'The Day After Tomorrow' Destroys Record Before Release, Wins Dubious Award

By Matt Forge

LA, NY, Montreal (FP) - Twentieth Century Fox's global warming disaster epic has completely annihilated a previous film record before even being released for public consumption. The $125 million Hollywood blockbuster has ironically won the 'Greenwasher Award' for 2004.

Greenwashers are the adversaries of environmentally responsible consumers. Through marketing and public relations, greenwashers fool the public into mistaking hollow claims for genuine environmental commitment.

'Tomorrow' devoured resources at an unprecedented rate producing waste of biblical proportions. Of course, all feature length movies have been this way, but this project set new highs by reaching new lows.

And Bush did nothing to stop it!

But the real responsibility falls on the film's director Roland Emerich. Judging by his comments on the official movie website, it appears there was no real leadership concerning environmental issues before shooting began.

"At some point during the filming we looked around at all the lights, generators and trucks and we realized, the very process of making this picture is contributing to the problem of global warming."

At what point during the filming did they realize this? Half-way? Three-quarters? Six-sevenths?

With earth in the balance, and with this subject being the very essence of the movie, all of this should have been taken into account BEFORE start of production and not an "Oh, yeah?!" moment after the damage had already been done.

The dirty laundry list of resources used and waste produced is longer than the number of liberals who own and drive gas guzzling SUVs. It's even worse and makes one shed a tear when the participants brag about how much damage they caused to make the movie.

Production designer Barry Chusid says in an article from cineworld.co.uk, "... we run the gamut of sets from small interior helicopter cockpits to a snowy street scene in New Delhi to a 15,000 square foot Manhattan Public Library."

Personal self-fulfillment seems to have taken over his sense of environmental responsibilitiy. Chusid continues, "... there were so many intricacies just due to the scale of the sets and effects, that it became, at times, overwhelming to see just how far you could stretch yourself and your department."

And how far you could stretch Earth's resources too, Mr. Chusid? Hmmm?!

Chusid and his staff took a whole city block just north of downtown Montreal and turned it into a New Delhi marketplace. The site was littered with artifacts, rickshaws and automobiles that were shipped all the way from India specifically for that scene.

Can you imagine the resources consumed to ship all this stuff half-way across the globe? For a movie scene? Where is the outcry?! The devastation continues...

"Costume designer Renee April clothed over 1,000 extras in native Indian costumes and Neil Corbould's special (physical) effects crew took care of providing the snow for the day."

What does it take to care for 1,000 extras? How many animals were slaughtered to feed them all? Did the food cause flatulence (as in cows) producing ozone-killing methane? How may fiber-glass portable toilets were used? What happened to all that human waste?

And what was all that snow made of? Was it real or fake? If fake, what chemicals were needed to make it? Was it edible? Was it shipped to the dump afterwards or recycled?

These are serious questions needing serious answers, and the government should form an exploratory committee researching these atrocities. And they should also grill Bush as to why he did absolutely nothing to stop it.

The future of Earth gets more and more bleak as light is shone on the massive sets needed and built for this covert PSA disguised as entertainment...

"Two of Chusid's other huge undertakings were the interior and exterior of the Manhattan Public Library (that totaled 50,000 square feet) and a frozen Russian freighter which makes its way up Fifth Avenue.

For the exterior of the library, Chusid designed a Manhattan streetscape that led up to the massive stone steps to the library. The streetscape and the 100' x 60' library facade set piece were built inside the huge water tank used for an epic flood sequence. The library interior was composed of several other mammoth set pieces housed in several different stage facilities around Montreal."

Can you imagine the deforestation and pollutants released in forming materials needed for all of this? It boggles the mind how certain individuals/entities get away with raping Mother Earth for the sake of a good cause (or a profit-driven movie).

Does the end [of Earth] justify the means?

The cineworld.co.uk continues to report the atrocities committed by the producers who had blatant disregard for Nature...

"For the hailstones (that ranged in size from grapefruit to bowling ball) that batter Tokyo, Corbould and his crew bought hundreds of blocks of ice and carved each hailstone according to the sizes needed for the scene. They created a hurricane sequence set in Kona, Hawaii using giant wind machines, numerous rain towers and an elaborate cable and hydraulic ram system to facilitate the flapping and flying of pieces of the beach shack.

By far, the film's biggest practical effect was the flooded New York street sequence. Countless crew members from several departments working seven days a week for six weeks began the tank construction by joining and reinforcing 3.5 foot high concrete road barriers around the perimeter of the Manhattan street set. Then a waterproof membrane was sprayed on to seal the barrier. Once it was "water-ready," the filmmakers filled the tank with 250,000 gallons of water that was heated and filtered.

A second "holding" tank was built behind the set that was filled with another 150,000 gallons of water. Ten spinning rain tower heads were laid out high above the set and were hooked into the elaborate pumping system that essentially recycled the water in the two tanks at a rate in excess of 5,000 gallons a minute. For added effect, two big V-8 wind machines were each mounted on a "zoom boom" (forklift-type mechanism) which allowed the wind machines to be raised as high as twenty feet in the air and positioned as close or as far away from the action as needed."

Not only was there a systematic scheme from the top for polluting and wasting resources, it's apparent that the everyday Joe's working the set were ill-trained and ill-equipped to work responsibly.

Arjay Smith, an actor in the film, recalls in a romanticmovies.about.com article, "... one day one of our actor's trailers blew up..." When asked what happened he replied, "I guess somebody wasn't watching the amount of gas they were putting in when they refueled."

This is not only disgraceful, but intolerable and even offensive. He says he "guesses" this is what happened? Why doesn't he "know"?! Wasn't there an OSHA investigation? Or is it a cover-up conspiracy laced with bribes and kick-backs?

Is there any sense of responsibility (and ACCOUNTABILITY) with those involved in this crime against Earth/Nature titled 'The day After Tomorrow?' Apparently not.

In the Cineworld interview, Sela Ward, an actress in the partially-outsourced-to-Canada movie is quoted as saying, ... there is a real solid basis for what it [the movie] is saying: if we don't take care of our planet now she won't be around very long to take care of us anymore. It's a sobering thought and I think it's one the audience is going to think about when they come out of the theater and say 'Whewhey I'm glad that was just a movie.'"

Yeah, an audience who had to drive there (and back) in their gas-guzzling, emission-producing automobiles! To a theater multiplex building that gobbles up even more resources to show the film while also cooking popcorn and hot-dogs and serving sodas and candy which makes people even fatter! And don't forget the video arcade sucking up electricity which is produced at large factories owned by evil giant energy corporations!

And this is just one movie of dozens being regurgitated out of Hollywood's fat belly after it gorges itself on our children's future resources for the sake of the almighty cinema dollar.

If "big entertainment" were REALLY interested in saving Earth, they would have made the movie a hand-drawn cartoon shown on TV where people didn't have to go somewhere to watch it. Better yet, director Emmerich should have walked to each house in the country offering to perform it as a one-man mime act.

Not admitting accountability, the movie's web site offers the people a band-aid, "We couldn't avoid putting CO2 into the atmosphere during the shoot but we discovered that we could do something to make up for it; we could make the film CarbonNeutral."

They've partnered with an outfit called Future Forests who claim they can help you become "CarbonNeutral." Some ways that you can achieve this goal with these guys are by purchasing their CarbonNeutral Pin Badge for US$5.53, and by buying products off their site such as soap, a baby hat, monkey shoes, and much much more.

It was not disclosed how much money the movie producers had to pay out to become CarbonNeutral. I'm sure it had to be in the millions. It was also not offered as to whether the movie budget covered all the actors, crews of decorators, craftsmen, laborers and technicians, or if they all had to be personally responsible for their own CarbonNeutralization.

Sources on Capital Hill are murmuring about a new governmental agency being formed which would send "Carbon Agents" to each household who would asses the carbon output and levy a "neutralization tax" to offset said output.

Future Forest's site also offers a form you can fill out (while providing a credit-card number) to donate $1 to cover the carbon cost of your little jaunt to the theater. Of course, the form doesn't take into account whether you went in an electric car, a hybrid, a Hummer, or a 1953 "Golden Jubilee" model Ford tractor. I guess they figure that it all evens out in the end... I guess.

Director Roland Emmerich sat down with me for an exclusive interview about all this, but would only talk about one thing - the upcoming U.S. presidential election. So we asked him who he wants to win.

"Anyone but Bush." Puzzled, I repeated his answer back to him in the form of a question. "That's right," he responded, "I bought a bumper sticker with that on it. I liked it because he's (Bush) killing Earth and making our children sick."

When asked if he would vote for Dick Cheney he sarcastically said yes then asked if I was crazy. After pointing out that Cheney is someone other than Bush, Roland just rolled his eyes and said, "Don't be stupid."

I asked if he would support John Ashcroft or Pat Buchanan seeing that they too are persons other than Bush. The director just directed his icy cold stare at me. If I weren't smarter, I would have sworn that he had become snap frozen.

"What about John Kerry? Support him?" I asked. "Now you're just getting mean," he replied with his face turning red like hot molten magma. Then I asked if that slogan made any real logical sense once you thought about it. There was no audible response, but his blooshot eyes said it all.

Sensing that my personal environment was becoming unstable and that time was running out, I quickly posed one last question, "In order to produce this movie, what did it feel like to be in bed with the same organization that produces the Fox News Channel?"

Roland exploded up out of his seat, blasted a tidal wave of obscenities at me and stormed outside. I can now attest to the fact that rapid dramatic climate change is not only possible, but it really happens. I have lived it.

Mr. Emmerech was seen in the parking lot apparently trying to scrape a bumper sticker off the windshield with his fingernails. He finally gave up, gave a shriek of frustration toward heaven, and screeched off in his 2004 Lexus GX 470.

Well, maybe we can finish the interview in a couple of days. My schedule appears to be open the day after tomorrow.