2012 (2009) - 10 questions

Question: How did the Russian girl end up in the end, did she drown? And if so, why, if the compartments were sealed closed, how would water get into it and kill her, if it didn't kill the others on the other side of the compartment?

Answer: The Russian girl drowned. The boarding gate was not closed properly as it was jammed, so water got in to some of the compartments and drowned the people in them.

Question: How many arcs were there in totality? Because I saw IV and III being noticed, but not the rest.

Answer: That question, it seems, cannot be answered 100%. For example, rather at the beginning of the movie, you can see the Chinese army blasting five huge caverns into the mountain that will become the port soon after. On the other hand, at the end of the movie, there appear to be an Ark 6 and 7, being reported to join with Ark 4.

Question: At the end of the movie, it is stated that the Drakensberg mountain range in South Africa now has the highest altitude in the world, since the "entire plate of Africa has lifted". Isn't this highly unlikely, seeing as the Drakensberg is incredibly far away from any tectonic plate lines? Wouldn't it rather be Mount Kilimanjaro, which is not only already the highest point in Africa (the continental plate of which is implied to have been raised as a whole), but is also a volcano (thereby being more likely to be raised should there be lifting within the plate itself)? I am South African myself, and though I am incredibly proud of our mention, I wonder if it really is plausible.

Answer: It's really impossible to say, given all of the massive land shifting seen in the film. We see the entire coast of California fall into the ocean. It's reasonable (in the film) to assume some cataclysm struck Kilimanjaro to lower or destroy it, or that the continent has been tilted.

Question: Hawaii (a chain of islands consisting entirely of volcanoes) and Yellowstone (biggest caldera on earth) both erupt, thus throwing phenomenal amounts of ash etc. into the atmosphere creating what used to be described as a 'nuclear winter' effect. Large areas of the Earth's crust subside and or tilt and flip over, and what is left is scoured by countless tsunamis spreading in all and every direction. So here is both my question and observation. How come 27 days later, when the ships opened their sides, there were virtually clear skies and what appeared to be quite balmly temperatures? Furthermore as the world wide fires and volcanic activity would have eaten a considerable amount of the oxygen and the monstrous tidal waves would have scoured the land and washed away the rainforests, what exactly was producing the oxygen in the 'fresh air' they were being encouraged to breath??

Answer: Even with large amounts of ash, the sky wouldn't necessarily be very dark. In 1816, there were five large eruptions. It caused a severe temperature drop and people didn't know why. the sky was the same. Even large fires wouldn't necessarily burn off large enough amounts of oxygen to make the atmosphere not breathable. Besides, 80% of all oxygen producing plant life is oceanic.

Question: I was just wondering if in America (or any other countries) the film is called 'twenty-twelve' or 'two thousand and twelve'? Here in England it's 'twenty twelve', it had never occurred to me it might be different elsewhere but in the commentary the director calls it 'two thousand and twelve'.

Answer: I live in America (Florida) and we said twenty-twelve. All the media I heard said twenty-twelve. There is actually some debate going on in America (or at least Florida) about whether or not we should say twenty-ten or two thousand ten.

Question: If the ark was loaded with one male and one female of the same species, wouldn't there be genetic defects in their young (several generations later, I mean) as siblings would mate and produce offspring with each other? This certainly occurs with humans, so is it the same with animals?

Answer: Yes the same holds true for animals as well (there was a PBS special years ago about an inbred lioness trying to fit in her pride). We only see one Ark being loaded but the other Arks may as well be loaded with animals to prevent genetic defects from happening.

Question: The ending seems to be shown as a happy one. They find land and head towards it. However, the earth was being cooked from the inside, so what happened? Did the earth just stop being destroyed?

Answer: The intense solar activity ceased, thereby allowing the core temperature to return to normal and leave us with the new look continents.

Question: What exactly is Jackson's job? Is he a driver of the rich Russian?

Answer: Yes.

Question: How come a high tech ship would be unable to start its engine merely with the reason that the gate is unable to close?

Answer: Its a safety device so the ship doesn't put to sea and ends up flooding the ship. The passenger ferry Herald of Free Enterprise capsized in the port of Zebrugge in 1987, precisely because the doors were not shut properly.

Question: I didn't quite get what happened at the end of the movie. Why exactly did the entire country of Africa get pushed up so it would be safe from the tsunamis?

Answer: The continent of Africa (NOT a country) was pushed up by the shifting tectonic plates.