Of course, any impact or explosion that could throw the ocean that high, that far inland would probably have ruptured the crust entirely, and the ground shockwave would have wiped out everything long before the tsunami could get there...

Matt, I have nothing but idle speculation and "I think I may have once heard a spurious rumor to this effect" to go on, but I think it won't be an impact that generates the bad stuff, but the whole Earth-flips-magnetic-poles-due-to-galactic-superalignment thing. That's how we get super-mega-ultra tsunami without super-mega-ultra hock waves.

Never mind that this likely would do nothing more than mess up all our compasses, until we compensated.

Also never mind that, in the most recent trailer, a wall of water that big squishing the White House with an aircraft carrier is beyond redundant. The wave would produce exactly the same effect on the White House even without the carrier.

Never mind that this likely would do nothing more than mess up all our compasses, until we compensated.

Well, we'd lose the Earth's magnetic field for a while, leaving us vulnerable to cosmic rays or something.

Wouldn't that just give everyone superpowers?

Wouldn't that just give everyone superpowers?

Yep. And one particularly sick individual has the superpower of creating GIANT waves.

They have to save SOMETHING for later trailers, and that's mostly that it's a secret superhero movie for extra summer blockbuster gravy.

Wouldn't that just give everyone superpowers?

If everyone's special, then NO ONE is special.

(Grr.)

If everyone's special, then NO ONE is special.

Fuck that, I want my superpowers!!

So instead, all non-special people will be squished. Leaving only the special people.

Um....

Why is it that I suspect the filmmakers never quite got that the magnetic poles reversing doesn't actually flip the planet like a flapjack in a skillet so Antarctica ends up facing the North Star?

Really, a complete temporary collapse of the magnetosphere could be pretty catastrophic what with all the cosmic rays and solar wind particles making it down to the surface. But I suppose "And over the next twenty years half the population died of cancer!" doesn't have quite the immediate thrill of "OMGWTF! Wave taller than Everest!"

The DVD I have out from Red Box has an early 2012 trailer that actually looks kinda cool... monks in Tibet sounding the bell of their mountaintop monastery as the giant tidal wave swells up over the Himalayas.

Oh, it's that movie! I saw that trailer in the cinema earlier this year. That Tibetan tidal wave was awesome! If totally unbelievable.

So (500) Days of Summer is hilarious and sweet and sad and lovely, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel are great, and I recommend everyone sees it whenever the hell it actually comes out.