Roland Emmerich's 2012 has been billed as “the Mother of all disaster movies.” A tough billing. End-of-the-world movies have never really been out of vogue in cinema, and right now, seem more plentiful than ever. 2012 shares a box office release window of only four months, for instance, with Legion (Scott Stewart), The Road (John Hillcoat), and Zombieland (Ruben Fleischer). And while a nice distinction between disaster, the end of the world, and apocalypse has never been in vogue in Hollywood, as it has in academia, the fundamental and quite simple question must nevertheless remain the same: why do we go to see them? I cannot agree with the tabloid dismissive that would cite an American obsession with “blowing things up.” 2012 is a far better film than that, and may very well inarguably fulfil Emmerich's candidly stated goal of capping a career in epic disaster— a career including Independence Day (1996), The Day after Tomorrow (2004), and 10,000 BC (2008)—with his “biggest and best.”1 Indeed, 2012 does much to earn its billing with spectacular special effects (as promised), a decent script, and some ethical depth. It also firmly ties together a set of contexts with insistent cultural currency, from the generic staples of conspiracy theory, religious sentiment, and popular legends like Atlantis, to preoccupations more recently boiling up in the popular imagination, including ecological disaster and a renewed interest in survivalism.