Ah, 2012. 
I will admit I’ve watched more than an ordinary number of specials on the History Channel and the Discovery Channel of late about the scientific plausibility of 2012 actually meaning anything other than a date two years hence.
That said, I have always had and will probably always have a soft spot for disaster movies. I loved The Day After Tomorrow and I watch it whenever I’m in the mood to see the world changed forever.
The thing is though, after having watched all those TV specials about 2012 and the Mayan calendar ending and the upcoming galactic alignment of the sun with the center of the Milky Way, I still don’t think it all really means anything.
What will be will be and all that.
However, I also learned enough to know that 2012 the movie is more like a wonderfully wrought piece of fantasy than science fiction. Science fiction is fiction based on science. 2012 was exciting, touching, gorgeous, and devastating, but it wasn’t based on any science I’ve ever learned.
I once read a document put out by one of the Geological Society of London’s working groups called Super-eruptions: global effects and future threats. It was my understanding of what I read that 27 days wouldn’t be near the time needed to clear the air of the effects from a Yellowstone eruption, and that’s just one of the many disasters that struck the world in the 2012 movie and changed it—forever, but of which had less than realistic looking long-term consequences.
The movie was great, nonetheless, but it certainly wasn’t based on science. Is science fantasy a genre? Because that’s where 2012 squarely fits.
If you’re a fan of Mega Disasters and similar TV programs, you’ll probably like 2012. I did. :)