Posted by Julia ended up with a minor concussion today.
Too many face palms during the movie 2012!
But seriously folks, we did just watch the movie 2012, and I can make a few comments on it. I’d like to start out by making a list of academic and applied areas that were butchered by the movie:
- Ship building
- Geosciences (all of them)
- Aerodynamics
- Physics (all areas)
- Geography
- Archaeology
- Political Science
- Psychology
But otherwise, it was fun. The premise of the movie is that the Mayans had it right: At the winter solstice 2012, which is the end of the 13th cycle of the current Long Count, the world ends because the planets all line up with the sun AND the center of the galaxy.
Neutrinos from the sun cause geological instability which makes the crust of the earth slide around thusly fucking everything up big time.
The science is truly bad. In so many ways. Some of my favorites that I did not expect:
The 6,000 foot deep kettle of water located in the 11,000 foot deep abandoned copper mine in India which appears to be located beneath the home of one of the characters in the movie, who’s wife makes awful curry, is boiling, but they can still open the top … of a 6,000 foot deep container of boiling water …. and it looks like when I’m making spaghetti.
The awful curry part is just SO WRONG! Do they not know that “curry” is not an Indian thing, but rather, a post-colonial British construction??? Jeesh….
Oh, and then there’s the part about every time you park your car, a fissure forms right underneath it.
It is possible that the earthquakes were directly affecting the airplane’s ability to fly because of air currents or something, but you’d expect there to be some sign of down drafts.
Tidal waves do not crest in the deep sea. The big boat would not have done the Poseidon Adventure thing.
And finally, there is no way … NO WAY … that the dog would have been either willing or able to do that thing it did on the big cable when the girl with the boob job called it over. No way.
The really interesting part of the movie, really, will be over the next couple of years as we see how many morons are actually out there, believing that the Mayan prediction is correct. In some ways I don’t really care because if you are that dumb then maybe you deserve to have dumb-ass things happen to you, like you buy a ticket for an escape pod or something. I am a little worried about collateral damage by the morons. And the children. I’m worried about the children.
About the Mayan Long Count: Various prophecies suggest that at the end of certain cycles bad things happen. You will actually hear skeptics saying that this thirteenth cycle means nothing because the long count does not end until after 20 cycles, which is a very very long time from now (thus, the term “LONG” count….). While it is true that there are 20 major cycles in the Long Count, it is not true that the disaster is supposed to happen at the end of the count. Well, there is one then too. But there is another, intra-count disaster planned by the Mayan Gods for after the 13th cycle.
Except of course, that’s just crazy religion talk and it will be no more true than the value of prayer to the people at The Vatican was in this movie.
The other thing… I know of some 23 different calibrations for the Long Count and I don’t like any of them much. We actually don’t know when the thirteenth cycle ends. This is good for blogging because as each different cultish group predicts a particular day to be the end of the world, we can make fun of them.
The best performance in this movie: Woody Harrelson by a mile.
November 21, 2009
November 21, 2009
November 21, 2009
November 22, 2009
November 22, 2009
November 22, 2009
November 22, 2009
November 22, 2009
November 22, 2009
November 23, 2009
November 23, 2009
November 23, 2009
December 8, 2009
December 13, 2009
December 13, 2009
December 14, 2009
December 14, 2009
December 30, 2009
, which is now available for the 
