Bad science, cheap book plugs, and sad money grabs abound in this most pseudo of pseudo science documentaries by the "SyFy" Network (The really have taken the sci out, haven't they?) They interview pseudo scientists and fools across the world, searching through the piles of misinformation and misinterpretation that surround the world of Doomsday predictors. Truthfully, 2012 is NOT a reoccurring date in the doomsday myths around the world, just like the year 2000 is not "predicted in the bible" (got a chuckle every time Jack Van Impe spouted that one). But never let good sense stop insane fools, as the SyFy Channel gives every prominent crank their day in the sun.
Then there's the creepy footage of a pudgy, sweaty man who plans to build a massive underground bunker where he and dozens of others plan to convert a missile silo into a super bunker. You shake your head and bit your lip when the man picks up his kid and claims that this is the reason he's trying to become a paranoid mole man. I almost dialed social services when the child looked over at her dad, frozen with an odd fear. Yeah kid, that's right, your Dad's a nut job and you are gonna need therapy.
The best part? Richard C. Hoagland, a non-scientist who achieved sci fi notoriety in the early part of the 90s by advertising pure madness and paranoia over and over again on the old Sci-Fi Network (the bad old days, pre-Farscape, when all they showed was Lost in Space). Hoagland has conjured up a magical science called Torsion Field Physics (don't reach for your textbook, it's not in there.) He claimed that this is the stuff that the US Government has been using to predict the end of the world. He then PROVES his theory using an out of date kinetic battery watch. Thankfully the producers include a short sound bite from one of the editor of Skeptic magazine who, in one ten second sound bite, calls all of these fools out with real science.
All of this is slipped in between subtle references to the 2012 movie that opens soon. Basically...THEY'RE CONVINCING PEOPLE THAT THE WORLD IS ENDING TO SELL A MOVIE DIRECTED BY THE GUY WHO REMADE GODZILLA! Yeah, Marketing people have no soul.
Then there's the creepy footage of a pudgy, sweaty man who plans to build a massive underground bunker where he and dozens of others plan to convert a missile silo into a super bunker. You shake your head and bit your lip when the man picks up his kid and claims that this is the reason he's trying to become a paranoid mole man. I almost dialed social services when the child looked over at her dad, frozen with an odd fear. Yeah kid, that's right, your Dad's a nut job and you are gonna need therapy.
The best part? Richard C. Hoagland, a non-scientist who achieved sci fi notoriety in the early part of the 90s by advertising pure madness and paranoia over and over again on the old Sci-Fi Network (the bad old days, pre-Farscape, when all they showed was Lost in Space). Hoagland has conjured up a magical science called Torsion Field Physics (don't reach for your textbook, it's not in there.) He claimed that this is the stuff that the US Government has been using to predict the end of the world. He then PROVES his theory using an out of date kinetic battery watch. Thankfully the producers include a short sound bite from one of the editor of Skeptic magazine who, in one ten second sound bite, calls all of these fools out with real science.
All of this is slipped in between subtle references to the 2012 movie that opens soon. Basically...THEY'RE CONVINCING PEOPLE THAT THE WORLD IS ENDING TO SELL A MOVIE DIRECTED BY THE GUY WHO REMADE GODZILLA! Yeah, Marketing people have no soul.