2012 - THE SEQUEL

Planet Earth, 27 days after "2012" - a highly unrealistic depiction


A movie no one will care to make


At the end of the “end of the world as we know it” movie 2012 we are led to believe that a collection of humanity could survive the meltdown and break-up our Planet’s continents and after a mere 27 days could look out to a bright sky, breathe fresh air and walk onto habitable land. Given the nature and extent of the disaster that this movie depicts, whatever its true merits, it is a highly unlikely prospect that any life except bacterial would survive it.


"2012" - Plate tectonics gone wild

But let’s assume that 2012 in fact is a plausible scenario and that just a handful of people – a few hundred thousand – from across the globe would indeed start anew – on the January 1, 0001 - in a world of which the geology has reshuffled overnight, dwarfing the Himalayas and raising Africa to new prowess.

It is a neat touch of course, that such a story indeed would begin in Africa, with the same gene pool of all races put together as the gene pool of just a few hundred humans that once, some 75.000 years ago, was the base of humanity as it evolved to our present day.

But then the real struggle of our species begins. How would this new beginning, in unknown land and unknown true circumstances, actually be? Humanity’s survivors would have to leave behind every thought of civilization as they had known it. They have no choice but to relinquish every thought of public and private institutions servicing their physical and mental human needs ranging from prefab food to daily doses of pop music and televised news, working schools and hospitals, computer services; really everything.



"2012" - an airplane finding its way out of total destruction

How in fact could humanity prepare for ‘the end’ and still have any idea at all about one or the other new beginning. The scenario of “2012” does not contain the slightest hint of post-disaster planning. One could just as well consider this movie a story about prolonged dying.

If I were one of the happy few seeing the light of day after the 2012 Global Destruction, I would not waste my time in any discussion among fellow survivors about the world’s future, the organization of society or anything of the kind. My expectation would be that such discussion would have no end and that nothing substantial at any scale would be established for a long time. I would go my own way, far far away

In short, I would have a very pessimistic view of anything positive coming out of the last remains of humanity. I would reduce myself and my perspective to the wildest possible kind of animal, highly driven by my own survival instinct and perhaps by my drive to help my own genes survive. So, let’s hope there is a fertile woman around with the same beastly mentality.

Essentially, as we stand today, our humanity is helpless in such a world unless we accept the guidance of our very basic instincts. I believe that any intelligent and realistic human being would arrive at the same conclusion. Whatever remains of humanity is bound to dissolve in wilderness. There may be a tight circle of people still hanging on to the idea that something beautiful can or should come out of it. They will either perpetuate some religion or create a new one offering seeming security but at high cost, especially by being highly restrictive in most of the liberties that we have come to consider self-evident. At least some of them may attempt to create Utopia and probably, through this, help their way to a rather rapid self-destruction.

Who would wish to fantasize about this apparent ugliness and construct a sequel to 2012 out of it? If anyone would do it, it would attract an entirely different and probably much smaller audience of rather more philosophic people than of those who crave for immediate, consumable sensation.

Our species can sustain a substantial level of sophistication both in material and cultural or spiritual sense only if some very basic conditions (basic in our own mind) are met, such as the provision of food, energy, shelter, building materials etc. all of which would become highly uncertain in any “post 2012” world. What animals would still be around to provide us with meat? What trees, grasses and plants would grow to sustain the livelihood of any remaining populations of humans and animals alike?


Humanity, January 0001

Of course, on the long run, all options are open. But by all accounts it took the “post Dinosaur” world, as it emerged out of the great Meteorite impact 65 million years ago, at least many thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years to recuperate and create a new equilibrium of plant and animal life, widely different from the one that was blown away. There is no way humanity can plan for any development over such long time spans and thus, any survival scenario would as much be a jump into darkness as being killed in the disaster itself.

All of this leads me to conclude that there is no plausible way into a sequel to 2012 unless a large part of this movie is re-written altogether.