Background: Crematoria is a scorched and scorching planet in the 2004 sci-fi movie Chronicles of Riddick starring Vin Diesel. It is so hot that when the sun cracks over the horizon every morning it fries living beings. Nights on Crematoria are so dark and cold they were also dangerous, and of course that’s when Riddick and his motley band would fight the Necromancers, the death-besotted bad guys. The movie was popular for its time although reviews were negative.
Catch phrases from the Chronicles are “If you can’t keep up, don’t step up (Riddick).” There’s also “Keep what you kill (Necromancer motto)” which hasn’t quite made it into popular lingo.
Today I’m here to draw parallels between Crematoria and South Florida. There’s a new metric used by television meteorologists and that is the “feel-like” temperature. A 10 a.m. temperature of 94F for example, would translate to 102F in feels-like numbers. These numbers which are based on humidity and other slimy factors, are never lower and never pleasant yet they ring of an intuitive truth that is hard to deny.
Mosquitos and other pests love this weather so when a blow-dried and highly groomed tv weather person announces a feels-like temperature of 104F, it is like a call to arms for bugs which are prehistoric in appearance and very large. Each pest has its own predator so the number of snakes and raptors and other creatures who deserve their own sci-fi films seems to be increasing.
There are other action films that seem to predict the future: Terminator (1984) loosely portrayed the rise of AI, and Die Hard (1988) showed a terrorist attack in Los Angeles that predates 9-11 by decades.
As a resident of Crematoria, who can’t keep up and doesn’t want to step up or keep what she kills, I hope Chronicles of Riddick isn’t predicting the final effects of climate change.
