by Brad Balfour

G21 Contributing Editor

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NEW YORK, NY, USA - German-born Roland Emmerich became an action/adventure fanatic by sheer will. From his first film school production on, he used visual effects to illustrate his design skills and learned how to tell stories through them. That led him to the United States and his first scifi adventure, UNIVERSAL SOLDIER on to STARGATE and then, his first blockbuster, 1976's INDEPENDENCE DAY. Though his follow up, GODZILLA, stumbled, he became an established mega-budget filmmaster.

Now he's done it again with THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW -- a disaster epic with a fascinating underlying premise -- that global warming could create such a spontaneous ecological cataclysm that it would cause a permanent climate shift and utterly alter our way of life. Lead Dennis Quaid plays the visonary scientist who tries to warn the world or, at least, offer some hope in opposition to a Cheney-esque Vice President who dismisses his ideas as hysterical -- until the world freezes over. With its varying messages and little side takes (we see Americans being evacuated across the border into Mexico), Emmerich has made a thinking person's disaster flick.

G21: YOU KEEP DESTROYING NEW YORK CITY!

ROLAND EMMERICH: [It's] because of all the parking tickets they gave me. [Laughs]. I think you should be proud that your town plays such a big part in so many movies. After 9/11, I love to see New York in a movie even more than before. We wanted [to be] very sensitive to what we did when we discussed beforehand whether it would be appropriate to use New York but since it was a natural disaster [it seemed okay]. When so much water hits the Statue of Liberty, it would normally fall over, but we kept it standing there. [Not like in INDEPENDENCE DAY.] And I have kept an apartment in Tribeca since we made GODZILLA.

G21: DID THE WAY NEW YORK PULLED TOGETHER AFTER 9/11 REMIND YOU OF THE WORLD FIGHTING BACK IN INDEPENDENCE DAY OR SURVIVING IN THE DAY AFTER ... ?

RE: Yeah it did. There was some correlation between the events. A lot of people mentioned INDEPENDENCE DAY because of the images of destruction, which disturbed me a little. I had this feeling that there is some terrorist watching my movie in some cave and saying he should do it like the aliens.

G21: YOU DESTROY BOTH LOS ANGELES AND NEW YORK CITY IN THIS MOVIE; OTHER CITIES DON'T GET SEEN BEING DESTROYED -- WHY NOT?

RE: No, there are only so many action scenes you can have in the first half of this movie. There was a lot of stuff we wanted to do. On the DVD there will be a longer opening of the guys in space discovering a huge hurricane and then you see a hurricane hunter fly into the eye of the storm. Then we cut to Hawaii and two surfers get it.

G21: WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO TELL THIS STORY?

RE: It was taken from the book, THE COMING GLOBAL SUPERSTORM by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber. When I saw the book I realized it was science fiction guys discovering the weather. I was intrigued because my very first movie was about weather control, THE NOAH'S ARK PRINCIPLE [released in 1984]. Then I started reading science magazines articles, which talked about everything leading to an imbalance, which leads to this worldwide storm, which leads to an ice age ... I am an avid reader and when I am not working that's how I live my days -- I read. And the older I get, more and more I have become interested in telling a compelling story -- it's more important for what the movie stands for than in my earlier [films].

G21: IN THIS STORY YOU HAD TO COMPRESS TIME.

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RE: In movies you have to compress it otherwise you have [a] different story -- a family story. Normally this climate shift h appens in five to10 years. It's hard to tell a rescue story in that length of time.

G21: THERE'S MORE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT HERE.

RE: I had more time here to do it and so there are less of a number of visual effects; so the quality of them is higher and there is more time for characters to be developed. This one I am really proud of because the balance is just right.

G21: YOU REALLY COMPRESSED TIME IN INDEPENDENCE DAY -- DOWN TO THREE DAYS!

RE: It was like the three acts of a play -- Day One, Two, Three.

G21: ARE YOU A SCIENCE FICTION FAN?

RE: Not really. As a kid I never touched science fiction. Once I was in film school -- because I was a production designer -0- I realized that doing science fiction is a good place to be. I did my first movie which was science fiction to showcase my designs. But I read classic literature like Thomas Mann and Dostoevsky -- and I think these books [and other classics] shouldn't be made into movies.

G21: STARGATE HAS HAD THIS LONG LIFE ON TELEVISION.

RE: It's my dad's favorite show. I always tell him, "How dare you to like this?" It's really hard for filmmakers to see that. Its probably great TV, but for me, I don't like TV in general. I was only once involved with TV, with the show THE VISITOR, and I said never again. It was such a bad experience.

G21: HAVE YOU BEEN OFFERED ANY SUPERHERO MOVIES?

RE: Yes, but I cannot sink my teeth into any one of these comics. I don't know why the world needs superheroes. I never read them.

G21: I HEARD THAT AL GORE, AL FRANKEN AND A BUNCH OF SCIENTISTS CAME TO A SPECIAL SCREENING OF THE FILM ... DID YOU INVITE CHENEY AND MEMBERS OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION?

RE: When I did INDEPENDENCE DAY the White House called, so I ran off and had a screening for them. [This administration] can do that too -- they haven't called so I guess they haven't wanted one.

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