1. The World Didn't End (And Doomsday Predictions Are Hokum Anyway) - 2012 (2009)
The Disaster: A struggling science fiction writer must live one of his stories when an eccentric recluse warms him that the impending alignment of the planets will bring about the end of the world, as predicted by the Mayans. At the same time, an American geologist visits his astrophysicist friend in India and learns that neutrinos from a massive solar flare are causing the Earth's core to rapidly increase in temperature. Whatever the true cause, a series of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis proceed to push mankind to the brink of extinction. Why It's Bullshit: Well, we're still here, aren't we? The ancient Mayans were said to have predicted the end of the world some 1,528 years ago when their epic long-calendar began. On December 21st 2012, that calendar ended, though, thankfully, the world didn't. When a car reaches 99,999 miles, the next time it ticks over it will read 0, but that doesn't mean it has never been driven. The Mayan long-count calendar may have reached an end, but the years keep on ticking regardless. Besides, orbital tilts make it impossible for the planets to fully align anyway. Ancient doomsday predictions aside, the scientific reasoning for the world ending in a shit storm in this movie was debunked pretty quickly. Earth's enemies here are small, neutrally charged elementary particles called neutrinos that inexplicably gain electrical charge in the film and heat the planet's core. The laws of particle physics say that this simply could not happen, and no amount of solar flare could make it so. Also, it doesn't take an aviation expert to tell you that navigating a plane through an obstacle course of collapsing bridges and skyscrapers is practically impossible.
