There is a proverb: History repeats itself. We don’t really know whether it’s true, but the stories of old myths and legends repeat in most of the modern movies . The old stories come to us in a new ways . The theme of 2009 movie 2012 is very close to the Biblical story of Noah and his ark. After a quick scrutiny it might seem that the messages of these two stories are same: Don’t do anything against the rule of God/Nature. But actually there is a vast difference between the two. To know this point more elaborately we have to know the story of Noah shortly.
Once upon a time earth was corrupted with violence and tyranny. So, God decided to destroy all lives. But Noah was the only righteous man at that time. God told him to build a big ark in which he was instructed to take pairs of each kind of birds and animals and their food. After that the gates of heaven were opened and God closed the door of the ark. The flood began and even the mountain tops are covered with water. All the people, animals and birds had died. Only Noah and his family and the living creatures in his ark remained.
Then God blew the wind and closed the windows of heaven. So, the water started decreasing. In the seventh month the ark stopped on the mountain of Ararat, and in the tenth month the top of the mountain had seen. In the six hundred and first year, the water was dried off the earth and with the instruction of God Noah left the ark.
We can find almost a similar story in Greek Mythology, but in Greek myth Noah is replaced by Deucalion. In the Iron age man was the most treacherous animal in the world. There was no modesty, love, respect and truth in them. Crime flowed like flood. Even family members were not able to believe each other. So, Jupiter and other gods took the decision to destroy the world.
After that the face of heaven was darkened by a thick cloud and rain started falling continuously. Rivers overflowed and covered the land. Neptune heaved the land with an earthquake and all the oceans jumped on the shore and flooded most of the hills. Every people and animals and birds died. Among all the mountains, Parnassus only over-topped the waves. Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha took refuge there. Deucalion and Pyrrha were very faithful follower of gods. So, when Jupiter saw none but only the pair left alive, he drove the clouds and the rain stopped.
So the moral of these two stories is very clear and a religious one. God has created us. So, he has the every right to punish us if we do any harm. He has set some rules of what to do. Any violation of those rules can kick us to death and hell. And only some religious person who always do what God want us to do will survive among us.
In the movie 2012 God is replaced by Nature. Years after year man did many harms to Nature. The kingdom of trees has been has been overthrown. Land and water has been polluted. And the air is so off-white that it fades the beauty of the dawn. So, now its nature’s turn to take revenge. Man made the world so hot that the ice-covers of the mountains and poles started melting very quickly. And the water label is coming to engulf everything. Some scientists made a huge water-protected ship in the course of the time and saved many other people.
The moral is: Don’t go against the rules of Nature. Here Nature seems to be as powerful as god.
But there is also a hidden hint. In the story of Noah and Deucalion God chose who is going to survive and uses Nature to fulfill His needs. And the moral was obviously fully religious.
But in the movie 2012 some man tried hard to survive against Nature and they survive ultimately. It’s not God or Nature who mercy them to live. With the efforts of their own they made it possible.
So, the another message of the story is: Man can do almost anything he like. There is no need to be religious (because when the destruction started, many people has gathered into the church to pray and most of them died under that demolished church). What is needed is the super-human effort to live, to survive. And this moral again celebrates indirectly Darwin’s theory of Survival of the Fittest.
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