Compare and Contrast of the Effectiveness Between."The Day After Tomorrow" and "Outbreak"

Which of these movies provides a more effective wake-up call about impending global catastrophes?

"The Day After Tomorrow" and "Outbreak" both raise important concerns regarding the world that we live in. The first movie seems to serve mainly as a warning that as a people of this planet we need to do everything in our power to stop destroying our world. "Outbreak" demonstrates the vulnerability of the United States and for that matter all nations of the world in dealing with large epidemics. Though both movies raise legitimate concerns they also both are quite sensationalized in order spice it up for moviegoers. The most effective movie in providing a wake up call for humanity is totally debatable and is entirely dependent on the eye of the beholder.
In "The Day After Tomorrow" a climatologist's warning of the possibility of massive cataclysmic climate changes caused by global warming go unheeded. His predictions of the consequences of such actions just so happen to occur sooner than anyone had ever expected. This movie served as the ultimate example what could happen if as a world community we do not clean up our acts. Continued consumption of nonrenewable resources, increased carbon dioxide emissions and further depletion of the Ozone layer could though most likely not on the scale illustrated occur in one form or another. The moral of this film is summed up by Dennis Quaid's character in the last scene when he mutters his last few lines stating that hopefully humanity can learn from it's mistakes.
"Outbreak" was released in 1995 around this time there was an Ebola outbreak in Zaire. Had it not been for this epidemic that movie probably wouldn't have been the hit that it had been. When these two events occurred all of a sudden there was a dialog as to what would this nation do to protect itself from such a deadly virus. Since this time there have been other diseases that have raised this same concern as well. Whooping Cough, SARS, Mad Cow disease these are all very deadly diseases that must be immediately identified, isolated and treated. Though "Outbreak" was not as preachy as "The Day After Tomorrow" it still got the message across that perhaps it would be wise to prepare for such a scenario. As stated earlier both movies raise legitimate concerns the first with global warming and pollution and the second with disease control. Both however are sensationalized and blown out of proportion quite a bit. The notion that tomorrow the polar ice caps could have melted enough so that cruise liner could float down the streets of New York City is laughable at best. "Outbreak" is just as bad in it's implicit assertion that a virus could actually be shipped over here to the United States from Africa causing the quarantine of an entire community. In both movies sure it's probably possible that something like those two scenarios could happen but the chances are the sort that any bookie in Las Vegas would take those odds in a heart beat. The total effectiveness of each movie is wholly dependent upon the viewer of each movie. Both movies were effective in their own respective ways. "The Day After Tomorrow" when it was released sparked a dialog regarding pollution and global warming. There were even scientists coming on to the Fox news channel in order calm people's fears that such an event could even happen. "Outbreak" with the help of the Ebola scare in Zaire around the same time certainly created an atmosphere in which many people voiced their concerns regarding anything remotely resembling the movie happening.