Audio problem: An early scene in the movie has Chinese soldiers recruiting Tibetans to work on a secret project which they are told is a dam. As the scene ends, the sound of explosives draws everyone's eyes towards the mountains, where the explosions can be seen several miles in the distance. The sight and sound of these explosions take place simultaneously. Sound travels much slower than light. In reality, there should have been some delay before the sound of the explosions was heard.
2012 (2009)
1 audio problem - chronological order
Directed by: Roland Emmerich
Starring: Woody Harrelson, John Cusack, Danny Glover, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor
Factual error: In the poster shot and in the film, the wave from the Atlantic carrying the carrier JFK into a collision with the White House comes crashing in from the west because the south portico of the White House is seen. The Atlantic Ocean is east of Washington, so the wave should come from the other direction. And even a wave coming from the east could not have made the JFK (CV-67) crash into the White House because the carrier was retired in 2005 and is berthed in Philadelphia, which is northeast of Washington DC. (01:30:10 - 01:30:40)
Jackson Curtis: When they tell you not to panic... That's when you run!
More trivia for 2012
Question: At the end of the movie, it is stated that the Drakensberg mountain range in South Africa now has the highest altitude in the world, since the "entire plate of Africa has lifted". Isn't this highly unlikely, seeing as the Drakensberg is incredibly far away from any tectonic plate lines? Wouldn't it rather be Mount Kilimanjaro, which is not only already the highest point in Africa (the continental plate of which is implied to have been raised as a whole), but is also a volcano (thereby being more likely to be raised should there be lifting within the plate itself)? I am South African myself, and though I am incredibly proud of our mention, I wonder if it really is plausible.
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Answer: It's really impossible to say, given all of the massive land shifting seen in the film. We see the entire coast of California fall into the ocean. It's reasonable (in the film) to assume some cataclysm struck Kilimanjaro to lower or destroy it, or that the continent has been tilted.
In the movie, it was implied that the continent of Africa as a whole remained unflooded. So it stands to reason that the millions of inhabitants of the various countries may have survived intact. And so, the animals and plant life as well. So the question of saving the human species may be moot in this scenario. It's ironic, since most of the scientific community believes that modern humans evolved there first anyway.