For instance, after the key White House personnel arrive at the base in China where the arks meant to preserve the human race are located, Adrian notices that several of the people being let onto one of the arks are many of the world’s more powerful and wealthy individuals. He is quick to ask, “These people were chosen by geneticists?”, since Anheuser had previously established that, to select passengers for the arks, “We had geneticists determine the perfect gene pool we need to repopulate.” Anheuser responds that allowing these elites to buy passage onto the arks was necessary in order to raise the money needed to finance the structures’ construction in the first place. Although Adrian doesn’t approve of how morally ambiguous this method of fundraising is, Anheuser sees it as a means to an end (and thus pragmatic) for the sake of humanity’s survival.
On the other hand, there are multiple small-scale examples of humanity’s aptitude for compassion that are showcased throughout the first two thirds of the movie. For example, when a gargantuan earthquake begins wreaking havoc on California, Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) hurriedly manages to usher his ex-wife Kate and their kids to his limo to get to safety. While he could have simply left Kate’s boyfriend Gordon to die in the unfolding chaos (considering the uneasy terms the two men were on at the time), Jackson instead makes sure he gets in the car as well before finally escaping the rapidly deteriorating neighborhood. Later on, after the Curtis family, Gordon, and Tamara are abandoned by Yuri Karpov (who’d bought passage onto one of the arks for himself and his sons), the Buddhist monk Nima is made aware of the group’s presence via his grandmother. While he could’ve just kept driving to rendezvous with his brother Tenzin, Nima, upon spotting Jackson, is compassionate enough to instead stop the truck and allow the latter and the rest of his group to hitch a ride to Nima and his grandparents’ meetup point with Tenzin. When the group finally reach the rendezvous point, Tenzin initially objects to letting Jackson and co. accompany his family. This reluctance is implied to come from a sense of pragmatism, like Anheuser, as Tenzin states to his grandmother that, “My plan will not work for so many”. However, his grandmother insists that their family take Jackson’s whole group with them, having previously stated, “We are all children of the earth” and Tenzin eventually relents.
On a more meaningful note, in the film’s climax, it’s revealed that a massive tsunami will hit the base in less than half an hour, far sooner than originally thought. Anheuser gets the other world leaders to launch the arks ahead of time, even though countless people have not been able to board yet. Adrian, in an impromptu address to the heads of state, implores the leaders not to leave the stranded crowd of people behind, declaring, “To be human means to care for each other and civilization means to work together to create a better life. If that’s true, then there’s nothing human and nothing civilized about what we’re doing here.” Anheuser, however, pushes for the more pragmatic approach to their dilemma, citing the restricted number of resources as well as limited time as justifications for not letting the people onboard. Adrian, however, asserts that, “Everybody out there has died in vain if we start our future with an act of cruelty.” As risky as letting the thousands of people on board proves to be, Adrian stands by his convictions out of a sense of compassion for these imperiled people.
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