Yesterday I saw the movie "2012." Now, I'm a sucker for a Big Disaster Movie, so I liked it. And I realize that it was not meant to be serious, Academy Award-winning filmmaking (except maybe for special effects). But it made me think about a couple of things that came up in the plot. I just thought they'd make an interesting topic for conversation.
SPOILER ALERT. IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE FILM AND DO NOT WANT TO KNOW PLOT DETAILS READ NO FURTHER.
The first thing that came to mind was that the character who is meant to be the more-or-less "villain" of the piece, White House Chief of Staff Anheuser (played by Oliver Platt) was actually right. He is kind of made to look like a jerk for keeping the impending disaster a secret for so long, silencing people who tried to blow the whistle, selling tickets on the Arks to the fabulously wealthy, and placing limits on who could board. But if the end of the world as depicted in the film were a real-life scenario, all those things are exactly what you would need to do to ensure the continuation of the human race. If it was publicly known what was coming there would be chaos. And, as he says in the movie, there is no way the Arks could have been built without the money that the super-rich paid to secure passage. And in a doomsday scenario, not everyone gets to live. You would need to make very tough choices and stick by them. In the end, when the hero convinces the commanders of the last 3 Arks to open the doors and admit all the crowds outside, that was an amazingly foolhardy decision. It jeopardized the lives of everyone on all three Arks and -- by extension -- the entire human race.
Also, the people depicted as having been chosen to go on the Arks struck me as fairly unrealistic. There were lots of children in the crowds, for example, but if that were a RL situation you would probably not want to include children. Why? Because if you only can save 400,000 people, and they have to rebuild civilization after the disaster is over, you would want mostly young, healthy adults. Children would not be able to contribute to the difficult work of rebuilding, they would only be a burden. Similarly you would not want to include anyone sick or handicapped or elderly. In fact, while you would need to include some middle-aged and older people who had specialized training or experience that would be useful, for the most part you would want only viable breeding stock.
I also don't think you would bother saving species like Giraffes and Rhinoceroses, as depicted in the film. With limited space available the only animals you could afford to bring would be livestock.
Finally, there is a scene in which the Queen of England is seen boarding one of the Arks with her Corgis. While admittedly a cute joke, that would never happen. This is a woman who refused to be evacuated to Canada in WW2, instead driving an ambulance around London while the bombs fell. She would not leave her people.
Discuss! (And yes, I am aware that I am a nerd.)
2012
Started By
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, Dec 07 2009 01:21 PM
11 replies to this topic
#1
Posted 07 December 2009 - 01:21 PM