Luckily, it was no more that preview for a new winter blockbuster titled 2012 (you can view the trailer here: http://www.whowillsurvive2012.com/) but it did raise a few concerns. I enjoy watching doomsday thrillers just as much as the next person, but perhaps this last feature from the director who brought us Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow has gone just a bit too far. This day of reckoning (the exact date happens to be December 21, 2012) is over three years off, yet some groups of people are already forming cults and making survival plans. Before we become too caught up in stocking doomsday shelters, let's get our facts right. The Mayan calendar does in fact end on the 21st, however the 21st is also the winter solstice, a day which the Mayans would have been able to predict and would have considered important (http://www.2012endofdays.org/Mayan/Mayan-Calendar.php). Some theorists say that the prophet Nostradamus also predicted the end of the world on this date, but his prophecies are vague at best and can be interpreted in many different ways. Lastly, the sun will reach the peak of its eleven year cycle, sun sunspots, solar flares, and other sun activity will be at an 11-year high. Fortunately for us, this does happen ever eleven years, so most of the world's population has lived through it before.
I have been trying to figure out why we are so obsessed with humanity's demise. Is it our own self-importance to think that we matter enough to be the last generation? About thirty years ago, many people believed that we were on the verge of a nuclear holocaust. Why then? So we return to my initial horror at seeing the commercial on TV. I was not worried because I actually thought the world was coming to an end. My fear budded from the endless ways the other six billion people on the planet will react to this message. Will there be chaos? Suicide? Peace? Are the producers and directors of this movie partially responsible for any harm that comes from their work?
