Whether you’re hiding from Godzilla or fleeing the zombie masses, some films prove you might just be better off flinging yourself into the sea

I’ve just received a press release – it doesn’t matter what for – that has listed all the different ways the world might end, based on scenarios from films, and how people have stated they would respond. It is stupid, and now I will explain why on a scenario-by-scenario basis.

Ape uprising

Apparently, 19% of the population “would try to broker peace with intelligent warlike apes”. Rubbish. No, you wouldn’t. Nobody would try to broker peace with intelligent warlike apes, because you’ve seen what happens when people try to do that. You’ll go and meet the head ape and, despite your best attempts at finding common ground, your lunk-headed mate will end up committing some sort of relatively aggressive social faux pas and, next thing you know, all the apes are in tanks blowing the cack out of everything. Happens every time.

Really, the only two options you have in the event of an ape uprising are either to impose a policy of blanket ape murder before they have the chance to organise themselves, or to just overdose on sleeping pills in your bed as soon as you see the first talking monkey video on YouTube. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there is simply no point trying to appease a race of intelligent warlike apes; 19% of you are idiots. You deserve everything coming to you.

Giant rampaging beast

Apparently “10% of people believe that we could do nothing to stop the rampage of Godzilla or King Kong”. Again, ridiculous. King Kong, for starters, is rubbish. A couple of old-timey planes managed to stop his rampage quite neatly, which means that these days he’d probably find himself getting finished off by a disinterested vlogger with a drone.

Godzilla is a tougher proposition because, as evidenced in 1995’s Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, the only thing that can kill him is a small army of man-sized crabs that can bunch up into a sort of dragon thing. And there’s no way we’re going to let an army of man-sized crabs get away with existing, not after what we know about apes. No, in this case, the 10% are right. If Godzilla ever rises up, we’re all done for. We might as well all just throw ourselves into the sea to have some form of control over our demise.

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Zombies

Here’s where people really start deluding themselves. A quarter of people have said that, if they were ever infected by a zombie, they would “run from survivors to protect others”, which is absolute nonsense because everybody knows that the most responsible thing to do is just kill yourself at the point of infection. Run away after you’ve been bitten, and you’re still going to turn into a man-eating zombie who kills people. By running away, you’re not actually part of the solution at all. You’re a zombie slacktivist, that’s all. Just kill yourself or, better yet, make your most treasured loved one kill you instead. Frankly it’s all you deserve, you deserter.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Zombies … can you see any running away for the good of humanity? Photograph: AMC/Everett/Rex/Shutterstock

Robots and/or aliens

A full 35% of people believe that the Terminator films were right about the future of robotics, and another 35% would be prepared to fight an alien invasion. No. First, everyone knows that WALL-E is right about the future of robotics. Second, the first thing everyone would do in the event of an alien invasion would be to offer the invading forces their bodies for recreational sex purposes just because it might spare their useless excuse of a life for a fortnight longer than anyone else.

Vampires

This is apparently the best-case disaster scenario, because a third of people “would love to be able to walk this world forever”. I’m not one of those people, obviously, because eternal life would exponentially increase my chances of having to write more articles about nothingy press releases, and I’m pretty close to the edge as it is.

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