Earthquake depictions can be exceptionally scary when you live on a fault line (and we do – tick tock, my lovelies), but the one in this brand new five minute clip from the upcoming 2012 blockbuster (filmed here in Vancouver) is patently Over-The-Top. After watching it, I suspect the film, which premieres Nov. 13th, might be a bit too apocalyptic for its own good. Still, as with all legends, its premise contains an ounce of truth: the ancient Maya did devise an incredibly accurate, 5,126-year calendar system (they scoffed at “leap” years, preferring to keep in galactic sync), and it will run out of time on Dec. 21st, 2012. Does that mean the end is near? Naturally, there is a wackjob quotient of New Age freakazoids who believe the calendar’s abrupt (and inexplicable) wrap up must mean the literal end of time, as in the end of everything, but for people who aren’t as adorably gullible, this just means a retroactive F in math for the Mayans. While I’d love to join these crazies in their flying monkey butthole soothsaying, if only to get an inside glimpse of what it’s like to be an absolutely barking mad loon, I just don’t have the…er…reach. Do you?

The wiki runs the short of it:

The 2012 phenomenon is a present-day cultural meme proposing that cataclysmic or transformative events will occur in the year 2012. The forecast is based primarily on what is claimed to be the end-date of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, which is presented as lasting 5,125 years and as terminating on December 21 or 23, 2012. Much speculation has attached itself to this date, including interpretations of assorted legends, scriptures, numerological constructions and prophecies, and alleged channeling from extraterrestrials.

A New Age interpretation of this transition posits that, during this time, the planet and its inhabitants may undergo a positive physical or spiritual transformation, and that 2012 may mark the beginning of a new era. Conversely, some believe that the 2012 date marks the beginning of an apocalypse. The 2012 doomsday prediction idea has been disseminated in numerous books and TV documentaries, and has spread around the world as an Internet meme through websites and discussion groups. The idea of a global event occurring in 2012 based on any interpretation of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar is rejected as pseudoscience by the scientific community, and as misrepresentative of Maya history by Mayanist scholars.

2012hoax.org runs the long of it. If you want to believe we’re all going to die terrible deaths in 2012, I can’t blame you. 2013 totally sounds like a bummer year anyway.