The year 2012 brings with it an uncommonly large number of predictions for the end of the world. The wonderful geeks at NASA have created a page debunking the most famous of the predictions for calamity in 2012. There are summaries of it elsewhere. There are also folks that take it very seriously.
Most of these prophecies have their origin in the Mayan calendar and the myth of a fifth age to begin, after 5125 years, on December 21, 2012. Some think this will be a new spiritual age, others think it will be a new age born out of some apocalypse.
Author, Graham Hancock wrote a really fun book back in the 90s exploring these ideas, particularly the notion that a polar shift might occur in 2012. It’s called The Fingerprints of the Gods. I read the book first as fun and then again as research for a screenplay.
The script was about a cascading series of earthquakes destroying the world and what happens when Jupiter’s moon Europa leaves its orbit and heads for Earth. It’s called, The Day the Sky Fell. Yes that’s an homage to The Day the Earth Stood Still. So is the script in many ways. You can find it as a PDF on my other website if you are interested. It’s a sci-fi story with a spiritual theme. I should probably look into rewriting it as a novel. It never attracted much attention as a screenplay. It would require too large a budget for one thing. In case you haven’t noticed, almost all big budget films these days are based on pre-existing material. So, I guess I really should re-write it as a novel, so maybe someone will be interested in it as a screenplay.
I wonder how many copies of a sci-fi novel you need to sell before Hollywood will become interested in the story. It doesn’t seem that you need to sell many copies of a graphic novel/comic book before Hollywood can justify turning it into a movie (with not so surprising results).
Maybe I should turn the story into a comic book. If only I could draw. And color.
But, I guess I need to get it all done before Dec. 21st. Actually, since I doubt the world will end, and I doubt there will be some great spiritual revolution, I’ll work on writing Wizard of Time – Book 2. If you’re interested in why I think a spiritual revolution would be a good thing, even if I doubt it will happen, you can check out an essay I wrote several years ago after researching and writing a book about spirituality and globalization.
