"2012"

I got around to seeing 2012. Of course, for a film like 2012, “seeing” is the operative word.

What’s ironic about the film is that even though its director is a hardcore unbeliever, 2012 is in striking ways a flood geologist’s dream come to. Imagine a secular Hollywood director sinking $200 million in CGI on a film which is, in notable respects, a hitech commercial for young-earth creationism.

I’m not saying it’s technically accurate in terms of what, say, Kurt Wise would do if he were the director, but it’s certainly evocative.

The first part of the film resembles the day of judgment. Or, at least, one strand of eschatological imagery. The Bible uses a variety of figurative images to depict the day of judgment. Some imagery is destructive while other imagery is restorative. As a result, there are debates in Christian theology about whether the day of judgment will result in a new earth or a renewed earth.

CGI has reached the point where, as you watch the film, you say to yourself, This is what the final judgment could really be like!

However, the second part of the film takes the cataclysm in different direction, with heavy-handed allusions to Noah’s flood. Of course, it’s an “updated” version of that event, but the allusions are obvious.

And while this may not be intentional on the director’s part, Noah’s flood has this doubled-edged quality–for it prefigures eschatological salvation as well as eschatological judgment.