The great thing about prehistory is that you can speculate pretty much any old hogwash about it. Sure – science has given us a reasonably educated guess, but when has science ever stopped us from making shit up? Who’s to say that dinosaurs didn’t talk, or that mankind wasn’t created by a super-species of cat-like beings? That would certainly explain their sense of entitlement. The film industry knows what’s up, and has given us some great depictions of pre-life over the years. Some are unique in their beauty and/or accuracy, while others are just downright silly. Both are great, so let’s celebrate 9 creative ways to look at the world before we came to be.

The Mayans, the wise race of ancients who created hot cocoa, set December 21st, 2012 as the end date of their Calendar, which the intelligent and logical amongst us know signifies the day the world will end, presumably at 12:21:12am, Mountain Time. From now until zero date, we will explore the 50 films you need to watch before the entire world perishes. We don’t have much time, so be content, be prepared, be entertained. The Film: Quest For Fire (1981) The Plot: 80,000 years ago in the time of the neanderthal one of the most precious commodities was fire. It served to cook food, keep warm, and ownership of fire by a tribe of human ancestors was a sign of power – because at that time it was not understood as to how it could be manufactured. When one such tribe gets brutally attacked by another group they lose their flame in the aftermath. Three of the group’s males (Nicholas Kadi, Everett McGill, and Ron Perlman in his first film role) break from the tribe and trek the land in search of another flame, and on their journey encounter groups of similar beings; some of which are as brutal as the creatures that attacked them earlier, and others more ‘strange’ to their current level of understanding.