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Grames

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This movie destroys the world and it has a happy ending.

I'm confused.

Is this a positive assessment (eg the happy ending is the visage of people struggling to endure and suceeding in the face of catastrophe), or a negative assessment (eg the happy ending is the visage of an end to man's threat to other planets or whatnot)?

JJM

Edited by John McVey
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I'm confused.

So was I.

Big budget formulaic Hollywood movies always have a happy ending. Even if the movie is about the end of the world, the last humans are smiling by the end of the movie. What shit. If the entire human race has PTSD, who the hell would to start over knowing it could all be taken away again? Although on screen months pass between the catastrophe and the last scene, it is only minutes for the audience and is a bit much to expect them to follow along on that emotional roller coaster.

The effects were good, Waikiki in flames was especially memorable for me.

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Something I learned about this movie:

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Roland-Emme...Fear-15505.html

Roland Emmerich is willing to murder billions of people in his films, blow up the planet, and end life as we know it; but there’s one thing that stops him cold: Islam. Emmerich tells Sci-Fi that he’d originally planned to include a scene in his new disaster movie 2012 where the Kaaba was destroyed. It’s a cubed shaped building in Mecca and one of Islaam’s holiest sites.

So why’d he back off? You know why. Because he’s afraid of Muslims. Emmerich says, “my co-writer Harald said I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie.”

No Islamic Landmarks Were Harmed in the Making of '2012'

http://www.cinematical.com/2009/11/02/no-i...making-of-2012/

"Well, I wanted to do that, I have to admit ... but my co-writer Harald said I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie. And he was right. ... We have to all ... in the Western world ... think about this. You can actually ... let ... Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have ... a fatwa, and that sounds a little bit like what the state of this world is. So it's just something which I kind of didn't [think] was [an] important element anyway in the film, so I kind of left it out."

And that raises a curious observation about what is and isn't acceptable as far as desecrating religions symbols on film goes. Emmerich does have a point, it's been historically okay to let Christian symbols fall apart, it's okay to let business sky scrappers topple over, it's okay to smash down symbolic government residences, but it's, apparently, not okay to smite an Islamic landmark. Okay, so the Kaaba, located at the heart of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, is the most sacred site in all of Islam, but that shouldn't grant it inherent immunity from civilization-ending events.

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I hated this movie. It was full of collectivist altruist garbage. Of course America has to rely on the communist Russia and China to save it. The billionaires who made the whole thing possible are vilified and the main character who represents this, gets to die in an act of "selflessness",bla,bla,bla.... The movie was full of the worst of humanity. We all just need to make our dogs your dogs and we will be alright.... :)

Edited by Plasmatic
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What I find most worrying about this movie is that NASA is actually having to devote some of its time and resources to disprove idiots who think the world is actually going to end in 2012 because of the Mayan calendar. Nevermind that the Mayan calendar doesn't actually predict the world will end but, rather, a new calendar cycle will begin. Jesus Christ, people are fucking gullible.

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I enjoyed it simply because humanity won out even over such a horrendous catastrophe, and they did it with science and reason and with the products of modern civilization (including support from the hyper-rich). I could have done without Average Joe surviving everything however, the government officials, including the scientist Adrian, were far more interesting to me.

And sure, there was this issue about how the super-rich were portrayed negatively, but you do need to remember that it wasn't all bad: it is explicitly stated that the project would have been impossible without their support, and so without them, humanity would have simply died out. So yeah, the Russian billionaire dies and his morally bad girlfriend person lives, and its stupid. But I can ignore that, as he likely didn't get his money legally or morally, judging from the state of Russia's economy, so I can interpret it as not saying anything bad about capitalism, but instead bashing bad people who use bad means to get rich.

Really, it was just that science and reason and technology provided us the means to survive the end of the world which made me enjoy it.

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Yeah, the super rich that were villified funded the project, but near the end they were going to leave behind all the Chinese laborers who built the arcs. Also, the governments knew about the end of the world and did not share the information with the rest of the people in the world. To me, this is what makes them villains most of all.

Also, someone said earlier that the Russian's girlfriend gets to survive, but she actually drowns at the end after she puts the child and her dog over into the other room. Also also, the main character who 'dies in an act of selflessness' doesn't actually die, and his act was more in order to save his family, so I wouldn't call that an act of selflessness.

Overall, the movie was kind of visually exciting, but it wasn't anything that special. One of my favorite parts was when the Russian Sascha and the stepdad are flying that huge Russian plane and they clip the Eiffel Tower. The stepdad looks back and says, 'Was that the Eiffel Tower?' and the Russian says, 'I sink so." and they both kind of chuckle. I thought that was kind of a funny moment.

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Yeah, the super rich that were villified funded the project, but near the end they were going to leave behind all the Chinese laborers who built the arcs. Also, the governments knew about the end of the world and did not share the information with the rest of the people in the world. To me, this is what makes them villains most of all.

Also, someone said earlier that the Russian's girlfriend gets to survive, but she actually drowns at the end after she puts the child and her dog over into the other room. Also also, the main character who 'dies in an act of selflessness' doesn't actually die, and his act was more in order to save his family, so I wouldn't call that an act of selflessness.

Overall, the movie was kind of visually exciting, but it wasn't anything that special. One of my favorite parts was when the Russian Sascha and the stepdad are flying that huge Russian plane and they clip the Eiffel Tower. The stepdad looks back and says, 'Was that the Eiffel Tower?' and the Russian says, 'I sink so." and they both kind of chuckle. I thought that was kind of a funny moment.

Of course, it was the Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas they clipped. That's why it was funny.

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What I find most worrying about this movie is that NASA is actually having to devote some of its time and resources to disprove idiots who think the world is actually going to end in 2012 because of the Mayan calendar. Nevermind that the Mayan calendar doesn't actually predict the world will end but, rather, a new calendar cycle will begin. Jesus Christ, people are fucking gullible.

Penn and Teller did an amazing episode on that where they actually got some Mayan scholars and descendants of that culture to comment on it, and not a single one of them said it was supposed to be a catastrophe.

It's pretty scary that our calendars end at the 31st of December, isn't it? I mean, they could go on forever, but they stop? Maybe the calendar makers know something :lol:

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It's pretty scary that our calendars end at the 31st of December, isn't it? I mean, they could go on forever, but they stop? Maybe the calendar makers know something :lol:

They don't seem to know you can buy a perpetual calendar almost anywhere. Of course, you do have to set it every month.

If you want somethign real to worry about, most computers in the world rely on two digits to set the year in all dates. That means when the year 2000 rolls around... Oh, my mistake.

Ok, but in 1986 when Halley's comet comes around... Oh, sorry.

Fine. But in 1980 when the planets align.... Damn! Can't catch a break!

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Is there anybody really believe that the doomsday will come one day?

Certainly. Millions of years from now the Sun will begin to run out of fuel. It will expand to a red giant and destroy the Earth, along with Mercury, Venus and Mars in the process. Unless we learn to do something about it. Little things like moving the Earth farther back, or how to alter the evolution of the Sun.

Billions of years from now the Universe may contract and collapse on itself, or maybe entropy will reach maximum with every bit of the universe at the same temperature (a very low one). Unless, again, we learn how to do something about it.

Given the time frames involved, I'd bet we'll manage. it would be irrational to give up just because the Universe does.

In the meantime there could be a major catastrophe. An asteroid or comet strike would be very bad, killing perhaps billions of people and disrupting civilization for decades. A solar flare aimed at Earth would have the same effect. We could deflect an asteroid or comet. I don't know that we could do anything about a flare, but surely the chances of one are microscopic. I mean, flares are directed at the Earth often, but not of a magnitude that can cause a disaster.

A Supernova nearby could kill lots of people with radiation, but I don't know of any potential supernovae nearby.

If you want a rational treatment of the subject, I suggest you read Asimov's "A Choice of Catastrophes."

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