2012 won't be the end after all
11/07/2009 12:44:00 PM
kenmouse
, Posted in
Good news, PopWatchers! The world won’t be coming to an end in 2012, no matter what Roland Emmerich’s new movie says. We checked with Dr. Edwin Krupp, director of LA’s Griffith Observatory–who also happens to be an expert on the Mayan calendar–and he assured us that the Earth will continue going about its business despite what you’ll be seeing on movie screens when 2012 opens (Nov. 13). “On or about the 21st of December, 2012, the Maya calendar is going to complete one of its cycles, which is called a Baktun,” Krupp says. “It’s just an interval. It happens every 5125 years.This particular interval is Baktun number 13, as it’s known in the traditional Maya scriptures. But the Mayans never said anything about this being the end of time. That’s just something somebody made up. In fact, there’s only one inscription on one Maya monument that refers to Baktun number 13 at all. That inscription is about a Mayan god and how he’s going to do this that and the other thing–but there’s nothing about the end of of the world.” In other words, PopWatchers, whew.
'2012' Loses Worldwide Destruction to Avoid Religious Wars
Roland Emmerich has demolished nearly every beloved monument in the world in his disaster movie career - from Big Ben in 'Independence Day' to the Statue of Liberty in 'The Day After Tomorrow' - but you won't see the German filmmaker take down Islam's holiest site in his new end-of-days flick '2012.' Emmerich had planned to show the destruction of the Kaaba, the structure in Mecca toward which Muslims turn for daily prayer, but changed his mind when his co-writer suggested the scene might spark more trouble than they'd bargained for.
"My co-writer Harald [Kloser] said I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie. And he was right," Emmerich told SciFiWire. "It's just something which I kind of didn't [think] was [an] important element, anyway, in the film, so I kind of left it out."
The director added, "We have to all ... in the Western world ... think about this. You can actually ... let ... Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have ... a fatwa, and that sounds a little bit like what the state of this world is."
Fans of disaster movies shouldn't fear that Emmerich is losing his edge. The director, who did include a destruction shot of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, pushed plenty of other buttons. "Because I'm against organized religion," Emmerich explained.
"The whole Vatican kind of tips and kind of rolls over the people. It said something, because in the story, some people ... believe in praying and prayer, and they pray in front of the church, and it's probably the wrong thing, what they would do in that situation."
"I always try to come up with what makes sense for the story, you know?" Emmerich said. "And it's not only about the destruction. It has to kind of stand for something.
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