Building catch fire, trees fall over, buildings buckle and slide into holes in the ground…no, it is not just another year in Los Angeles…it’s a movie about the end of the world.
The marketers for this have the news media insisting that ‘The world will end in 2012!’ just to get our attention. I guess it worked, after all, I just watched a trailer for 2012 and found myself wondering if:
- Is there any point to this other than watching stuff get destroyed?
- Where are the people in the plane expecting to land?
- Should we spend the time and money on this movie before the world ends or is there really no point since everything’s over in a few years anyway?
- Am I going to get a chance to care about these characters or will they be 2D clichés?
- Should the American Presidental candidates save their campaign money for a really big boat or merrily all go bungee-jumping for tomorrow we die?
I’ll admit, the cinematography in 2012 looks good and it has the capacity to carry some good character storylines. But will it measure up?
It seems to me as though action movies have become ever more action-filled, struggling to be thrill-packed, yet they so often miss the essential point that I need to care about the characters in order to be thrilled, horrified, or anything more than mildly interested.
And that brings me to the subject of writing.
I love action in both print and film. However, the writer ignores character development at their peril. Characters should be more than a pretty face and a few canned responses to the imaginative action going on around them. They should be flawed in human ways and have their own story arcs…they should, in some way, learn something or lose faith or gain wisdom.
The most interesting of human characteristics is the capacity to change and adapt, no matter how reluctantly. The thought processes that go along with this are equally fascinating because ten different people can have the same learning experience and all do it for different reasons and have different thoughts about it.
So will 2012 be a hit? I think a lot of people will see it. I will probably rent it, at least, so much of its sales figures can probably be chalked up to rampant curiosity and a nifty marketing campaign. But its true success, if there is one, will be if it actually delivers on the promise…to pull you in to a believable end of the world that haunts you afterward.
And if it all turns out to be true? I’m looking forward to the bungee- jumping presidential candidates.
Absolutely agreed. Characterization is a must in every story that promises to be a good one.
As to the end of the world, such a thing has been predicted hundreds of times in the past. In fact, I thought the world was supposed to end this year, because that was when the Mayan calendar was supposed to end…or something.
Maybe none of us are really sure after all? Maybe? Possibly?