Rough Draft

“10,000 years ago, one storm changed the face of our planet. On May 28, it will happen again”. This is the tagline to the film, “Day After Tomorrow” starring Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ian Holm, Emmy Rossum and Sela Ward. The film tries to showcases how the planet will be affected by the damage done by mankind. Following the growing “green” environmental trend, the film tries to inform people of the risks of remaining ignorant to our Earth’s current status.

Disappointingly, “Day After Tomorrow” goes far too overboard to be taken seriously. A consultation by NASA scientists was requested before the filming of the movie, but even NASA stated that the events in the film were too ridiculous to actually occur, and hence denied the request.

Viewers expecting to see scientific truthful information about global warming are seriously disappointed. During the “pulse-pounding rollercoaster ride” as the film’s website claims, there are tidal waves that engulf New York City, tornados tearing apart bout Las Angeles, and everything begins to freeze solid. Not only do these events happen at the same time, but they take place all in the period of one day. During these events, the characters must also battle, wolves, blood transfusions, and a trek from Washington DC to New York City. Any environmental issues that the film tried to address are buried deep under the dramatics they used to keep the audience’s attention.

Unfortunately, this type of media portrayal of the serious environmental issues causes a large problem. Anything truthful and shocking about the planet’s status will soon be disregarded as another Hollywood shocker to rake in the money. Like the story about the boy who cried wolf, eventually the general public will be numb to any more environmental issues, which is an actual cause that deserve their attention.

 

However, “Day After” does include several surprisingly barbed attacks on the US administration.  “Casting Kenneth Welsh as the Vice President was controversial due to his physical resemblance to US Vice-President Dick Cheney, but the director Roland Emmerich insisted on it for that very reason, likely to highlight the Bush/Cheney administration's opposition to the Kyoto Protocol for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.” Perhaps Emmerich decided to highlight the stupidity of the government during times of environmental crisis, which was unfortunately proven during the Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Also during production of the film, Emmerich supposedly paid $200,000 out of his own pocket to make the production "carbon-neutral", where all carbon dioxide emitted by the production was offset by the planting of trees, and investments in renewable energy.

 

There is another way that the film itself can help save the environment. The DVD for the film “An Inconvenient Truth” is packaged to make the smallest possible environmental footprint - it is made of 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper, no excess materials, and absolutely no plastics. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this DVD will benefit the bipartisan climate effort, The Alliance for Climate Protection.

In the documentary “Inconvenient Truth” Director Davis Guggenheim uses the former Vice President Al Gore to present the science of global warming. Gore’s lifelong commitment to reversing the effects of global climate change is also highlighted in this film. A longtime advocate for the environment, Gore presents a wide array of facts and information in a humorous lecture, filled with evidentiary graphs and charts.

 

Gore presents photos of actual sites around the world in a before and after style to show the drastic changed in just the last 20 years. He talk about how when US congress passed the clean air act, you can visibly tell in the ice core samples in Antarctica. He presents several graphs, proving the correlation between Temperature and CO2, the rise of CO2 in our lifetimes, and the predicted temperature rise.

 

            But even with all the scientific evidence presented clearly, the film takes a wrong turn. It focuses too much on Gore’s personal life and turns the film into an emotional cry for help. Gore tells the sad story of his sons car accident and having to wait in the hospital for a month. This apparently led to his interest in studying global warming and traveling around the planet looking for answers.

You look at that river gently flowing by. You notice the leaves rustling with the wind. You hear the birds; you hear the tree frogs. In the distance you hear a cow. You feel the grass. The mud gives a little bit on the riverbank. It's quiet; it's peaceful. And all of a sudden, it's a gearshift inside you. And it's like taking a deep breath and going, "Oh yeah, I forgot about this." Says Gore

Al Gore is like an entertaining lecturer professor, although the material is made to be easily understandable, even for people without a scientific background. The film tells us our duty is to separate truth from fiction, but also tells us that the government and popular media will try to hide it. So who exactly are we supposed to believe?

 

Even children’s film media is turning environmental, such as “Ice Age”, “The Bee Movie” and “Arctic Tale”, but these movies are right on track for children. As adults, it is important to critically question all the information that is presented in films about the green plight and understand that it is a real issue. Not the next new controversy, but something that everyone needs to understand.

 

 “An Inconvenient Truth is not a story of despair but rather a rallying cry to protect the one earth we all share.  ‘It is now clear that we face a deepening global climate crisis that requires us to act boldly, quickly, and wisely,’ said Gore”. 

** I hope to interview someone in the K biology department as well as add more information about childrens movies. I was only able to briefly touch on the green movement outside of the two films, and I think I would like to add more on that  as well.