Roland Emmerich

[[File:Independence Day- Resurgence Japan Premiere- Roland Emmerich (28502013341) CROPPED.jpg|right|thumb|165px|It's karaoke night at the Honolulu Hula Bar.]]{{film|1}}
'''Roland Emmerich''' {{lived|1955|}} is a [[Germany|German]] writer, director, and [[Films|film]] producer, known for making popular, big-budget movies, especially a few that could be best described as "disaster porn."<ref group=note>Seriously, [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000386/ his IMDB page] lists four movies under "known for": ''Independence Day'', ''Godzilla'', ''The Day After Tomorrow'', and ''2012''. Guess what's the common theme...</ref> Like many other [[Hollywood]] products, they exhibit cheerful disregard for [[scientific]] and [[historical]] accuracy, which wouldn't be much of a problem if a few of them didn't influence [[Pseudoscience|popular]] [[Pseudohistory|perceptions]] with blatant [[bullshit]].<ref>[http://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/nov/04/anonymous-shakespeare-film-roland-emmerich Shakespeare – a fraud? Anonymous is ridiculous], ''The Guardian''</ref>

== ''Stargate'' (1994) ==
:''Director, co-writer (with Dean Devlin)''
The [[sci-fi]] action movie that established the franchise. As you probably already know, ''Stargate'' used the idea of [[ancient astronauts]] and Ancient [[Egypt]]ian exoticism as a background. Unlike [[Ancient Aliens|a certain TV series]] though, it never pretended to be more than fiction, and didn't choose to linger on AA lore, focusing instead on shoot-outs with [[extraterrestrials|aliens]] masquerading as Egyptian [[deity|deities]], [[mind control]]ling [[parasite]]s, a cute female "romantic interest," heroic sacrifice and, of course, the requisite Victory for the Earthlings.

It would later be adapted into a long-running TV series, ''Stargate SG-1'', that was even less interested in ancient astronauts except to provide inspiration for cool-looking monsters of the week and explain why the aliens the heroes are fighting look like pagan gods. Surprisingly, it was more successful than the movie in the long run, running for ten seasons and producing two spinoffs.<ref>The [https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Stargate_Wiki Stargate Wiki]</ref>

Rather strangely, the film and the TV series produced a [[conspiracy theory]] claiming that they were created by the US government as a cover for a similar, real-life program involving alien contact via wormholes and portals. One purported "whistleblower" even called it a "soft [[disclosure]]" project.<ref>[[Michael Salla|Salla, Michael]]. [https://www.exopolitics.org/stargate-sg-1-soft-disclosure-according-to-secret-space-program-whistleblower/ "Stargate SG-1: Soft Disclosure according to Secret Space Program Whistleblower."] ''Exopolitics.org'', 16 September 2015 (recovered 13 September 2019).</ref> Naturally, when the writers on ''SG-1'' found out, they took the idea and spoofed the living hell out of it, devoting two episodes to an in-universe sci-fi TV series called ''Wormhole X-Treme!'' that served just that role.<ref>Stargate Wiki: [https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Wormhole_X-Treme! Wormhole X-Treme!]</ref>

==''Independence Day'' (1996)==
:''Director, writer (with Dean Devlin)''
[[Alien invasion]] action/disaster movie with the requisite spectacular destruction of landmarks, including the [[White House]].<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nahdy9SjbGs</ref> Uses [[Area 51]] and a [[government]] recovery/[[cover-up]] of an alien crash at [[Roswell]] as parts of the setting, complete with the climax involving a gigantic dogfight over Area 51 and the refurbished Roswell saucer being used by the heroes to save the day. Alien systems are also as vulnerable to Earthling computer viruses as Windows XP with no antivirus software, which they justify by saying that our modern computer technology is derived from what they reverse-engineered from the Roswell saucer. It's also known for its weird mix of flag-waving patriotism, from the Americans saving the day to the fact that it's named after America's biggest national holiday (and was released on that weekend), with a message of global unity as the world comes together to fight the alien baddies, with one critic noting that it helped create the template for the kind of blockbusters with international appeal that now make up Hollywood's bread and butter.<ref>Bob Chipman, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcma0bKjJlY "Really That Good: ''Independence Day''"]</ref>. At least it had one of the most epic Presidential speeches in film history <ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t1IK_9apWs&t=29s Independence Day clip],.</ref>

It got a sequel twenty years later, ''Independence Day: Resurgence'', also directed by Emmerich from a script he and Devlin co-wrote (albeit with three other credited writers). Consensus is that you don't need to see it.

==''Godzilla (1998)''==
:''Director, writer (with Dean Devlin)''
The first American adaptation of Toho's legendary King of the Monsters to be put to film. ''Godzilla'' follows an asexual male mutated iguana's quest to lay eggs and claim New York as its territory. Its up to a biologist named Nick 
Totopolus
 Tatopoulos to stop it alongside the French and American military. Fans of the original monster universally panned the film from the drastic change of Godzilla's appearance and backstory, which Emmerich didn’t help by stating that he never even liked Godzilla (making an ass out of himself and Sony). In the Japanese film ''Godzilla: Final Wars'' (2004), the 1998 Godzilla, now known as Zilla, attacks Sydney, [[Australia]], later appearing in the film to face off the real Godzilla, before being killed in five seconds by the King of the Monsters.

==''The Day After Tomorrow'' (2004) ==
{{main|The Day After Tomorrow}}
:''Producer, director, story writer, screenplay writer (with Jeffrey Nachmanoff)''
A disaster movie that committed gross crimes against [[physics]], climatology and meteorology, misleading some people about the effects of [[global warming]]. In the movie, it somehow resulted in the almost-instantaneous [[Ice age|glaciation]] of the [[United States]].

==''10,000 B.C.'' (2008)==
:''Producer, director, writer (with Harald Kloser)''
An epic adventure movie that played fast and loose with "prehistoric" tropes (read: about as accurate a portrayal of the time period in the title as ''The Flintstones'' was). Notable for having the [[Giza pyramids]] (or some other [[pyramid]]s) built with woolly mammoths (which didn’t even exist where the Egyptian pyramids were built, though the last mammoths were still around when they were being built), apparently [[Alternate historical chronology|some 7500 years early]].

==''2012'' (2009) ==
:''Director, executive producer, writer (with Harald Kloser)''
Based on the [[2012 apocalypse#Pop culture|2012 apocalypse]] claims, but invented its own fictional disaster mechanism ([[neutrino]]s don't work that way<ref>[http://phys.org/news/2011-01-nasa-silly-sci-fi-flawed.html NASA's silly sci-fi film list -- 2012 the most flawed], Phys.org</ref>). Among other things, it featured a tsunami that [[Bullshit|reached higher than the peaks of the Himalayas]]. It would be just another science-challenged Hollywood disaster flick, if the promotional campaign for the movie didn't have the bright idea to capitalize on the existing 2012 craze, urging people to "[[Google]] 2012" (a bad idea, as a search returned mostly [[fringe]] sites) and creating a website for the fictional "Institute for Human Continuity" that achieved [[viral]] status and repeated [[Planet X]] and [[crustal displacement]] claims.

==''Anonymous'' (2011) ==
:''Producer, director (written by John Orloff)'' 
Roland Emmerich is a [[Shakespeare authorship|Shakespeare truther]]. He also apparently believes that Tudor Rose was a real flower; that special effects were omnipresent in Shakespearean plays; and that no other playwright knew how to write entirely in iambic pentameter despite the form existing for centuries by the Elizabethan era.

Emmerich can cite his right to meddle with history as much as he wants.<ref>[http://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/oct/27/roland-emmerich-anonymous Roland Emmerich: Appetite for deconstruction], ''The Guardian''</ref> But when the fundamental premise of your film is a fringe [[conspiracy theory]] you admit you actually support, further admittance to making shit up just demonstrates how stupid your premise is to begin with.

To anyone who gives credence to anti-Stratfordianism, just know there's significantly more evidence Roland Emmerich's a [[hologram]] created by Michael Bay than of Edward de Vere being the true author of Shakespeare.

==Aside from cinema==
Emmerich is a strong supporter of [[LGBT rights]] (he's gay himself), and went to bat casting Will Smith in the lead for ''Independence Day'' [[racism|when the other producers didn't want a black main character]].<ref>{{wpl|Roland Emmerich#Personal life and advocacy|Personal life and advocacy}} on Wikipedia</ref>

He's far from a studio shill, and it really seems he does what he does out of a love for filmmaking.<ref>[http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/02/28/emmerich.history/index.html Roland Emmerich, the accidental director], CNN</ref>  But does that absolve him of his sensationalistic crap? Fuck no.

==External links==
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3uYipLshD4 Watch Kyle Kallgren spend a half hour masterfully debunking ''Anonymous''.]

==Notes==
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==References==
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[[Category:Conspiracy theorists]]
[[Category:Film-makers]]
[[Category:Left-wing activists]]
[[Category:LGBTQ people]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Pseudohistory]]
[[Category:Pseudoscience promoters]]

Categories: Conspiracy theorists, Film-makers, Left-wing activists, LGBTQ people, Living people, Pseudohistory, Pseudoscience promoters