when we had this at the cinema they actually scheduled it for twelve minutes past eight. Someone in the company actually has a sense of humour I guess.

Customers had a hard time understanding it however.

"whens twenty twelve on?"
"it's on at 2012 - see what they did there!"
"...No?"

This movie is the worse kind of disaster porn. I'm tired of so called "fun" and "entertaining" movies of massive slaughter with human life having as much value as tissue paper. While i think you can use that in a movie you have to address that like say "children of men". I didn't mind ID4 despite being all "rah rah America" as it included the rest of the world and made several points on how horrific these events are in a way that justified it.

But this has zero redeeming value. I didn't like anything about it even the CGI just looked like money, after the second crazy LA scene it had become a video game.
I went to the siggraph on 2012 here in Vancouver during the spark festival and saw how much work it was, which i respect but on screen it was boring.

If this had been done like say Team America with the same thunder birds look it would have rocked.

Last edited by Deamon (2010-11-17 01:31:14)

I agree with Dorkman (and Brian, can't forget Brian) for the majority of the commentary. 2012 is not fun or exciting. It is nothing but a CGI showcase and while those are really pretty, they are surrounded by a lame plot and characters that I just don't give a toss for. Oh, and having about 4 near identical escape scenes is pretty darn desperate.

This movie had a guesstimated budget of $200 million.

Forty really good movies could have been made for that.

Or a hundred modest movies could have been made, probably eight or ten of which would have turned out truly great.

This movie isn't just bad. And it's not just stupid. It's both of those things, but it's also an infuriating waste of talent, creativity, time, labor and money.

The world would have been a better place if this movie had never existed.

I hate this movie. But more than that, I hate the fact that this movie exists.

2012 made $800 million, plus DVD sales. That's 600 million dollars more than they spent on it.

One hundred and twenty really good movies can be made with that.

It's the same way SyFy can afford to make 22 episodes of Caprica even though no one watches the show. They know that wrestling and ghosts aren't sci-fi, but they know two things:

1. They can make those shows
2. They will make money on those shows

You can't convince a studio that has no money to make your $20 million indie movie. You CAN convince a studio that has a ton of money because they just released 2012 to do so.

Not to mention all the kids of grips and sound guys and electricians and boom mike operators that that $200 million put food into the mouths of.

Last edited by Gregory Harbin (2010-11-18 23:02:50)

Obviously a studio doesn't need to be convinced to make more movies that make them back a 400% return.

But there's only so many slots on the schedule for a gigantic summer release. They can't support exponential releases:

2009: 1 2012
2010: 4 2012s
2011: 16 2012s
2012: 64 2012s
2013: 256 2012s
2014: 1,024 2012s

You start running out of weekends in the year. Which is why—surprise—small, good movies still get made, even though 2012s and Transformerses make them more money.

Last edited by Gregory Harbin (2010-11-18 23:23:43)

But movies like 2012 are huge gambles, not guaranteed money-makers. Carolco tried to make mostly blockbuster films and collapsed after Showgirls and Cutthroat Island drained them.

So it's not like stripping, where you sacrifice your humanity because you know you'll make great money, especially on those little side jobs doing a "private party" for one lonely divorcee, but it's okay because you can feed your little girl, and as long as she's still too young to know what daddy is doing to pay the bills it's not so hard to sleep at night, but as soon as she's old enough for school you are definitely going to quit stripping and get a normal job.

Or perhaps I have personalized the metaphor too much.

The point is, blockbusters need to be good or they can destroy the studio, so people should stop giving Roland Emmerich money. He only makes dumb mega-films, and audiences are slowly wising up, and it's just a matter of time before he makes a mega-flop.

That is, unless he reads this and wants to produce my idea for a blockbuster movie about a team of young time traveling adventurers kept in seclusion by their mysterious leaders so their knowledge doesn't taint their ability to change the past....

I would add M. Night Shyamalan, Uwe Boll, and Paul W.S. Anderson to that list.  Shyamalan keeps trying to re-create what he did with Sixth Sense, and I haven't heard anything good Boll.  I do enjoy Event Horizon and Resident Evil, but Anderson seems stuck doing the same thing over and over, hit or miss.

Nobody risks $200 M of their own money. But regardless, if Emmerich is in deep for his films, then the day will be all the sweeter when audiences get wise.

When people who spent good money on Godzilla and The Patriot and The Day After Tomorrow realize they were made my the same guy, they'll opt out of his new project, and it will be a mega-flop.

Is it so hard to believe that people enjoy watching Emmerich's movies? It's like complaining that someone built ANOTHER theme park, because you hate roller-coasters.

Um yeah, Greg.  Having your own production company doesn't mean you self finance.  He still has to get money from distributors to largely bankroll his movies.  You can make the argument that because his movies do well that he can get financing, but don't say he's spending his own money when he's not.