MovieChat Forums > 2012 (2009) Discussion > How many people found the Oliver Platt c...

How many people found the Oliver Platt character awesome?


You know, the Anheuser character:
- He's pragmatic, to the point and mean (why take mommy if she's already halfway gone?, ex doesn't want to see me again? So be it!), like an effective politician needs to be.
- He shoots down Dr. Helmsley and the president's daughter's BS objections nicely:
a) Tell people WTF is going on? Nope, that would unleash Mad Max anarchy and would help no one since they're doomed anyway (impossible to survive outside an ark)
b) Had to kill whomever was about to expose the whole deal? Well yes! Otherwise forget about getting anything done.
c) Sell tickets? Well who did he think paid for the arks, Obamacare?
d) People didn't get picked up (Indian guy)? Well duh!! With Helmsley's predictions proving wrong they had to speed things up and improvise, obviously many thing would go wrong (picking people), the Indian dud wasn't the only one left behind.
e) People are to be hosted in comfortable rooms instead of packed like a Japanese subway train? Well duh, they will have to LIVE there for months, you want people to go stir crazy and kill each other due to cabin fever?
f) Do the workers get a ticket? Feel free to give them YOUR ticket if you feel so strongly about it.

I loved him all the way. Too bad the movie at the end screws him over with sentimentality from Helmsley to get the extra people inside the ark.

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He was easily the most sensible person in the movie. I honestly think that if he wasn't running the show then those arks probably don't get built.

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And once they reach land, they're going to need his sensibilities to get things done there, too.
May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?

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Yes I never liked the way the film seems to want to make the audience hate him. When actually, he's the most sensible person in the film

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If the filmmakers really wanted to make that point, they would have had him killed off somehow at the end.

The filmmakers wanted to show he was very logical and practical but that didn't mean he had to abandon compassion altogether.

When the stars are the only things we share
Will you be there?


-Benjamin Francis Leftwich

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Pragmatically agree but to redeem the character cinematically he would have needed to direct the billion euro ticket holders to a leaky tub with himself in command whilst secretly filling the arks with incredibly gifted orphans and cute bunny rabbits.

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Well, he DID kind of do that to the ticket buyers. If Yuri was any indication, he left if up to the ticket buyers themselves to find a way to the Arks. I'm sure his reasoning was, "Yeah, I will sell/sold tickets to them but, if they can't get themselves to Chosin in time, SO BE IT!". lol

I see Anheuser as an Atlas-type(the greek mythological figure) character. When we first meet him, he's some small time, smoozing bureaucrat who thinks raising a few million dollars is a big thing. Then, Adrian shows up with his proof of what's going to happen and Anheuser gets thrust into this high position of power and responsibility and now has the weight of the survival of the whole human race on his shoulders(ESPECIALLY after the PotUS and all of the other higher-ranking American officials died making him the de facto leader of the American contingent). That much responsibility was too much for him so he broke down when he had the chance to let the other Ark passengers and Chinese workers on and basically saying what he was saying because he was only worried about his own life at that point(most anyone would agree that worrying about one's own self is a lot less stressful than having to worry about the whole world). However, in a deleted scene, he gets to talk with Adrian and they have a whole "I'm sorry...no, I'M sorry/let's shake hands and let bygones be bygones" conversation which redeems him. I really wish Emmerich had left that bit in(god knows he could have easily trimmed some other parts of the movie to make room for it lol).

Come on you apes, you wanna live forever!?

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