2012 the Movie: A Disaster for Christians

[Joanne98]

I’m a fan of disaster movies. I’ve watched all of them and, more problematically, I’ve enjoyed almost all of them. I had circled the release of Roland Emmerich’s newest disaster thrill ride, 2012, for a long time. Emmerich directed Independence Day, which just happens to be the best disaster movie ever, so I was pretty confident that I would enjoy this movie of CGI-ed destruction.



Most of it was truly awful. If I were a dog, I’d have spent all of the emotional character development moments licking my own butt. It’s not at all clear that the writers of this movie have ever opened a science textbook or even made it through an entire episode of Bill Nye the Science Guy. The “bad guy” (Oliver Platt) was the only character that acted as if he was in an apocalyptic scenario, which unbalances the movie and means that you are openly rooting for the bad guy to shoot the “good guy” (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in the face by the end of the movie. Danny Glover — who is officially “too old for this s***” — is so bad that he made me reconsider whether black people are truly qualified to be President. And as True/Slant’s Ryan Sager explains, the ending is ruined by product placement.

Needless to say, I loved it. Emmerich throws an aircraft carrier into the White House. He crashes a boat into Mount Everest. I can see Danny Glover experience human emotion in lots of movies. 2012 is the only movie that lets me see the Dalai Lama murdered by a giant tsunami.

Oh, didn’t I mention that Emmerich kills the Dalai Lama in this movie? Yeah, and the Pope too. And he breaks a bunch of religious buildings. Come to think of it, this movie might be more openly hostile towards religion than Bill Maher’s Religulous.
As I said, I think I’ve watched every disaster movie ever made. I know that there are two ways of dealing with religion in these movies: A) Ignore it entirely, B) Have a secondary character derive inner strength from spiritual beliefs. Those are really the only two ways that I’ve seen it handled. You can’t have your main character using Holy Ghost Power to stop the meteor, because that just pisses off all of the non-believers who also buy movie tickets. But you can have one character spend the movie clutching a cross who miraculously survives. Think Jud Hirsch in the Rabbinical prayer circle near the end of Independence Day. Nobody gets angry when a nun somehow avoids getting her faced burned off even when there is lava flowing two inches away from her habit.

Well I get angry because I believe that liquid rocks radiate much more heat than Hollywood writers think they do. Remember, I’m in it for the death and destruction.

But I wasn’t at all prepared for the Christian death at St. Peter’s Basilica scene. All world leaders have a place where they are supposed to go to survive the destruction, but the Italian prime minister stays behind. Oliver Platt hisses “The Italian prime minister has decided to trust to the power of prayer,” and moves onto other logical things. When we catch up with the Italian PM, he’s at St. Pete’s. The camera pans back to show a bunch of other people praying in the square, and you catch a quick glimpse of the Pope’s funny hat. You have to be paying attention, because just above the Papal Headgear is a giant wave that promptly crashes down on the Basilica, toppling it (and the Pope) over, and killing everybody.

It’s just not something you see everyday. Nor do you see the Sistine Chapel breaking up right along the line where God is giving Adam a high-five, and then come crashing down. Nor do you see the Cristo Redentor statute in Brazil crumbling — open Jesus arms first. And you certainly don’t see the Dalai Lama patiently sipping tea and then ringing a bell as a death wave crests over the Himalayas and into his house.

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http://trueslant.com/eliemystal/2009/11/18/2012-the-movie-a-disaster-for-christians/

You mean Jesus doesn't come down right before the tidal wave and rapture the Christian Taliban? What a crying shame!

[flakey_foont]

1. I saw it last weekend

if you like tidal waves, earthquakes, buildings crumbling, etc..then this is THE movie for you

but, I was wondering how is it possible to drive from Los Angeles to Yellowstone Park in one day,,,leave that night and be back in LA in the morning?

and, how, if flying West from Las Vegas does one run into the Eiffel Tower?

now, I might have slept through most of my geogrssaphy claes, but still seems a little odd

[YOY]

3. There is a Eiffel Tower in Vegas.

A smaller one (still quite big) at The Paris Casino.

[flakey_foont]

6. ah, I did not know that

I am humbled and chastened. But ready to be on Jeopardy now with yet more fun facts!! Bring on that Daily Double, I say!

[sinkingfeeling]

4. It's 828 miles between LA and Yellowstone.

http://www.distance-calculator.co.uk/usa-distance-los_angeles-to-west_yellowstone.htm

At 60MPH, you'd make the trip in 14 hours. If the world was ending, you'd probably drive faster.

[flakey_foont]

5. well, you have a point

if the world was ending, I probably wouldn't worry about running a red light or two, speed limit, or the 12 beers in the cooler next to me
but, still, leaving LA approximately 9 AM, driving 14 hours to Yellowstone (getting there while sun is still out in movie) hanging around til night,
then packing up the kids and hauling hiney back to LA and being there the next morning seems like would take a bit more than the 24 hours we normally have in a day, but then again, if the world is ending, maybe the space-time continuum has been altered

[stray cat]

2. So is it a movie for muslims as well?

[Demeter]

7. What? No Lions?

Damn that global warming.

[dhcave]

8. Producer was avoiding a fatwah...

I was listening to something on the radio about this movie a few weeks ago. Something about the director having wanted to include a scene in which the Kaaba is destroyed but the producer said no. Hoping to avoid having a fatwa on his head.

[Harry Monroe]

9. Thanks for replaying the highlights for me, I wasn't going to waste money on it anyway

Just Hollywood trying to make money off some bullshit Mayan prophecy. That being said, I'm sure it's very entertaining as long as you can suspend belief throughout the whole thing.

[pa28]

10. This movie will rake in the conversions.

Lifelong atheists will find themselves praying to god for some type of divine intervention to end the movie; theater fire, nuclear war, anything.

I completely identified with the review about his "good guy" "bad guy" analysis. I also found myself hoping that Oliver Platt was going to strangle Chiwetel Ejiofor while at the same time fighting the urge to eat Drano. If you've seen this movie you know what I mean . . . it's almost worth sitting through just for the laughs afterward.

[burning rain]

11. I've heard some Christians whining about this movie.

If they believed their own doctrines, you'd think they'd be serene whatever might lie ahead, however they're spoken of and portrayed in movies. But no. Endless complaint. I guess it shows they don't really believe they'll have the last laugh over the impious in the eternal world, after all.