- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 25 November 2008 09.54 GMT
Apart from the studio logos and the rating information, there's barely more than a minute of trailery goodness wedged in here. It's just one stark scene: Tibetan monk runs up a mountain, reaches a mountaintop monastery, starts ringing an enormous bell with an enormous battering ram; suddenly a massive swell of water appears behind the ginormous mountain range, then smashes into the monastery, knocking it (monk, bell, and all) into oblivion.
Yes, the world can end in so many different ways, but only some are cool when rendered in CGI. Tidal waves and meteors exploding into the earth? These look cool. Everyone coming down with a bad case of the runs all at once and pooing themselves to death? Not so cinematic. Unsurprising, therefore, that no one has ever made a film with that as the plot.
But tsunamis over the Himalayas? That, as Roland Emmerich knows very well, looks cool. And sure, you might lose a couple of monks here and there in the search for looking really awesome, but that's just collateral damage, isn't it?
In between the cool visuals, the plot is teased with three stark chunks of white capitals on a black background.
HOW WOULD THE GOVERNMENTS OF OUR PLANET
PREPARE SIX BILLION PEOPLE
FOR THE END OF THE WORLD?
It is an interesting question, I admit, and look forward to seeing what the answer might be. Luckily, I do not have to wait four years (or even until next summer, when the movie actually explodes into blockbuster season), as the Gods of Trailer have thought to answer the question within the teaser itself ...
THEY WOULDN'T.
Oh. Not at all? Brilliant, so we can look forward to the movie being two hours of people failing to tell some other people that the world's about to end?
And that's it. Or rather that isn't it. Because there isn't a cast list, a title or a tag line, really, just a ...
FIND OUT THE TRUTH
GOOGLE SEARCH: 2012
And so I do. Because I am easily led. The first few hits are links to anxious tin-hat conspiracy sites where people earnestly discuss the impending end of the world and what possible connection that might have to giant lizards. Then there are a couple of links pointing to this very same teaser. Then there was finally something about the film itself.
The world, rumour has it, is going to end in 2012. Well, either that or humanity is going to be transformed and lifted to a whole new spiritual level - but I think we can safely assume that Emmerich's film is based on the first predicted chain of events rather than the second.
But this "Google 2012 and see what happens" school of film marketing seems to me to be a deeply flawed one. I mean, as the film opening date approaches and more details, previews and articles start to appear, this will inevitably take up more of the results on a search engine results page. Hoping that your film will always be top of the pile when anyone types in four digits - an upcoming year in which, let's face it, quite a lot of things could be happening - is trust indeed.
Oh how I wish we could find some way of googlebombing the whole plan. Creating websites that make even more spurious claims about 2012 and doing all those crazy Search Engine Optimisation things until you couldn't find a single word about the film until page nine of any search engine in the world. It would be brilliant.
"2012" – one might say – "will be the year that all the disappeared bumble bees are found once more, discovered to be hiding in a secret underground lair playing bee-poker for pots of honey."
"2,012 are the number of unicorns required to make up a unicorn quorum and change policy in the unicorn parliament. Due to the large number of decision makers, sadly nothing ever gets done."
"In 2012, bus tickets will be glittery, microwaves will all start speaking German and the long promise of personalised rocket packs as a means of travel will finally come to pass in a way that won't set fire to your trousers."
It is a challenge, yes. But I believe that if we all worked together we could, one day, wipe 2012 (the film) from the face of the earth. Or at least from the first page of Google. And we'll do it in the name of the poor disposable Tibetan monks. That'll show 'em.
