WhoWillSurvive2012

The 2012 trailer is out. It's title cards shout dramatically, "Mankind's earliest civilization warned us, this day will come. The end is just the beginning. This November, find out the truth." OK, then, so Sony's Columbia Pictures is releasing the next big disaster movie in November "2012" by Roland Emmerich, who gave us "Independence Day" and "The Day after Tomorrow." starring John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, Danny Gover. It looks like a great thrill ride of movie is coming our way. I, for one, can't wait to plunk down the money to see it in IMAX. If you haven't already done so, check out the movie website. At the risk of being a spoiler, no matter how good the mega-disaster is portrayed, the real world will not end that day, the sun will come up the next, and we'll go on.

Those of us old enough, remember the celebration of the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the excitement of the Harmonic Convergence, and then the tragedy sparked by the passing of the Comet Kohoutek. David Berg's cult The Children of God committed mass suicide believing they would taken away to the cosmos by aliens hiding behind the comet. And then, let us not forget the hysteria of of Jan 1, 2000, even though the new millenium did not begin until Jan 1, 2001, sorry if you haven't got that straight yet.
Now, we have the rising wave of fascination with another date, December 21, 2012, filling some with dread, some with hope, some with disdain, and some with derision.
If you want a clear explanation of how the Mayan calendar works, a modern day Mayan named Chino has posted a good one on YouTube. The Mayan long calendar cycle began 5,125 years ago and finishes its count finishing on the date December 21, 2012.
The new movie 2012 is capitalizing on the dread that the Mayan's calendar prophesies the end of the world, or at least the end of the world as we have known it. As entertaining as the movie is, and all the other stuff we will engulfed with over the next two years, it's really the laziest, least interesting view of that date, beaten only by the opinion that it means nothing at all. After all, the idea of an impending apocalypse nearly upon us, is not unusual among the religions of the world. The one thing about that date we can predict with absolute accuracy is that 2012 mania will explode, both on the news of that day and the days leading up to it. A lot of cataclysmic acts will be explainable as simple, self-fulfilling prophecy.



Far more interesting are the concepts that the end of these days, is the beginning of next era, as explained by the Hindu and Tibetan calendars. These view the end of an era as a transformative experience that ushers in a new age of enlightenment and harmony, although the transformation itself may be a rough ride. Unfortunately, most pop culture creators are going for the spectacular, but dumbing down story lines.




Fortunately there are those writers and filmmakers who see the opportunity to go for the high bar of quality entertainment with concepts that inspire and fire up our imaginations, to give us a glimpse of a future where human beings become their better selves.






Let's face it, the world is changing, faster and faster, and if we don't think about what is actually coming our way, we won't be ready to deal with it with common sense.



Of all the coming books and movies of the near future presented by December 21st of 2012, the best example is "Drones, Clones and Pheromones". In the film, the next era of humanity begins with the first child born after the end of the Mayan calendar. He is in fact the first of our descendent species, known to predictive biologists as homoperfectus.


I call this story "the best" because it is a magnificent story exploring in human terms the consequences of our taking evolution into our own hands. Human decisions will shape our descendants, rather than mere chance. The story is told with breath-taking action and effects. The science is up to date, and the science fiction is plausible. It poses questions about the consequences of our science, that we'd damn well better be thinking about now, before it's too late. Its characters and their love and hate relationships are engrossing and multi-dimensional. It is humanity here and today and tomorrow.


"Drones, Clones and Pheromones" is soon going into production, destined to be the definitive 2012 story. In the meantime, have fun watching the Columbia Pictures version of mass destruction and mayhem.