- LOS ANGELES - Here's the
pitch: a dullish candidate, outflanked by his opponent's serious money,
attacked for his liberal leanings, is swept to an unlikely victory thanks
to a blockbuster movie that focuses on the effects of big business and
the agro-industrial complex.
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- Audiences throw their popcorn aside, pick up their ballot
papers andrealise that they too can make a difference. The studio behind
the movie:20th Century Fox, owned by Rupert Murdoch. The director: Roland
Emmerich;no Martin Sheen-style bleeding heart Democrat but the brawn behind
Independence Day.
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- It sounds unlikely, but this summer might just see an
alliance ofcommerce, populist entertainment and feel-good concern combine
to weakenPresident George Bush and hand votes to his expected Democrat
rival JohnKerry.
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- On the other hand, the film could tank, like one of its
director's othermonster-budget summer openings, Godzilla. May 28 sees the
worldwide release of The Day After Tomorrow, the eco-armageddon story to
beat all others.
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- The first trailers for the film, released on the internet
last week, give a taste of the scale of the eco-horrors to come. Filmed
in a combination of slick computer generated special effects and faux newscast
verite, tidal waves sweep across cities and snow piles halfway up the towers
of Manhattan as disjointed voices articulate the chaos around them."What
you are seeing is happening now," says a breathless newsreader.
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- "Look over behind me," shouts a TV reporter,
"that's a tornado, yes, atwister." The film cuts to a volcano
erupting next to the Hollywood signin Los Angeles. A huge flock of birds
flies across the sky, a mass of people is seen crossing the Rio Grande
between Mexico and the United States.
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- Filmed with a budget of more than $100m and special effects
said to bethe greatest thing since, well, since the last big budget movie,
the filmhas one other difference to other Hollywood blockbusters: it has
a conscience."At some point during the filming we looked around at
all the lights,generators and trucks and we realised the very process of
making thispicture is contributing to the problem of global warming,"
the directorand producers say in a statement on the film's official website.
"Wecouldn't avoid putting CO2 into the atmosphere during the shoot,
but wediscovered we could do something to make up for it; we could make
the filmCarbonNeutral."
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- The film's website includes a lengthy list of internet
links toorganisations that have researched the effects of global warming.
Duringfilming last year, Emmerich described the film as "a popcorn
movie that'sactually a little subversive".
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- Whether this is the typical hype that surrounds a Hollywood
blockbusteror the heartfelt statement of a tortured artist does not really
matter.What seems certain is that the film will help to propel global warming
andthe environment high up the political agenda.
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- President Bush is known to be sceptical about the possibility
of globalwarming, while the environment is a traditional strong card for
the Democrats. With issues such as oil drilling rights in Alaska playing
strongly among some voters, the president's opponents have regularly attacked
him for the favouritism he is perceived to have shown to the fossil fuel
giants that dominate the US economy.The Pentagon even got in on the act,
releasing a study last month thatsuggested that one outcome of global warming
could be the rise of masscivil unrest. In one scenario, drought, famine
and rioting erupt across theworld, spurred on by climate change. As nations
face dwindling food supplies and scarce natural resources, conflict becomes
the norm.
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- "Disruption and conflict will be endemic features
of life," says thePentagon study. "Once again, warfare would
define human life.""The climate is going to play a significant
role in the campaign," saidLuke Breit, chairman of the Democrat's
environmental caucus in California,where the environment is traditionally
a key political issue. "John Kerryis mentioning clean air and water
at every opportunity. It's going to be onthe first tier of issues. Our
job is to make clear how anti-environment thegovernment has been."
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- But while it can be fortuitous for an event such as a
mass appeal movie tocome along and propel an issue to the forefront of
voters' consciousness,there are also pitfalls. "The danger is it could
make it look moretrivial," said Mr Breit. "My guess is that people
in the environmentalleadership around the country are holding their breath.
I'm hoping thatit's going to be very good and that we have great entertainment
value butthat at the same time it treats the science seriously."
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- One US environmental pressure group has already enlisted
the help of one ofthe film's stars, Jake Gyllenhaal, to help promote its
agenda while promoting the film.The Day After Tomorrow's advance publicity
suggests a typical Hollywoodmix of fact, fantasy and hype: fake weather
reports and testimonies fromfans about where they would like to be the
day the world dies are mixed with earnest exhortations to help avert global
warming.
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- And Hollywood has been here before. The Perfect Storm,
Armageddon andTwister all combined Hollywood's love of little people battlinginsurmountable
natural - and unnatural - powers while giving great specialeffects.
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- "In Independence Day Roland Emmerich brought you
the near destruction of the earth by aliens," says the website. "Now,
in The Day After Tomorrow, the enemy is an even more devastating force:
nature itself." It'll have them voting in the aisles.
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