Geological Movie Review of The Day After Tomorrow - Part 9

Geological Movie Review of The Day After Tomorrow - Overview

 

- Scientific Input -

1:57:24 - The scientific advisor for the movie is Michael Molitor, PhD. Now I understand that most scientists do not want their names on these types of movies, understandably so, because they may destroy any credibility the scientist may have. Also most decisions about the plotline is essentially the choice of the director with the scientist's ideas taking a back seat. But in reality who is Dr. Molitor and what is his specialty in? He is the founder of CarbonShift Ltd, an Australian company with a focus of helping other companies become more climate aware. He was formally a faculty member at UC San Diego and also a member of the faculty at the Climate Research Division at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He also served at the external advisor to BP on their climate change strategy (UNSW). So all in all, it seems like he is a good person to have as an advisor to a climate change movie.

 

- Other Notes of Interest -

 

1:01:22 - Why is there a Russian ship in the middle of NYC? It's not like they were trying to help us or anything because they just sailed in and stopped. The US military maybe I could see, but a Russian ship? I do not see the point.

 

1:14:39 - They have a conversation in the movie about burning Friedrich Nietzsche. Now I can't see the book they are burning but the interesting thing is that one of Nietzshe's books entitled The Antichrist began partly with: "...Only the day after tomorrow belongs to me. Some are born posthumously." I doubt that the choice in author was coincidental for that scene.

 

1:55:02 - And who can leave out the memorable last line - "Have you ever seen the air so clear?" I mean what can be a better conclusion to a global destruction movie then a comment on how much better the air quality is after the destruction of most of the planet.

 

- Overview (or important thoughts to take home) -

 

     For a movie that plays fast and quick with science, they have an amazing number of small details correct like the date and location of the UN Conference on Global Warming and the ice sheet that broke off of Antarctica. But the main problem I have with this movie is that not only the rate at which things are happening (as stated in the movie, it's happening "too fast") but also some of the basic science points. The freezing of jet fuel, the temperature of the troposphere, the basics of how storms work. They played loose and fast with so much of it that things just started to fall apart. Also they piled the sciencey stuff to the front half of the movie, cramming as much as they could in so that the actioney stuff could dominate the second half of the movie, making for a dense scientific movie with more work than it was worth trying to puzzle out. So, in general, I would say that even though they got some details right, they gave science a good pounding in order to get their "climate change bad" agenda across. Now I'm all for fixing this climate change thing we have going on here, but I like facts more than sensationalism to get people to do it.