tension of the Cold War. Calvin Webber, being a brilliant but off-kilter physicist, builds a bomb shelter under the yard and stocks it with 35 years of supplies. When the Cuban Missile Crisis presented America with a very real and immediate threat of nuclear war, the Webbers moved into the bomb shelter. As fate would have it, a plane crashed on their property while they were down there, destroying the house and leading the neighbors to presume the Webbers dead. Calvin, convinced that the explosion was the result of a nuclear missile, locks the vault door, sealing them inside for 35 years. Shortly after, Ms. Webber gives birth to a son, Adam.

Many years later, the vault unlocks. While Adam's father and mother diligently spent decades teaching him everything they could think of, this proves woefully inadequate for getting around in a radically changed surface world. Cue major culture shock when first the father, and then the son, venture out into the world to determine the state of "post-apocalypse" civilization.

Once it becomes clear that some people have indeed, umm... survived the blast, Adam sets out to gather supplies and find a (non-mutant) wife, so he can return to the shelter and seal it up again. Along the way, Adam meets Eve (Alicia Silverstone) who helps him to gather the necessary supplies and acclimatize to the current times.

Tropes used in Blast from the Past include:
  • Adult Child: Adam is this in some ways, having lived with his parents well into his thirties.
  • Aluminum Christmas Trees: Dr Calvin Webber (Adam's father) likes to drink hot Dr Pepper.
    • Backyard bomb shelters might seem nutty now, but they were actually rather common in more affluent neighborhoods.
  • Apocalypse How: The Webbers believe that at least a class 0 has taken place, as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
  • Britain Is Only London: A variation. Troy assumes that Anchorage is the capital of Alaska, partly because it is the largest city in the state, but doubtlessly also because it was the only Alaskan city he (or the audience) could think of. Adam correctly... uhh, corrects him by pointing out that the capital of Alaska is Juneau.
  • Cargo Cult / God Guise: One forms around the elevator and the Webber family after the father's dramatic appearance. Reinforced when the dramatically appearing man from the underground sends his only son to Earth.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: The entire Webber family, justified by having lived underground for 35 years. Mr. Webber, on the other hand, seems to have been one even before the "catastrophe".
  • Compound Interest Time Travel Gambit: Subverted, since it's accidental, and the "time travel" is 35 years of isolation. But the vintage baseball cards and blue chip stock certificates sure do become useful.
  • Cold War: Mr. Webber's obsession with this gets the plot moving.
  • Death Glare: Eve, at the awesome dancing scene.
  • Deliberate Values Dissonance: Several things, but especially the page quote. Adam meant no offense, but as things had changed quite a bit since 1962...
  • The Fifties: The first scene, even though it takes place in 1962, as well as the Webbers' entire lifestyle... for three decades. Not surprisingly, Adam emerges from the shelter acting like a character from Leave It to Beaver.
  • Fish Out of Temporal Water: Adam and his family, not seeing the changes that occurred happen gradually, suffer from a certain amount of culture shock when introduced to the modern world.
  • Fish Out of Water: Adam's excuse for seeming so unfamiliar with things, is that he's visiting L.A. for the first time. From Alaska...
  • Free-Range Children: Oh so averted.
  • First Time in the Sun: Adam spent his full-life in the bomb shelter and didn’t come out if it until the locks open up, allowing him to look for supplies.
  • Fridge Brilliance: See below
  • Fridge Logic: An in-universe example, when Mr. Webber spends decades trying to explain baseball to his son, who utterly misses the point of it all, until he finally watches a game.

Adam: Oh, I get it! Because he must!

  • The Great Politics Mess-Up: At the end, Adam tells his father about the Soviet Union's collapse, and how the Cold War ended without a single shot fired. His father doesn't buy a word of it.
    • Adam's main contact in the surface world is a young lady named Eve Vrustikoff (Alicia Silverstone). The father asks whether her name is Russian, and he's relieved to hear that it's Ukrainian[1].
  • Have a Gay Old Time: In-universe, when Adam thinks Troy being gay means he's happy
  • Have I Mentioned I Am Gay?: Troy. Dave Foley plays him slightly effiminate, but no more so than David Hyde Pierce played the heterosexual Niles Crane. The only real way we know he's gay is because someone says so:

Eve: "He (Troy) is gay, by the way."
Adam: (thinking Eve means that Troy's happy) "Well, good for you."
Troy: (slightly confused) "Thanks. We do try."

Calvin: "It's still not safe to go up. We're going to have to wait twenty-four hours."
Helen: "Oh, shit!"
(Helen immediately covers her mouth)
Calvin: "Excuse your mother's French, son."
Adam: "'Shit' is French?"
Calvin: "Its... uh... a colloquialism meaning... roughly... good."
Adam: "Well then... Shit!"
Calvin and Helen: "Heh heh. (sigh)"

  • Man Child: Adam is a borderline example. He is intelligent, and can take care of himself, but is socially awkward and rather naive.
  • Mistaken for Apocalypse - First, the Webbers mistake a crashed airplane for a nuclear explosion. Second, during the Webbers' time in the vault, their property had become the run-down headquarters of a fringe religious order, so Calvin's first contact with the outside world only convinces him further that society has collapsed.
  • The Nineties: As Roger Ebert points out, this movie turns Pleasantville on its head, casting a decidedly unflattering light on modern life as seen from the perspective of a traditional nuclear family.
  • Precision F-Strike: We get one from the mother, who is all too eager to head back to the surface. Its precision comes from being the first kink in the perfect atomic family image.

Adam: Do we just go on up?
Calvin: No son. Now's the time we must be at our most cautious. We wait until night.
Helen: SHIT.

  1. ↑ This is a bit odd since Ukraine was part of the USSR since the early 20's, but plausible since at the time there was little reason for a civilian to know the history and geography of the Soviet Union
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