It appears the producers can't quite commit to what they have done with 2012. All the major public promotions and sneak peeks have featured a cascade of overlapping and over-the-top disasters bordering on apocalypse porn. A wild ride for sure, but not too heavy on the characters and the plot.
Nonetheless, it's not just about the CGI, insists 2012 co-writer/co-producer/composer Harald Kloser, in an interview with Film Journal:
The disaster is primarily the background for strong emotional stories of regular people. You know, we have John Cusack, Oliver Platt, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Danny Glover — actors with higher standards than "Run! Go! Watch out! Duck." All those brilliant actors have accepted to be in our movie because the characters in the story were appealing to them. At least, that's what they told me!
...People see explosions and buildings collapsing and earthquakes, but that's only the stage, the canvas for very intimate and very private stories and very deep characters, which is what [director Roland Emmerich] and I — I can speak for him here — are most proud of.
Hmm. Maybe so, but not much evidence of that appears in the footage released so far. Strip away the doom-laden canvas — as someone did in an unofficial "actor's version" of an extended clip from the movie — and the humanistic aspects of the movie start looking more than a little thin.
In any case, there is no hesitation in the three TV spots for the movie that have just started making the rounds. It all disaster, all the time, remixed for your viewing pleasure. And for those of you who prefer your apocalypse set to music, Sony has released a video of a pop song by Adam Lambert that is featured in the movie. Buildings collapse, meteors strike, but he bravely sings on.