Posted on 12/02/2008 9:09:23 AM PST by dennisw
One of our readers, Dr. Strangefist was able to track down the first big spec script that Sony won in a bidding war after the writer's strike. The budget is rumored to be close to $200 million and already has John Cusack and Amanda Peet cast in lead roles.
The story blends the idea of the Mayan calendar, which predicts the world ending in 2012, with natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, typhoons and glaciers plaguing the planet and a large cast of characters dealing with the mayhem.
WARNING: MASSIVE SPOILERS LAY AHEAD
So here we have 2012, the latest magnum opus from disaster enthusiast Roland Emmerich. Hot on the heals of the disappointing prehistoric epic 10,000 BC, 2012 is a return to what Emmerich ostensibly does best – mass destruction. The hook this time around is the apocalypse itself; more specifically, the year of the title, which marks the end of the Mayan calendar and which many believe will be the end of the world. With the date rapidly approaching, the 2012 apocalypse theory has been a bit of a hot topic in recent years, and there has been rampant speculation been several books written on the subject. Mr. Emmerich likely saw in the theory a concept ripe for use in a big budget disaster movie. After all, the actual end of the world as we know it would surely make for the disaster movie to end all disaster movies. So does it actually live up to the promise of the concept?
Things get rolling in the near(er) future of 2009, as an American scientist named PROFESSOR WEST rushes to a research facility in India, where a colleague named SATNAM has made a mysterious but alarming discovery: it seems that there have been usually severe storms on the surface of the sun, which are having a grave effect on earth. Professor West contacts his friend ADRIAN HELMSLEY, a young scientific advisor to the president, and informs him of the ominous developments. Helmsley attempts to brief U.S. PRESIDENT WILSON on Satnam’s findings, but is stopped by pompous White House chief of staff ANHEUSER, who has it out for Helmsley.
From here, things move forward to 2010. By this time President Wilson is aware of what is happening, and calls a private meeting with seven other prominent world leaders at the G8 summit in Spain. What he has to tell them is that the world’s top scientists have confirmed that the world will soon come to an end. Meanwhile, in Tibet, the Chinese military displaces several villages and begins working on what is supposedly a massive dam-building project, Things jump forward another year to 2011 as more mysterious events unfold; a WEALTHY SAUDI discusses an enigmatic dossier and one billion dollar transaction with an MI-6 AGENT, and a group known as the World Heritage Foundation, headed by President Wilson’s daughter LAURA, is replacing priceless works of art such as the Mona Lisa with replicas and taking the originals to storage facility in the Alps for safekeeping.
Finally we reach the titular year 2012. By now, signs of impending doom have been steadily accumulating. The west coast is beset with so-called “mini quakes,” and fissures randomly appear in the earth. Nevertheless, people are going about their daily lives as usual, oblivious to the doom in store. We are introduced to JACKSON CURTIS, chauffer and aspiring novelist, who is rushing to pick up his two young children LILLY and NOAH from ex-wife KATE’S house in Los Angeles so he can take them on a camping trip in Yellowstone National Park. After a brief run-in with Kate’s standard issue new man, Porshe-driving plastic surgeon GORDON, the sort of happy trio is off on their camping adventure. Next we meet elderly jazz musician HARRY, conveniently enough the father of Adrian Helmsley, as he boards a cruise ship in San Fransisco to provide the onboard entertainment. As he tries in vain to convince bandmate TONY to contact his estranged son in Japan, the ship is suddenly rocked by an unexpected swell in the ocean. Back in Washington, Laura Wilson receives a call from a distraught museum director in France, who has just enough time to inform her that the World Heritage Foundation is a sham before his car explodes. It seems that he learned too much about the Foundation’s real purpose and had to be silenced. Laura is horrified to discover that she has been working for a front, and is further incensed when she realizes that both Adrian and her father knew what was really going on and didn’t tell her.
Meanwhile, Jackson and the kids arrive at Yellowstone to discover that the military and teams of government scientists, led by Adrian Helmsley, have taken over sections of the park for reasons they cannot fully reveal. Jackson also encounters crackpot radio host CHARLIE FROST, who believes that all signs point to a major catastrophic event beginning in California, spreading to Yellowstone, and eventually destroying the whole world. Jackson is understandably dubious, but back in Los Angeles the previously small fissures become massive, yawning cracks in the earth.
It appears that things are progressing faster than anyone anticipated, and we get our first inkling of what it is that world leaders are planning to do about it; they, along with select wealthy elite from across the globe, will board specially built ships that can weather nature’s wrath. Everyone else will be left to perish and the people from the ships will be left to rebuild civilization and repopulate the planet. Basically, Noah’s Ark for the new millennium.
Gordon and Kate narrowly avoid dying in a crevase in Los Angeles, and Jackson and the children rush back to find them. They arrive just in time to pick them up and escape as earthquakes ravage the city. Against all logic they return to Yellowstone to track down Charlie, who Jackson realizes was not as much of a crackpot as he initially thought, and who may be able to help them survive the rapidly approaching doomsday. Once again their timing is impeccable, as they reach the park just as it is turning into the world’s biggest active volcano. Our motley but determined band of protagonists once again narrowly escapes impending death, this time armed with details about the Arks and a map to their location. What follows is a race against time, earthquakes, dust clouds, and tsunamis as the various groups of characters make their ways across the globe (remember the displaced villagers building the dam in Tibet? Well, guess what they were really building) to try and be among the lucky few who are spared as the earth gets ready to flood Old Testament style.
As it turns out, the answer to the question posed in the introductory paragraph is a resounding NO. Who knew the end of the world could be so predictable? This is an almost completely by-the-numbers disaster movie, featuring all the requisite dubious science, silly and implausible set-pieces, narrative clichés, broad, one-dimensional characters, and heavy handed attempts at emotion and morals that one would expect from the genre.
Aside from the idea of the Arks there is really no aspect of this film that we haven’t already seen in dozens of other action, sci-fi, and disaster blockbusters. It is so steeped in predictability, ridiculousness, and cliché that it borders on self-parody. In the tradition of previous Emmerich blockbusters such as ID4 and The Day After Tomorrow, the obligatory action and destruction scenes are particularly bad offenders in this regard, featuring characters impossibly running away from massive explosions, dust clouds, and bizarrely personified cracks in the earth.
The script barely even hints at the details or origins of any of the real theories about 2012, suggesting that the association is mainly here just to cash in on a trend. Instead, Emmerich and co-writers Harold Kloser and Matt Charman shoehorn in several brief but glaringly awkward attempts at political commentary and even what could be construed by some as a few baffling jabs at religion. And of course everything leads to an unbearably neat and happy ending, despite the fact that the film is about the vast majority of the world’s population being wiped out.
It would have been great if Emmerich & Co could have injected some new life into this tired genre, but unfortunately, and not that surprisingly, all they are giving us here is more of the same.
You would have the series running and concluding in 2012. Have a set finish date.
I saw the trailer for this and I liked it.
Here it is on you tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k9OGg227Qc
And, in the climatic ending: a second Obama term.
Missing was the scene in which God summoned President Obama, Russian Prime Minister Putin, and Bill Gates before Him to inform them that yes indeed the world would be ending in 2012, and commanding them to go back and use their influence to convince the people of the world to make the best use of their remaining days, repent of their wickedness, and serve Him and pray to Him for mercy.
Obama returned to Washington, DC and called a joint session of Congress where he addressed congress and the nation. He said there is good news and bad news. The good news is that yes there is a God, and he has given a chance for repentance and redemption. The bad news is that the world is ending in 2012.
Putin returned to Moscow, and addressed the politburo and the Russian nation, saying there is bad news and even worse news. The bad news is that they have been wrong all this time and there really is a God. The worse news is that the world will end in 2012.
Bill Gates returned to Microsoft headquarters to address his executives, and said there is good news and great news. The good news is that God considered Gates to be one of the three most influential people in the world. The great news is that we don’t have to worry about fixing Vista.
John CUSACK and Amanda PEET? Ugh. Maybe as supporting support actors. I wouldn’t go see this movie if they were the main stars.
That said, I love watching disaster movies where folks try to survive (during the disaster). I willfully suspend disbelief and usually enjoy the ride (unless it’s the horrid Day After Tomorrow crap about global warming).
Also, expect them to insert Ben Affleck and some flavor-of-the-month chick to take up 45 minutes of the flick with an insipid love story, completely killing the action and disrupting the story.
Thanks for posting the storyline - it was definitely a fun read.
Sounds like blaming Bush wouldn't even help it.
Thanks for posting the storyline - it was definitely a fun read.......
Yup! I’m also a sucker for mega disaster movies. This same guy made that movie where global warming throws the planer into disaster mode. I liked it despite the cheesy acting. Denis Quaid was in it
(of course global warming is bunk)
global warming throws the PLANET into disaster mode.
John Cusack is a very good actor as long as he stays away from political subjects. Being John Malkovich was terrific and I can watch Grosse Point Blank over and over.
Bad timing for the aliens in 1996 — had they arrived some twenty years later, Earth was there for the picking...
"By George, young man, President Wilson cannot be bothered right now! Don't you know that he's busy fighting the Kaiser?"
Pretty intense. Thanks for posting link.
Think of the unpredictability. How are you going to know where the next one will hit?
The series LOST may conclude by 2012.
Pretty intense. Thanks for posting link......
Wow. You like? Your comment sorta made my day. Is that pathetic or what?
Cusack: "How depressing, corrupt, unlawful and tragically absurd the administration's world view actually is." Cusack railed against those "lying about the war and profiting from it. And trying to privatize Iraq so corporate interests could have a free-market laboratory without all those pesky questions about 'who owns what' and 'who gets a piece of the action.'...This is indeed a league of bastards -- these men are human scum."
"Jesus was a radical to be sure, but in an opposite way from the war mongers and profiteers who use his name today. I can't get past "thou shalt not kill" and look at this carnage and see any rational way one could say these men follow Jesus Christ."
"...I don't want that [bleep] Bush in the White House."
"Bush means Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay, and all these [bleeping] crypto-fascists are gonna get in and start carving up the pie and handing in all their markers to the Republican Party that's been itching to get back into power,"
Emmerich: “America is the oldest democracy in the world. Since then they have totally developed backwards. Europe was most of the time under monarchic influence [sic], but is today three or four times as democratic as America.”
“I would never want to be an American.”
If FReepers want to go see a movie made by Emmerich and starring Cusack, that's their business, but I have far better uses for my time and money.
“Think of the unpredictability. How are you going to know where the next one will hit?”
Sort of like ants in a parking lot during a hail storm!!
Cusack is great in the movies where he’s the snarky, introspective hero that might get the girl, might not get the girl, life goes on. Problem is, he’s typecast by the same character he played in every movie in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s.
His closest thing to an action/fast-paced movie was Con Air. His portrayal as an air marshal in that movie made me cringe and he seemed completely aloof in the role.
That said - I did like him in Eight Men Out, Better Off Dead (”I want my 2 dollars!”), Grosse Pointe Blank, and the chick flicks my other made me watch.
On the other hand 2012 might be complete bull... Based on the fact that Mayans were too dumb to even invent and use the wheel. Plus engaged in mass human sacrifice though less than the Aztecs
We should doubt prophecy that come from pagan human sacrificers?
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