Roland Emmerich isn't known for making movies of any real depth, he's known for making disaster/sci-fi that appeals to people who like to see stuff get blown up and who dig cool special effects. Here's a short list that should give you a pretty clear idea of his movies (if you don't know him by name):
Independence Day (1996)
Godzilla (1998)
Eight Legged Freaks (2002)
The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
and more recently...
10,000 BC (2008)
I do like (when I am in the mood) big special effects extravaganzas that are little more than 90 minutes of fun with little or no time given to any real plot, story, or common sense to them (Hence I had fun with the infinitely silly The Day After Tomorrow - a movie so far-out that I doubt even Al Gore could completely suppress his giggle impulse while watching it).
I was looking forward to 2012. I like to satisfy my occasional impulse for big dumb fun once in a while, and Emmerich's movies have many times done a good job at that. I was looking forward to it even more because it stars John Cusack, an actor whose career I have followed since watching him steal every scene he was in in the movie Class (Andrew McCarthy, Rob Lowe). He has been a favorite for decades now.
I was looking forward to 2012. Now, there is no way that I will see it, rent it, or view it at all, and that includes any movies that Emmerich makes from here on in.
Recently, in anticipation of 2012's release Emmerich has been doing the interview thing, and in those interviews he has said:
- That he really enjoyed destroying religious symbols (the Vatican and the famous statue of Jesus overlooking Rio de Janeiro), and that he left an Islamic symbol alone because he feared the reaction from the Muslim world.
- "You can actually ... let ... Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have ... a fatwa, and that sounds a little bit like what the state of this world is. So it's just something which I kind of didn't [think] was [an] important element, anyway, in the film, so I kind of left it out," he said.
- He said that in the movie St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican rolls over onto a crowd of the faithful.
- "The whole Vatican kind of tips and kind of rolls over the people. It said something, because in the story, some people … believe in praying and prayer, and they pray in front of the church, and it's probably the wrong thing, what they would do in that situation," Emmerich told SciFi.
- In the movie he also destroys the famous statue of Jesus overlooking Rio. He said it was "Because I'm against organized religion".
I say that he is a liar. He destroys the statue of Jesus (and is using that image for the movie poster to promote the movie), and uses the Basilica at the Vatican to kill believers in Jesus because he like so many others - hates Jesus Christ and what He represents, and he hates those who follow Jesus.
He's not against organized religion, he's against Jesus Christ. If he were against organized religion he would have also demolished other symbols of other faiths - Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, as well as Islamic ones.
That he was so willing, no make that he was glad to, destroy symbols of Christianity because he had no fear of anyone coming after him for it, and would not do so to Islamic symbols because he was afraid that they'd come after him shows that he is a coward, and a bully; one who particularly enjoys taking shots at Jesus Christ, and making sure that he thumbs his nose at as many Christ followers as he can by plastering theaters with posters of that destruction.
I absolutely will not see this movie (or any of his future releases), and will take the stand here that no Christian has any business seeing it.
peace/faith/hope/love in Christ Jesus
serloren
Abstain from all appearance of evil. And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. - 1Thessalonians 5:22-23