Fear of fatwa axed disaster scene from film “2012″
He blew up the Empire State Building and the White House in Independence Day, sent a giant monster careering through the heart of Manhattan in Godzilla and destroyed the famous Hollywood sign in The Day After Tomorrow. But it seems there are places even Roland Emmerich will not go – the German film-maker has revealed he abandoned plans to obliterate Islam’s holiest site on the big screen for fear of attracting a fatwa.
For his latest disaster movie, 2012, the 53-year-old director had wanted to demolish the Kaaba, the iconic cube-shaped structure in the Grand Mosque in Mecca that Muslims the world over turn towards every day when they pray and which they circle seven times during the hajj pilgrimage…
“I wanted to do that, I have to admit,” Emmerich told scifiwire.com. “But my co-writer Harald [Kloser] said I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie. And he was right.
“We have to all, in the western world, think about this. You can actually let Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have … a fatwa, and that sounds a little bit like what the state of this world is.
He thinks he’s safe blowing up secular symbols like the White House – and he’s probably correct. He thinks he’s safe blowing up Christian symbols like the Sistine Chapel or Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio – and he’s probably correct – unless he tries for the Ten Commandments in some jerkwater town in the Bible Belt.
The saddest aspect is he’s probably also right about endangering the lives of thousands of moviegoers – if he destroyed the Kaaba.
I think all religions are about as useless as our vestigial appendix, all the leftovers from our cave-dwelling days and earlier. For a few to give themselves the right to censor freedom, art and opinion is criminal.
Eideard, no religions except Islam are still preserved in their original form. Just look around you and tell me what you see in your surroundings?
Everything that is wrong in this world today is due to our divergence from religious beliefs which held us in good stead in the past.
If today’s media can not come up with anything creative except to blow up religious sites then we are living in a world which is limited in it’s thought and we are indeed moving downhill intellectually.
With regards to the Christians allowing “blowing up Christian symbols like the Sistine Chapel or Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio”, well they allowed it. Muslims do and will not.
Please stop being pig-headed enough for one second and just accept this simple fact and move on.
And cavemen? Really? Islam is only 1400 years old. Get your facts right.
Web Design Karachi
November 3, 2009 at 9:29 am
Religion as a vestigial remnant of cave-level fears is as old as the Stone Age. And as useless in an age capable of reason and knowledge.
Treating those who don’t subscribe to your religion as someone who should fear death for that disagreement is – I agree – criminal.
Do you think honestly feel someone who disagrees with your ideology should be put to death or fear destruction?
moss
November 3, 2009 at 9:51 am
I think Eid made the point with clarity. Non-believers don’t want believers to love them or even accept them.
Believers do not have a right to threaten to – or kill – those who do not share their beliefs.
keaneo
November 3, 2009 at 9:58 am
And cavemen? Really? Islam is only 1400 years old. Get your facts right.
Yet the basis for Islam, Christianity, and every other religion in the world stems from man’s fear of the unknown and some way to rationalize it. How else do you explain the hot sun one day and a severe rain storm the next when you have no idea about meteorology?
Mr. Fusion
November 3, 2009 at 11:06 am
“… no religions except Islam are still preserved in their original form.”
Is that right? So why are Sunni and Shia Muslims not practicing their religion the same way? And why do they have different leaders?
“Everything that is wrong in this world today is due to our divergence from religious beliefs which held us in good stead in the past.”
O’boy… Your God really screwed on the cap the wrong way when he created you… Religion is the root of all evil. All the major religions are based on Judaism, and they all hate each other, because after all… they cater to the same gullible crowd… you know… people like you. They want control your mind and milk you for what you’re worth.
Jägermeister
November 3, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Everything that is wrong in this world today is due to our divergence from religious beliefs which held us in good stead in the past.
Religion simplifies life for people who like broad generalizations without substantiation– in other words, people like you.
And you accuse Eideard of being pig-headed. Har!
Enjoy your fantasy.
Morey
November 3, 2009 at 3:38 pm
And you accuse Eideard of being pig-headed. Har!
It’s the ears. They fool a lot of people.
Mr. Fusion
November 4, 2009 at 2:45 pm
But, I can’t move mine independently.
Eideard
November 4, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Great come back. Gave me a really good chuckle.
Mr. Fusion
November 4, 2009 at 2:56 pm