In the realm of planetary demises, impact with a large object from space is always high on the list. Do you remember the year when the movie talk was Deep Impact vs. Armageddon?
Today I watched Melancholia, another entry in this series, but definitely an art film as opposed to a scientific presentation; a drama as opposed to an action blockbuster; a Wagneresque opera of a film (and you'll understand my blatant reference right from the first few seconds, if you recognize the score). The visual imagery was lush and appealing while the human characters were intentionally flawed. If I need to condense the message of the film down to one statement it might be this: melancholic people have a better grip on EOTW than we "normal" folks.
Now, I do not have a sustained interest for the opus of Lars von Trier, or for Mr. von Trier himself, but I consider my life richer for having watched Melancholia once before the end. While I don't echo Justine's worldview that humanity deserves to meet its end (or that we are alone in the universe), I do recognize how the Justines of the world might come to that conclusion.
Per the scientific backdrop of the film, the rogue planet Melancholia has approached Earth on a trajectory that kept it hidden behind the Sun until that last days or weeks, and hence was not detected early. Based on a bonus material interview on the DVD, in reality, such a space object would be detected later than an object that was not obscured by the Sun, but we on Earth would still have years of notice, not weeks. (Actually, the amount of time passage in the film is not clear to me, or I do not recall it being overt. It's pretty short.)
I'm not completely discounting a space object collision as the cause of our EOTW, though. Let's check our data twice!
Drops from My 2012 Bucket: Apr. 20, 245 days remaining
Where No One Has Gone Before (Journey to the intersection of space, time and mind.)
Lonely Among Us (Indubitably, Data Holmes!)
Video Mission Update: 109 / 728 hours = 15.0%
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