Film | 2012 (2009)

The Ancient Greek pantheon of gods was rife with tussles for preeminence between the immortals. And quite often the mere mortals were Sim-like pawns in these wars of might.

After watching 2012, I can’t help but think that God and Roland Emmerich are two such immortals pitched in a battle over who can play out the best disaster on the world stage. Emmerich’s thrown everything at it for his latest pitch.

For those who’ve escaped the epic promos, 2012 is a movie about the end of the world. It is the final year of the Mesoamerican calendar and, as legend has it, the final year of existence too. And this is the basic premise of the movie — surviving apocalypse.

In 2009, a group of scientists discover the world will indeed end in 2012. World leaders listen and act, collaboratively setting in motion plans for nothing less than the survival of the human species (remember, this is fiction). Of course, the citizenry are not informed, else anarchy break loose.

Web | Promoting the End of the World Online

2012 is the new movie from Roland Emmerich about the end of the world. It’s due for release in Australia on 12 November 2009. You can read about the movie and watch the trailer here.

But in this post I’m going to talk about the movie’s online presence, because one of the really fascinating things about 2012 is its online promotion. This movie has not one but eight websites, and with some really fun interactive content, as well as an interesting use of social media.

A lot of work has gone into “spilling” the film’s narrative into real life through the web. Of course, the film has an official movie site, but the remaining sites are for organisations and characters. You might recall the promotion for The Blair Witch Project, a groundbreaking campaign that unfolded the story on the internet before the release to give the impression that this mockumentary was actually based on real events.

The use of the web to promote 2012 is very similar, though less about creating an impression of reality and more about extending the experience of the movie to the net.

Anyway, without further ado, let’s take a look at the campaign.

Film | 2012 (or, Three Years’ Away From Doom)

Forget Copenhagen and climate change, people, because the world is going to end in 2012. At least according to upcoming disaster flick 2012 from apocalypse obsessed director Roland Emmerich — who also brought us Independence Day, Godzilla and The Day After Tomorrow.

The year 2012 is eschatologically significant — it’s the end of the Mesoamerican, or Mayan, calendar. More precisely, 21/23 December 2012 of our Gregorian calendar. Legend has it that 2012 is not just the end of the calendar, but of the world as well. And this is the basic premise of the movie — surviving apocalypse.

In the eye of the storm is a broken Curtis family – science-fiction writer Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), his ex-wife Kate (Amanda Peet) and their kids. Disaster movies classically involve a broken family that’s restored through the natural disaster (what else would get you back together with Tom Cruise other than human eating plants?). It’s the usually subtext in these movies.