Natural disaster meets non-natural disaster in "2012," which hits theaters on Nov. 13. (© 2009 Columbia TriStar Marketing Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

Roland Emmerich’s latest foray into all things end-of-the-world, “2012,” hits theaters next week. And, like his last big-budget disaster flick, “The Day After Tomorrow,” it promises to be a visually frenetic hodgepodge of as many types of natural disaster as possible. It has volcanoes. And earthquakes. And tsunamis. It doesn’t — at least from the look of the previews — depict the resulting flood flash-freezing and somehow not expanding to crush everything in its path, but that probably would have been anticlimactic in the wake of a tidal wave big enough to capsize an aircraft carrier.

As I’ve mentioned before, “2012″ looks to rely even less on realistic science than Emmerich’s previous disaster films.  But that’s par for the course when it comes to the genre, which has been around almost as long as movies have. Disaster movies tend to be high on spectacle and low on logical plot. And yet, according to Box Office Mojo, “The Day After Tomorrow” has a worldwide lifetime gross of more than $544 million, and it was one of the top 10 grossing movies in the U.S. in 2004.

The logical thinker in me wonders why people flock to these types of movies. Sure, they’re fun to watch. Things blow up, and with today’s visual effects technology, they blow up in a hyper-realistic fashion. But is that really all there is to it?

My theory is that disaster movies are essentially fairy tales for grown-ups. It’s a point Stephen King alludes to in the essay “Why We Crave Horror Movies.” But King’s analysis had more to do with the way horror movies appeal to the evil and macabre in all of us.  Fairy tales haven’t always been intended for kids, but they do play on the kinds of childhood fears that are both terrifying and thrilling, like the loss of parents. It takes more than a wicked stepmother to frighten an adult, though –so how about the complete devastation of entire cities? It’s an idea that’s both frightening and freeing.

And then there’s the absurdity. Who needs a dead boy who turns into a talking bird when you have a tsunami that can cross the Himalayas?

How to survive a Roland Emmerich movie at HowStuffWorks.com:
How to Survive an Earthquake
How to Survive a Plane Crash
How to Survive the Freezing Cold
How to Survive a Sinking Ship