"When it comes to engaging sci-fi odysseys, post-apocalyptic settings can really color the scene with a distinctly rich and usually dismal aura. These foreign, decimated landscapes can help engross the viewer in a new, unfamiliar world, enhance the narrative, and provide some creative world-building. Despite the glum nature of the disease, death, warfare, and/or mass destruction that post-apocalyptic films usually contain, there's typically a glimmer of hope; of rising from the ashes and starting fresh.
While these movies are vastly different in terms of plotting and style, good sci-fi films tend to stress this element of rebirth following death and decay, while alluding to interesting backstories of the carnage that preceded it."
