Hollywood vs. Real Life

As the NYT article states, The Day After Tomorrow may be badly-needed publicity for environmentalists to get the message out about global warming and about the terrible environmental policies that the Bush administration has adopted. Considering that the MPAA with anti-piracy and cracking down on illegal movie distribution, has Holly turned over a new stone?

Hollywood has always been known to saturate its pictures to theh point of incredibility. It's Hollywood in its natural state: hyperboles galore, special effects without substance, and outlandash ideas that are seldomly true.

Tomorrow is no different. With catastrophic natrual disasters that occur a million times the normal speed (eg. a sudden temperature drop to -150 degrees F occurs a volume of air in seconds that would take several tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of years to occur). Giant tidal waves sweep the western and eastern seaboard by melting glaciers is downright ridiculous. A catastropic heat buildup (on top of the cold air at the equatorial perimeter mind you!) must occur to scorching levels, or have some massive microwave bomb that is detonated in the polar regions of the earth. Even I, a Caltech graduate, would have difficulty inventing such poor science, let alone bother to watch such mind-dumbing pieces of 'work.'

So why would anyone want to watch this movie in the first place? There is nothing redeeming about this movie aside from the computer graphic effects that are used in this movie. But then we have many other motion pictures that uses these special effects liberally: the Marvel Comic adaptation to movies, Pixar animations, the list goes on and on. A typical American would not watch this movie on the environment -- it has no message or substance behind its layers of special effects compared to other better movies out there. Only environmentalists and movie critics would have any real interest ; the former to justify their ideas and cause, the latter, to follow their stalwart routine in sitting through every single movie, no matter how bad it is. As the result, the message would only reach a few.

Hollywood has never held any reason to depict reality, true stories, or even novels accurately, let alone voice any political stances. Hollywood is out to make money. That is the bottom line. This movie is no different. Whatever message about the environment, if any, that the movie attempts expose its viewers to is washed away by waves and waves of the real reason this movie was made: the visual effects that is supposed to captivate the viewer's eye -- not the the supposedly alarmist stance on global warming and bad environmental policies. Any attempts at message broadcasting by Hollywood eventually gets lost in the furor in earning salt.

Move along, Hollywood. Let the real experts on storytelling talk about the environment and global warming.