Well I just saw "The day after tomorrow" tonight, and despite the cheesy lines ("I hope mankind will learn from their mistakes when battling this storm, and I hope I have learned from my mistakes from not spending as much time with my son as I could have..." *BAAAAARF*) I appreciated the special effects and the overall atmosphere in the movie, despite this.
In summary, the crashed heli-pilot's death and the flooding of NY actually got to me. It is a turn-up from "Independence Day", because this problem and crisis was unavoidable and insolvable, the only choice was to ride it out.
At 3/4ths of the movie I half-expected the little ET-child to use PSI-Powers or Love to conquer/defeat the storm. "There is no spoon- I mean Storm!"
Either that, or I thought he'd upload a virus that destroys the shields protecting the storm, enabling a rotund fertilizer-man to crash right into the eye of the storm and kill it dead.
With that said, I have to contest what I think was a gravest of factual errors. At the end of the movie, the new President is giving a speech to all the americans, saying basically "I hope we will learn now tha we can't be abusing fossile fuels and freone at this rate or we'll kill Mommie Earth".
The storm was created through a naturally occurring phenomenon, just like 10000 years earlier (mammoths go 'oops'). It was connected with Global Warming. Global Warming has fuck all to do with the Greenhouse Effect or human pollution. Ergo, the President's wholesome lecture was totally inappropriate and factually retarded. Am I right in my analysis or did I simply not grasp enough of Dr. Quaid's rushed and simplistic crisis-explanations throughout the movie?
Also, I don't remember seeing anything else from Ian Holm and his scottish lads after he says "Save as many as you can...". There is no confirmation that he and his lads died, is this to simply be assumed? I have always observed that when the director is going to kill off a sympathetic character that gave his life to save others, the director will try to get as much grief and sympathy of the samaritan's passing as possible, to make the plot juicier. Did they drop the ball with Holm's "presumed" death???
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
Most scientists believe global warming is due to the Greenhouse effect and human pollution. Among those who don't are scientists supporting the anti-environmental policies of the Bush/Cheney/Halliburton administration.
Posted by Neutrino 123 (Member # 1327) on :
The Earth undergoes normal climate cycles from the greenhouse effect and other factors, and we are now in a natural warming phase. However, this does not mean that additional production of greenhouse gases won't increase the severity of and hasten this cycle. Many scientists indeed agree that humans are playing a signifigant part in the current cycle.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Of course, the only way to be sure one way or the other would be to make a duplicate planet in the exact same orbit as a control. Let's get on that.
The movie was bad. Just... bad. Nice special effects, but... bad. So let me get this straight: the polar ice caps melt. This SOMEHOW causes the gulf stream to stop working. This SOMEHOW causes absurdly massive low pressure systems that, instead of being filled by the air around them, suck something like 1000 times the volume of air down from fifty miles above. Admittedly, EECE doesn't cover meteorology, but I'm pretty sure low pressure systems don't work that way. And just where did all the water come from, praytell, to create the massive sheets of ice that covered the continents? Let's not even get into thermodynamics...
Posted by Ace (Member # 389) on :
The water's probably from the same source where Young Earth Creationists say the water that flooded Noah's earth was stored.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
I happen to be studying Geology and Oceanography at the college freshman level, working towards a degree in the same subjects. I have not seen this movie (the pseudo-science looked too annoying based on the clip I saw at WonderCon) but from what I can tell, the timescale on which the meteorological events portrayed in the film is ridiculously abbreviated. In actuality, such events would occur over a period of thousands of years. The onset of an ice age is not an aprupt disaster but a gradual climactic change.
I cannot speak as to how accurate the specific events themselves are compared to what would actually happen becuase I have not seen the film, but my impression is that it is part fact and part dramatic license. I would not be surprised if the latter exceeded the former.
That being said, the Earth's natural cycle of warming and cooling is indeed affected in a profound way by man's burning of fossil fuels and the resulting greenhouse effect. The current rates of warming compared to those that have occured in previous cycles are significantly accelerated due to these occurrences.
-MMoM Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
Director Roland Emmerich conceded that while the events portrayed in the film are indeed possible, the timeframe over which they take place is implausibly short and was tailored for sheer entertainment value.
Reading info from imdb.com...
∙ The US Army loaned several UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters for the rescue scene at the end, prompting the Canadian authorities to reassure the people of Montreal that they weren't being invaded by America.
I went to this movie mostly for the effects, LA getting destroyed by tornadoes. NY getting flooded and frozen, etc. I wasn't expecting much more than that. If anything though, I've learned that if the shit ever happens, NY and LA are the last places you ever want to be. Independence Day, wiped out. Armageddon, NY was totalled by meteors. I also thought it was funny watching Americans flee into Mexico.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"With that said, I have to contest what I think was a gravest of factual errors."
From what I've heard, the entire movie is the gravest of factual errors.
Posted by Nim the Fanciful (Member # 205) on :
Touch�. A boing to you, sir. *boing*
The Mighty Monkey of Mim: "In actuality, such events would occur over a period of thousands of years."
Well, the plot (and the writers) used one single piece of "fact" to rationalize all of the quickly-happening events; in the museum scene, the kids talk about the mammoth that stands stuffed in the Prehistoric Era, saying "it froze over standing up, munching a mouthful of green grass, and had grass in its belly".
My brother's girlfriend repeated this in the car home, while turning around and looking at me in the backseat, saying that "scientists agree that the mammoth in question had been hit by a freeze-wind that sunk in temperature much like in 'Day After Tomorrow', 10 degrees per second or so".
I said "I don't believe it could happen in one minute or even five, it might well be that the mammoth in kvestion had dug up some grass from under the snow with its tusks, and died from a storm that had been raging for the last six months, so it still knew where to find grass, but then died." Then she threw an unopened coke-can on my left shin and now apparently I'm not invited to her and my brother's wedding.
Thoughts?
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
Sounds like your brother's choice in women leaves something to be desired. Posted by Futurama Guy (Member # 968) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim: Sounds like your brother's choice in women leaves something to be desired.
Unless she has big knockers.
Has anyone stopped to think that maybe it is all just based on...
THE WILL OF GOD!!
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
quote:Originally posted by Omega: So let me get this straight: the polar ice caps melt. This SOMEHOW causes the gulf stream to stop working.
Well, not so much the polar ice caps as freshwater glaciers in North America. My geology professor went over this in class one day. She said that within a span of 5 years or so the gulf stream could be shut off from freshwater glacier melt and thus exposing Europe to the same lovely climate we enjoy here in Atlantic Canada.
Posted by Captain Boh (Member # 1282) on :
I thought he agreed not to destroy the world
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Flood the world. He agreed never to flood the world. So, as long as the whole planet doesn't flood at once, it's okay.
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
quote: I happen to be studying Geology and Oceanography at the college freshman level, working towards a degree in the same subjects. I have not seen this movie (the pseudo-science looked too annoying based on the clip I saw at WonderCon)
Yeah; I suspect this film was to geographers what The Patriot and U-571 were to historians. I just thought it was very funny, especially the dialogue. Special effects were good though.
Posted by Nim the Fanciful (Member # 205) on :
Can anyone think of any positive effects or results that the storm in the movie might've created? In the aftermath, I mean.
Posted by Ace (Member # 389) on :
No more mosquitos and cicadas.
...and yeah, I know they serve a purpose. They are just rather irritating.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Well, all central american debt was forgiven, is that good?
Posted by Nim the Fanciful (Member # 205) on :
What, because the US needed to move their people there? Was that it?
I wonder if the storm and ensuing instant-winter "cleaned out" the atmosphere and smog and such, giving the northern hemisphere a gigantic "car wash"? Is this plausible?
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"Can anyone think of any positive effects or results that the storm in the movie might've created?"
The acceleration of the extinction of the human race?
Wait, was that too cynical?
Posted by Nim the Fanciful (Member # 205) on :
AVAILABLE RESPONSES:
1: NO
2: COME BACK LATER
3: FUCK YOU ASSHOLE
4: MAYBE
5: >YES< Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
quote:Originally posted by Nim the Fanciful: Can anyone think of any positive effects or results that the storm in the movie might've created? In the aftermath, I mean.
Big boom for the heater business. ALthough that'd be offset by the crash in demand for air conditioning.
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