'2012' Loses Worldwide Destruction to Avoid Religious Wars

By PopEater Staff Posted Nov 6th 2009 11:55AM

Roland Emmerich has demolished nearly every beloved monument in the world in his disaster movie career - from Big Ben in 'Independence Day' to the Statue of Liberty in 'The Day After Tomorrow' - but you won't see the German filmmaker take down Islam's holiest site in his new end-of-days flick '2012.' Emmerich had planned to show the destruction of the Kaaba, the structure in Mecca toward which Muslims turn for daily prayer, but changed his mind when his co-writer suggested the scene might spark more trouble than they'd bargained for.

"My co-writer Harald [Kloser] said I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie. And he was right," Emmerich told SciFiWire. "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."

The director added, "We have to all ... in the Western world ... think about this. 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."

Fans of disaster movies shouldn't fear that Emmerich is losing his edge. The director, who did include a destruction shot of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, pushed plenty of other buttons. "Because I'm against organized religion," Emmerich explained.

"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."

"I always try to come up with what makes sense for the story, you know?" Emmerich said. "And it's not only about the destruction. It has to kind of stand for something.

Tags: 2012, IndependenceDay, john cusack, JohnCusack, Roland Emmerich, RolandEmmerich, the day after tomorrow, TheDayAfterTomorrow

Comments

(51)

Friday 06 November

By Koz

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So now them dam muslim think they will be spared.

By patrick douglass

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its a movie, get a life

By Lauren

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naw...they know we are just better at being able to take it...no war or cry babies over the statue of Liberty going down....in a film.

Saturday 07 November

By amoozed

You cannot spell. Spelling is necessary for intelligent communication. If you cannot master English, who could possibly imagine that you are smart enough to have an opinion about politics or religion? Maybe some of the teen-age posters would fall for it.

By aazzqq

great, another left wing extremeist from Hollywood hating on religion....but only on the type he has the balls to come after. Typical gutless hollywood piece of crap.

Hollywood is getting SO TIRED AND STALE.

By dcdeb87

Couldn't agree more. Be a man take a stand!! I'd have more respect for you and I might have gone to see the movie, now I won't bother! Just another hollywood hypocrite!! Talk about being out of touch with reality.

By marbeats9

What's a liberal got to do with it
You need to get over it and stop hating with anything that is not PURIFIED with what you believe in

By Sally

It's a freaking movie people. Hoever, if he did destroy anything muslim, those people would murder him. People telling the director to get balls. Idiots. A human life is worth more than a stupid movie. Some of you people just don't seem to have a brain!

By PH

So am i reading this right? He's letting a peaceful religious symbol fall and keeping a terrorist islamic site remain? Because "he" thinks that would make sense??!?? What in the hell has that terrorist religion done for this world? Another liberal to sell out our country. Thank you for selling your soul to mohammed. I was going to see this movie but now I am not and will do everything in my power to disuade everyone against it! Hey Nazi, why don't you move over there and see how long Allah keeps letting you make movies. Be proud you are in a free nation Adolf!

By Chris

I wouldn't politicize Roland Emmerich's statements. After all, he is just a film director who is considered one of the worst of all time next to Ed Wood or Uwe Boll.

Neverthless, Emmerich knows that destroying Christian symbols is permissible because Christians will just protest and refuse to watch it like the Da Vinci Code or Dogma. But extremist muslims have murdered people who have criticized their beliefs including Theo Van Gogh. They have also threatened the lives of Salman Rushdie for his novel The Satanic Verses and Ayaan Hirsi Ali for writing Van Gogh's film Submission. So Emmerich will go the politically correct way by destroying the symbols of Christianity rather than piss of the Muslims. He can't destroy Jewish symbols either because then he'd be the anti-semite. He'll leave that for Mel Gibson's movies.

P.S.: Emmerich's Independence Day or The Patriot were criticized by European for their overtly egocentric American messages.

By Someone

Not all muslims are terriost. Not all terrorist are muslim.

But maybe thats just me.

By Freedom of Art

What a bunch of puzzies. They should destroy the Kaaba first.

By bob

But Im sure destroying the vatican is ok...

By Teresa

You would think the Director would want to exercise his creative freedom and do as he pleased with the film.....that's what they do when they produce anything that targets Christianity. What's the old saying, "If you don't like it, don't watch." Why isn't that applied to this situation? Typical - double standard.

By jaguignon

It's sad that Hollywood has to lean to the dark side to get peoples attention and make a buck. We need more movies like "Patch Adams" starring Robin Williams. It was a hilarious but true story! What about the movie "Cocoon" Starring "Jessica Tandy and Wilfred Brimly and a host of others. and a really good story line to boot.

By hello asca

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as potentially explosive as some sects of Islam can be i think it was a good call to not go with it

By Just Me

"Because I'm against organized religion," === and Muslim isn't an organized religion??? Am I missing something here? Grow a pair dude.

By strangeshadow

exactly

By ThisIsNuts!

That's the first thing I thought also. He doesn't seem to think Muslin is an 'organized religion'...?? sounds like he was simply finding a way out for himself.

By John Sims-Jones

I'm surprised that someone who hates organized religion is afraid of what anybody thinks about him. He's perfectly willing to take a stab at Christianity, why not just take out everyone? I don't even mind that much that he's insulting my religion, I just think that if this really was his vision of the end of the world, and if he had any sense of artistic integrity, he would be fighting to have his movie made in its entirety.

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