The original "Planet of the Apes" movie in 1968 posited the demise of mankind and civilization as we know it from a nuclear exchange; the series' reboot, "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" (opening in October), drops this premise in favor of a genetically modified virus. That makes sense: Virus scares are frequent, cropping up every other year or two (SARS, bird flu, Ebola), while nuclear bombs are, like, so last century.

Except, of course, that they're not. Nothing has changed, and despite the end of the Cold War some two decades ago, the United States and Russia still have thousands of missiles pointed at each other for no real reason other than inertia. Worse yet, the number of hot-tempered nuclear states is rising steadily, with arch-rivals India and Pakistan joining the club, and Iran desperately racing to match Israel's bomb. Even in Japan, the one country to have suffered an atomic bombing, there are now politicians (such as the LDP's Shigeru Ishiba) speaking openly of acquiring nuclear weapons.

Then there are the nonstate players, such as al-Qaeda or the Aum Shinrikyo cult, who have actively pursued acquiring bombs of their own and who aren't exactly well in the head. And what of accidents? As the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear reactor meltdowns proved, even "foolproof" safeguards can fail; imagine the consequences of that happening with a launch protocol, or a loaded B-52 crashlanding.