Earthquake safety tip: when the Earth gets to undulating, the safest place to be is not under a table or in a door frame as previously thought, but in a limousine piloted by John Cusack. Why? Because the man knows how to drive through the fifth floor of a crumbling office building. In a limousine. That's why.

This is just one of the many wildly implausible sights you'll see this November when Roland Emmerich's latest end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it saga, 2012, rattles movie theaters all over the globe. And if you're thinking the above scenario sounds like the silliest action set piece since people outran cold air in THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, well... it is. But that's why we love Roland Emmerich. The only science that matters in his films is the science of awesome. And since John Cusack is awesome and disintegrating buildings are (on the big screen, at least) awesome, it stands to reason that one should be able to pass through the other without much of a fuss.

The entire sequence, which finds Cusack's character transporting his family (and his ex-wife's new husband!) to the Santa Monica Airport so they can escape the state of California right before it falls into the Pacific Ocean, is Emmerich at the top of his Irwin Allen-inspired game. When it played for a packed Hall H on Saturday at Comic Con, it fucking killed: aside from tumbling buildings, other obstacles attempting to keep Cusack from his destination include crater-sized potholes, the 405 freeway (not the traffic, but the actual freeway), and, most preposterously, a Sunday driver. It's breathtaking stuff, and a reminder that, when it comes to executing big summer spectacle, Emmerich is still one of the best we've got (even though 2012 is now coming out in November).

Since I talked to Emmerich before his Hall H presentation, I obviously couldn't get into the particulars of what he was about to show. I only had about ten minutes with him, so I decided to open with Irwin Allen and see if that might lead us anywhere interesting. I think it did. Hope you enjoy!

Mr. Beaks: This is your first trip to Comic Con, isn't it?

Roland Emmerich: It is.

Beaks: It's everyone's first year at Comic Con. Zemeckis, Jackson, Burton, yours... it's a big year.

Emmerich: I remember that I wanted to come here for INDEPENDENCE DAY, but I had no time. So Dean [Devlin] went. And for GODZILLA, also Dean went. It always worked out for Dean to go to these things. And he likes it, too, because he's a geek himself. I mean, I'm a geek, too, but... he's a geek in one direction, and I'm a geek in the other direction. (Laughs)

Beaks: I think most people look at 2012 and figure your thought process was simply "How do I destroy the world this time?"

Emmerich: Actually, I was very troubled by the fact that I was doing another disaster movie. But Harald [Kloser] helped me overcome that fear. He said, "Who cares? It's a really good story." It's a retelling of a very old story. Every culture has this story: it's the story of the flood.

Beaks: And just to get to the point because we have only ten minutes here: your films are constantly compared to those of Irwin Allen's. How do you feel about that?

Emmerich: I wanted to actually dedicate INDEPENDENCE DAY to Irwin Allen, but Fox wouldn't let us. Honest to god.

Beaks: But THE TOWERING INFERNO and THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE were huge hits for Fox!

Emmerich: I don't know. They told us "It's an alien invasion movie; it's not a disaster movie." But Dean and I loved Irwin Allen I loved him because he turned normal, regular characters into heroes. Like Shelly Winters in THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE. She was fat, but she had one talent: to swim. That was so cool, and that's what I just like.

Beaks: Most of the characters in your films are like that. They all get their one hero moment.

Emmerich: Exactly. You have normal, great actors in unexpected roles. You can really do an awful lot, and it's so much fun to do that. You know, I did INDEPENDENCE DAY as an alien invasion movie, but... there was a lot of destruction in it. And I did GODZILLA as a monster movie with a lot of destruction, but it was still a monster movie, right? And then there was DAY AFTER TOMORROW, which was more than a disaster movie; it was a movie with a pure message. And this one is about a global flood. And it's about all of these questions. Who should be on the boat? Why would [the government] keep something like this secret? Those kinds of questions get asked and, sometimes, answered. But at least I put them out there.

Beaks: Are you ever worried that you might push too hard with the message and detract from the pure entertainment value of the film?

Emmerich: It's always a mix. If I have too much [destruction], people think it's hollow. And if you take it too seriously, people roll their eyes. It's just a balance. And I think this one strikes the right balance between fun and thoughtfulness.

Beaks: You have populated this film with a lot of very particular actors: John Cusack, Oliver Platt, Woody Harrelson... guys like that. You're writing huge ensemble pieces, so I imagine it's impossible to cast all first choices, but do you ever write for certain actors hoping you'll get them?

Emmerich: Sometimes we do, sometimes no. Because if that actor is not available, what do you do then? Then you have an actor in you head, and you can't get them. I learned my lesson on INDEPENDENCE DAY. We had Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum in our heads, but the studio didn't want to hire them. We had to really fight for them.

Beaks: They wanted more recognizable names?

Emmerich: Just different names. And we really had to put our foot down.

Beaks: Do you remember who the studio wanted?

Emmerich: I can't say because it would really be doing a disservice to the actors. They were great actors, but they weren't the actors we had in mind.

Beaks: Getting back to Irwin Allen, the one area where you really set yourself apart from him is in the pacing. Your films move much more briskly than Allen's. He would really take his time establishing the characters. You just like to get on with it.

Emmerich: In modern times, you have to. It's a whole other game. But in 2012, it takes fifty minutes until the shit hits the fan. That's a long time. I'm very nervous about it. But the test audience really [liked it].

Beaks: So where did you get "earth-crust displacement" from?

Emmerich: It was just some obscure theory from the 1950s from a guy named Professor Charles Hapgood. The forward was written by Albert Einstein. It's a theory which is totally disputed today, but for our movie it worked perfectly. The whole earth crust shifts... (laughs) and that naturally has to come with so many earthquakes and volcano eruptions and then tidal waves! It's just a vehicle. I think scientists will understand that it's just a movie. We actually had a geologist help us a little bit, but at one point he just threw up his hands and said, "Write it like you think it would be!" (Laughs) It's a movie! It's not a documentary! But on the other hand, it has to feel real to the audience.

Beaks: But who knows what "real" looks like when or if California falls into the ocean? If you shot it the way scientists think it might go down, it probably wouldn't be as cinematic, right?

Emmerich: (Laughing) Exactly!

That aerial shot above is much more impressive in motion. See it for yourself when 2012 hits theaters November 13, 2009.

Faithfully submitted,

Mr. Beaks