What materials and concepts does the film day after tomorrow embrace?

Answer 1

The primary source material The Day After Tomorrow embraces is a book written by Art Bell and Whitley Streiber. Art Bell is best known for his AM radio show Coast to Coast where he specializes in interviewing alien abductee's, time travelers and ghost hunters, he has spent a number of years banging the drum slowly prognosticating doom and gloom. Whitley Streiber is best known for his science fiction work, most notably Communion. Their basic premise in this book is the same as the film, The Day After Tomorrow, that supposes that because of climate change...man made climate change...there is a gathering storm. A global super storm that will appear suddenly and without warning as if someone flipped a switch and turned off the heat. Their only evidence to support this notion of a global super storm is the discovery of some woolly mammoths with partially digested plants in their intestines. Their claim is that a freezing of this magnitude requires more than just an ordinary storm and thus, they suppose a global super storm.

Neither Art Bell nor Whitley Strieber are scientists they are, very much in the same vain as Micheal Moore, provocateurs. Both Bell and Streiber are less concerned with saving humanity from imagined horrors that come from humanity causing global warming than they are with promoting their own products. Nothing wrong in this and there is nothing wrong in the filmmakers of The Day After Tomorrow doing the same, which is exactly what they have done. They do, however, cling to pretensions that this quaint and silly piece of soap operatic Science Fiction will bring a higher awareness to the threat of global warming. Roland Emmerich, the films director, best known for films such as Independence Day, Godzilla and The Patriot, has openly admitted to a political agenda behind the "message" of this film called The Day After Tomorrow.

In an interview with The Toronto Star at the time of the films release, Emmerich had this to say about his agenda and frustration with American political policy in regards to climate change: "...even when 999 out of 1,000 scientists agree that global warming exists, and the one scientist who doesn't agree is bankrolled by an oil company, you have an administration that listens to the one scientist, not the 999 others." Emmerich is no more a scientist than Bell or Streiber and he is no more a journalist than 999 scientist are. Of course, journalists are hardly scientists either, and for years there have been a number of scientist who openly grumble about the mishandling, misinterpretations and misunderstanding that comes with journalism reporting all things scientific. Even so, scientists themselves tend to mishandle, misinterpret and misunderstand their own data, if not willfully bend the data to achieve their own ends.

Of the supposed 999 out of a thousand scientist who claim humans are causing global warming at least 998.99999999 of them are employed directly by or are funded by government money, which means your tax money. As Emmerich has pointed out the one scientist who contradicts those other 999 scientist is usually a paid paid employee of some oil company. Whether it is an actual ratio of one out of a thousand scientists who disagree with climate changed being caused by human activity is uncertain. What is certain is that when anyone, whether it be Roland Emmerich, Al Gore or organizers from Greenpeace, or Moveon.org, who points out that most scientist who disagree with the consensus that climate change is caused by humans, the point they are making is that, a scientist funded by private interests can not be trusted. Why people think a scientist funded by governmental interest can be trusted is never discussed and certainly not debated. Global warming is big business for scientist who depend on tax dollars for their research and experimentation. Good news, just as it is in journalism, doesn't really generate much funding. Bad news, really, really, really, scary news does. But, those who like to be really, really, really, scared also like to believe scientist who are willing to scare them. '

This basic concept, that of being really scared, is the primary idea behind The Day After Tomorrow. This film may have been really scary if it spent more time destroying cities and focusing on the mass migration of millions of people to warmer climates rather than spend so much time playing out the dramas and minutia of only a few. The destruction of cities and antarctic ice sheets happens in the very beginning of the movie which is a sure sign that the rest of the story is all downhill from there. There is nothing to build on when a story begins with total hysterical destruction and as it goes, the rest of the film wastes its time trying to scare its audience by presenting people who are really, really, really, cold. Brrrrrrrr...really scary.

In his attempt to portray the heartfelt passions and frailties of human emotion, Emmerich fared much better with Independence Day and The Patriot. Perhaps that is because with these film and even Godzilla, the director was more concerned with entertaining than pushing forth a political agenda. No one got too nervous when Independence Day was released with the idea that there were evil aliens out in the universe who are coming to get us. No one was too concerned with the idea that Jurassic type monsters created by nuclear proliferation were coming to destroy humanity after the release of Godzilla. Yet, The Day After Tomorrow was used by many organizations and even government officials to rally those who like to be really scared and approve of their being really scared by this mediocre film.

Perhaps if Al Gore traveled the continent in synchronized timing with the release of Independence Day and gave lectures on how the evil locust like aliens were coming to get us, people might be clamoring for a legislative bill to prevent such atrocities. Perhaps if Moveon.org had used its impressive organizational skills at the time Godzilla was released to convince people that scary monsters will rise from the ocean if governments don't stop proliferating nuclear weapons, people would be even more concerned with this cause. Indeed, after the release of the China Syndrome in the 1970's coupled with the Three Mile Island accident, many people were galvanized into demanding governments to restrain themselves from building weapons of mass destruction. But that was then and this is now and while there are still those who are passionate and heroically endeavoring to put a stop to the proliferation of nuclear weapons, global warming is the cause de jour.

Whether climate change is being caused by humans and whether or not that rise, a minute rise over the past one hundred years, is something humanity should be concerned with is an answer that belongs to a different question. For the purpose of this question, the idea that climate change is happening and is caused by humans is the main idea and thrust of The Day After Tomorrow. It is a movie and so we as audiences are willing to suspend disbelief in order to be entertained. The science behind weather patterns changing so rapidly a warm summer day can change into the next ice age in an instant is not science and not even Hollywood science it is politics. This silliness, however is not, by far, the most implausible scenario, even though 999 out of a 1000 scientist will agree it is impossible. The most implausible of all scenarios is the Dick Cheney like vice president who is portrayed as this films Snidely Whiplash who by the end of the film appears on television and apologizes to the world because he was wrong. That is pure Hollywood fantasy and a good director will take the implausible and make it seem plausible, but in this regard, Emmerich has failed.

The basic ideas and concept embraced by this film is:

1) A global super storm is coming soon.

2.) If we act now we can prevent it

3.) Absentee fathers can still be loving fathers

4.) Ex-wives of absentee fathers are usually saints

5.) Sons of absentee fathers are shy but fetching

6) Absentee fathers can walk from Washington D.C. to New York City during global super storms in only snow shoes in a matter of days.

and last but not least....

&.) Evil Vice Presidents will eventually offer their mea culpas and alls well that ends well.