Man, Nature Mix Things Up in ‘Day After Tomorrow’
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – To hear director Roland Emmerich tell it, there may be no May 29 or, for that matter, May 30. And this Monday’s Memorial Day holiday in the United States — kiss that one goodbye, too.
Emmerich, maker of 1996 hit “Independence Day” about aliens invading Earth, debuts his new doomsday film, “The Day After Tomorrow,” on Friday. The new film offers a look at what could occur if man’s messing with Mother Nature freezes us in a new Ice Age.
London, Tokyo, Moscow get blanketed by snow. New York is flooded and frozen like an ice cube tray. The southern U.S. emigrates to Mexico — all in about seven days.
Make no mistake, “The Day After Tomorrow” is pure Hollywood fantasy. But well before its debut, the film has sparked talk of what really could occur if we fail to halt global warming.
Volunteers from environmental groups Global Exchange and Rainforest Action Network plan to leaflet theaters in 80 cities, and Moveon.org is holding a “Town Hall” on the issue in New York. It follows a similar London meeting two weeks ago.
The groups have no big complaints with the film, except to say that dramatic changes in weather would take decades and would be regional not global. In fact, most are glad Emmerich has shed light on the issue, and the director is happy to cop a plea of using dramatic license.
“Yes, it is over the top, but it has to be,” he told Reuters. “Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a Hollywood movie.”
Emmerich does not consider himself an environmentalist, although he said he is concerned about the environment. But the idea that global warming, caused by burning fossil fuels, could lead to an Ice Age was intriguing. It had just the kind of ironic twist that makes a Hollywood plot, well, Hollywood.
GLOBAL SCALE, HUMAN DIMENSION
In “The Day After Tomorrow,” Dennis Quaid portrays climatologist Jack Hall, who theorizes that Earth’s warming atmosphere will lead to changing ocean currents — a fact established by scientists. This in turn, would melt polar ice, raise sea levels and push cold arctic air southward.
Hall claims such a catastrophe is 100, maybe 1000, years away. Little does he know, it is already happening, and only days after he publishes his theory, Earth’s climate shifts. That is where Hollywood comes in.
Tornadoes wreck Los Angeles. Tokyo is pelted with hail the size of melons, and the British Isles become a sheet of Ice.
In Manhattan, Hall’s son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) is trapped with several friends when the sea rises to flood city streets and kill millions. Arctic researcher Hall sets out from Washington, D.C. to save Sam, turning the story from a global disaster into a human tale of survival against odds.
Emmerich said one key to making disaster movies work for audiences is to bring a personal dimension to them.
“People who live through disasters are normal, regular people. You identify with those people and ask yourself, ‘what would I do?”‘ he said.
Emmerich, who wrote the story, said he shelved the first draft of “The Day After Tomorrow” following the Sept. 11 attacks, and slowly returned to it after six months or so.
The story had “an important theme,” he said. “Sept. 11 was not only about destruction, but also about bravery and coming together. The film also shows the resiliency of New Yorkers.”
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On that point, scientists agree. The human race can revise its course and reverse global warming.
“To me, this is not a doomsday scenario,” said Peter Frumhoff, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a non-profit Cambridge, Massachusetts, group. “It is a very pragmatic scenario … we’re in a position where we can make choices about what kind of future we want to make.”
So, sigh with relief. There will be May 29 and, for that matter, May 30. And the upcoming holiday will be there too, but — and here’s the really good news in the United States — you still don’t have to go to work.
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