Anonymous asked: I THINK I LOVE YOU, OKAY
LET ME EXPLAIN TO YOU WHY 2012 IS SO CONCEPTUALLY INCREDIBLE OKAY GATHER ‘ROUND CHILDREN THIS IS IMPORTANT.
FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS DISCUSSION, WE ARE PRETENDING THAT NO ONE HAS EVER MADE THIS FILM AND WE’RE JUST TALKING ABOUT IT AS A CONCEPT THAT SHOULD HAPPEN. EXCEPT WHEN I OCCASIONALLY REFERENCE THE FILM THAT HAS ALREADY BEEN MADE, IN WHICH CASE, IT IS OKAY TO REMEMBER THAT ONE TIME AN AWFUL FILM GOT MADE AND IT GOT A LOT OF ATTENTION AND I DEVELOPED AN OBSESSION WITH IT DESPITE ONLY HAVING SEEN IT ONCE.
Okay, because, right, it’s confusing. The concept. It’s deceptive. Because when you look at it, you think it’s a Will Smith Saves The World sort of movie. But it’s not! And if it is, it shouldn’t be. When you consider it, it’s actually an Adrian Brody Plays The Piano kind of movie. And that’s how you should look at it!
Because no one in the movie is actually trying to save the world. It’s an important part of the premise! People know, right from the off, that the world is going to end, and no one thinks they can stop it. They don’t send Bruce Willis into space. They don’t send Robert Duvall into space. No one gets sent into space. (Actually someone might get sent into space it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it and the subtitles weren’t working on my copy, so anything could have been happening in the Paris/Tibet scenes. BUT NEVER MIND WE’RE DISCUSSING THIS CONCEPTUALLY NO ONE IS IN SPACE AND OLIVER PLATT NEVER PLAYED A SORT OF BAD GUY OR AT LEAST A NOT AS NICE GUY AS SOME OF THE OTHER GUYS ACTUALLY IN RETROSPECT HE WAS PRETTY OKAY BUT HE HAD TO MAKE SOME TOUGH DECISIONS LIKE DECIDING TO BE IN THE FILM IN THE FIRST PLACE WHY OLIVER WHY.)
So, the world is ending, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Civilisation, as we know it, is going to end, and it will probably never come back. The most anyone can hope to do, in this scenario, is save some people. Not all the people, just… some people. So, in the context of this film, the most the hero can ever hope to do is save some people he loves. But most importantly, and think on this, everyone and everything they have ever known will die. AND I WANT TO SEE THAT. Not— no, wait, dammit, I made me sound crazy. Not everyone dying, that’s not the bit I’m in it for. But I want to see someone have to decide to save just a few people they love. (FOR THE PURPOSE OF THIS RANT, THE HERO WILL BE REFERRED TO WITH MASCULINE PRONOUNS, BECAUSE IN MY HEAD HE’S STILL JOHN CUSACK, LORD HELP US. LET’S RECAST. THE HERO OF OUR FILM IS NOW… NOAH TAYLOR. BECAUSE FUCK OFF THAT’S WHO IT IS THIS IS MY RANT.)
So, Noah has to make that decision. (OHOHO HIS NAME IS NOAH AND LATER HE HAS TO GET ON A BIG ARK IT ALL MAKES SENSE, NOW.) He has to choose a very small number of people he loves, and he has to save them. And he has to decide not to tell a lot of other people he loves what’s happening, because if he wants to save this very small number of people he loves, their safety hinges on the competition for salvation being limited. So, he has to essentially kill a lot of people he loves, by omission. And imagine if the film actually dealt with that decision. Imagine if it dealt with him toying with never telling his family, and staying with them, and letting them die happy, and dying with them, because he doesn’t know if he can face being responsible for them having to live in a world where everything they have ever known has been destroyed. Imagine if he did save them, and the film ended with them stepping off the ark and facing that reality.
IMAGINE THAT WORLD, OKAY. I WANT A DISASTER MOVIE SET IN POST-WAR GERMANY. THE HERO HEARS THAT THE WORLD IS GOING TO END, AND INSTEAD OF RUNNING AROUND AND DRIVING A FAST CAR THROUGH EXPLOSIONS, HE SITS DOWN AND GETS EMOTIONALLY FUCKED UP. IT’S ARMAGEDDON WRITTEN BY CHARLIE KAUFMAN.
AND THERE’S STILL EXPLOSIONS AND THE WORLD STILL ENDS, BUT THE GRAPHICS ARE AMAZING AND THE DRAMA IS MUTED AND WHEN THE CREDITS ROLL YOU SIT THROUGH ALL OF THEM BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT SURE HOW YOU FEEL.
