Here are a few anonymous comments I got on my last post… and rather than address them in the comments section, I thought I’d discuss the in another post.
Thanks for your thoughts - it's always good to dialogue about things we disagree on.
on to the comments....
1. ”How could they have satisfied you?
Just because they were aliens doesn't mean they weren't angels.
And just because they were aliens doesn't mean there's no heaven and no god.
Doesn't He work in mysterious ways?
The whole prophecy/telepathy thing seemed to make clear that supernatural things exist...
Why wouldn't God rescue some life from earth (particularly the beings who can actually hear him)?
personally, I think nic cage went to heaven after reconciling with his family and working so hard to save lives.”
2. “really surprised by your review. I saw the movie and also noticed the allegorical aspects. I interpreted them entirely different however. I saw the movie to basically be the story of noahs ark. I originally thought they were aliens, but then I saw the outlines of wings in the mist coming off of their backs and noticed how they flew. I interpreted the movie as absolutely being one that God had decided to wipe the earth clean like in the flood, but this time with fire. He sent angles to collect 2 of each species. you did notice two rabbits, two deer etc. Then the angels took them in a different kind of ark and brought them to a new eden God had created on a new planet. I felt like they intentionally kept Gods part subtle so as not to scare away people interested in sci-fi. many of them probably werent aware of the symbolism at all. But for those of us who know I thought it was obvious.”
Ok – a few caveats first.
A.) I’m a follower of Christ, so I take His Word seriously
B.) Imagination and creativity are great – however.. my imaginings do not create reality. I can think whatever I want about God – that does not make it so, but rather makes me ‘god’ if I think that my thoughts determine reality.
C.) I believe in the supernatural – but not every supernatural occurrence is from God. Read all of previous post. (yeah, I skim too ) :)
D.) I don’t have to love every movie I see, and by my God-given freedom (currently protected by U.S. Constitution) I am free to say that something insulted me
With that in mind…
I reject aliens as some sort of cosmological evolutionary beings. I firmly believe there is enough evidence to have faith in an Intelligent Design(er) – just as some say they have evidence to believe in evolution. Since neither can be reproduced they are both faith systems.
I believe human kind is made uniquely in God’s image. The Genesis record states the stars were put in the sky for signs and seasons (not to house life elsewhere). One might say this is a self-centered or naïve notion… but I didn’t write the Book. I didn’t stipulate the carefully chosen words – and ‘what ifs’ not backed up are just imaginings. And it is not selfish to say we are ‘alone’ as intelligent creations – it says we are loved more immeasurably than most of us take time to truly ponder.
As a follower of Christ, I believe that He came (God enfleshed) to ransom humanity back to Himself. And the Bible very clearly states His sacrificial death was once for all. After which He rose from the dead and later He ascended to heaven (read Acts) and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He is not infinitely reborn on various other worlds to be infinitely re-sacrificed for other aliens…
Along those lines, the Bible makes it clear that no one goes to heaven for their good deeds. In fact, Isaiah makes it painfully clear that all of our best efforts or good works amount to the sum total of “filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6) when compared to the holiness God requires to get to heaven. THIS is why Christ came and offered Himself up as the ONLY perfectly sin-less, perfectly holy sacrifice for our sins.
The Bible also says that Noah’s ark was a one time event – based on God’s mercy toward a righteous man and his family. There are no more “arks” in the future. One could make the case that Christ’s cross is the final ‘ark’ (in fact the case should be made that Noah’s ark foreshadows the cross) BUT one does not need to decipher some bizarre, complex mathematical formula to deduce that this is how God will save them. Again, the Bible says, “to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God…” NOT to whoever heard a faint whisper and figured a massively complex coded system.
At Christ’s return He won’t be scooping up 2 of every animal.
And the Bible makes it abundantly clear that His return is not to restart life on another planet. There are cults that believe this myth, but not historic, orthodox Christianity.
The angel wings are a deception that these beings have been foisting on humanity for a long time. The beings shown here are fallen angels masquerading as those bringing ‘salvation’.
The fact that they are deceivers is shown by the “hypernatural” technology they use to get around. When my God rescues from this entropic planet He won’t need spaceships.
Furthermore – if alien beings landed in plain view of TV cameras tomorrow on the White House lawn, I would not be thrown for a loop in my faith or understanding of theology. I fear that many would. An alien landing would in fact be the greatest destroyer of world faith systems seen yet.
And when God used the ark of Noah, He did not rescue humans to a “better world”. Read the accounts. Life became miserably worse. Gone was the water canopy; animals ate each other, humans ate animals.
It was by no means a new Eden.
Bottom line: Christ rescues, angels are servants of His. This movie twists that by showing that man’s hope is for aliens to pack us up in their ship and drop us off at the next stop. The aliens are the mankind’s messiah(s) here. And sorry messiahs they are. Compassion, empathy, love, emotion – zero, communication – bare and terrifying. This is so removed from the way God demonstrates Himself in the Bible as to be
I have no issue with “alien” themed movies. I have a big problem with movies that intimate ham-handedly that the Bible is wrong or misunderstood by stupid humans who need to realize that aliens are the answer.
I appreciate a good allegory and even just a fun scifi film. but again... I found this to be insulting.
Additional comments from folks who saw the film and read my review:
"Very well done and stated articulately. I so firmly agree with the essence though ~ the film was very sloppy in structure and the plot and theme are softer than a 50 year old mattress."
"that was really well written. I wish I had time to write a book about that movie."
So, thanks for the questions and discussion… this blog will now move on to its next topic….
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
KNOW1NG – reviewed
2 stars out of 5
SPOILERS in review
and this is a long post - so buckle your seat belt..
I went with a bunch of friends to see the newest Nicholas Cage film last night and began loving it… only to feel like once again I wasted $8.50.
First off – the FX were breathtaking and disturbingly realistic in places. Kudos.
It went from cool to creepy cool to absurd to downright disappointly offensive. (not as in call the ACLU, but like… “really? Are you serious? ugh! This is why I avoided the Da Vinci Code”)
The film sparked a great discussion afterward as we hung around and eventually the management told us they needed to lock up for the night and we needed to head out.
The premise of the movie can be mostly ascertained from the trailer. (see previous post)
The movie starts with some great light/dark allusions.
A main character’s name is Lucinda (meaning: beautiful light) Embry (an obvious nod to the word ember)
The shots of the earth at night slowly coming to “light” as towns and cities switch on.
The elementary class singing “This Little Light of Mine” – albeit stripped of it’s original spiritual connotations.
So far intriguing…
Nic Cage’s character (John) is a single-parent, widower astrophysicist wrestling with eternal questions of purpose vs random coincidence to the universe. We learn that his father, who is estranged with, is a pastor and his sister (Grace) continues to be a voice of ‘faith’ in his world. John’s faith in ‘purpose’ (or order, or design, or will, or sovereignty – take your pick) died when his wife died in a horrific hotel fire years ago.
As John begins to discover the predictions in the letter coming to pass and his inability to stop them, he begins to wonder again if there is purpose, design and order.
Here’s where the movie began to get cool/creepy.
His son, Caleb, who has a hearing impairment, begins hearing (and later seeing) ‘the whisper people’ – at first one lone figure who looks like Keifer Sutherland from Lost Boys in a Matrix trench coat.
Then more figures begin to appear.
This is where it begins to verge on absurd.
The ‘whisper people’ are also seen by John (Nic Cage) and they all dress alike and have that 80’s new wave, Depeche Mode look to them. So now every time we see them, it begins to look like an 80’s-new-wave-Matrix obsessed band posing for their latest [dark] album cover. Laughable. Creepy… but laughable.
SPOLIERS START HERE
The numbers: date, number of dead and GPS coordinates – so you know when and where. But the last number ends with EE and no GPS.
Depehce Mode - are they part of a shadow element of the govt.? are they angels? Demons? They turn out to be able to do some remarkable things – disappear, shoot blinding light out of their mouths. Scratch out govt. conspiracy. Bible angels are fearsome in their appearance, but they don’t stalk people and scare the snot out of 10 yr olds who are sleeping. In fact, most of the time they tell people, “do not be afraid.”
So.. demons? Or……hmmmm?
Lucinda (the girl from the start of the movie who wrote down the numbers) is long dead...but has left one final note scratched into the underside of her bed in her trailer home before she OD’d – John finds this: Everyone Else
So now John figures out when the end of the earth will take place. He also sees that Lucinda was fascinated with a wood engraving Bible picture of Ezekiel’s vision (torn from said Bible). Ah… now it begins to dawn on me where this is headed. I have just wasted $8.50.
Here comes the ‘Ezekiel saw a UFO’ story again.. the denial of a sovereign Creator-Redeemer God. Oooh and look at the picture again…. ‘God’ is surrounded by blazing light. Some of these film makers / screen writers need to READ what Ezekiel says he saw and read good ol’ ‘Zeke’s message! He wasn’t about UFOs!
Being an astrophysicist, John realizes the end of the world happens tomorrow due to a massive solar flare. What to do… what to do… hide in caves? Go back to Lucinda’s house??
As an aside – John’s parenting is so bad it is more than laughable.
- He drinks to excess – in fact in one scene he awakes at 3:25 in the afternoon after a long night of TV and JD to a phone call from Caleb wondering if he’s going to pick him up from school. Hello?? How did Caleb even get to school that day???
- His kid, Caleb, goes to talk to strangers in a car ALONE out front of the house. How does John respond, “didn’t I tell you not to talk to strangers?” and pretty much leaves it at that – no concern, no why not to, no what did they say…sheesh
- Knowing and having seen the ‘whisper people’ (Depeche Mode) stalk his kid… John leaves Caleb and another child ALONE in a vehicle at night in the deep of the forest while he and Rose Byrne (what was her character’s name – Diane?) go to investigate the scary trailer. Hmm wonder what’s going to happen?
Anyway back to fairy land… Depeche mode have offered the kids that they can escape the coming doom if they choose to ‘leave’ with them.
Later DM steal the kids – I guess they honored the kids’ choice? Scratch off angels again. Demons?....hmmm or….
You guessed it – ALIENS!!! The aliens have come to rescue a few ‘chosen’ children to ‘start over’ on another planet - only those who 'heard the call', since Earth is doomed. The aliens are the ones who have been giving the warnings through the numbers and whispers (which btw lead people to insanity).
Their spaceship is – you guessed it – a wheel within a wheel!
Depeche Mode shed their human exteriors and become faceless, genderless beings of light whose radiating ‘essence’ is purposefully shaped to be like wings. Ah, so Ezekiel saw aliens and described them as best he could as having wings. Absurd.
The kids finally decide to go with the aliens, Nic Cage reluctantly agrees to let his kid go and contradictingly tells his son not to worry because they will be together again (in heaven) – wait… is there a heaven… or this… evolved alien reality?
The spaceships leave. Nic/john is reunited with his pastor-dad who assures them that ‘this isn’t the end.’ Either suggesting heaven is next (but wait…I thought this was aliens) or that the coming reality of the Earth’s destruction won’t be due to a solar flare. Possibly intimating that Christians blindly hold to the events in Revelation, Daniel and other end-time prophecies as real future events.) And just to be clear... after having recently re-read Revelation I think that a massive solar flare is quite possible and would do enormous damage(REV 16:8). that and a possible asteroid strike (REV 8:8). Read the Book... you'll see.
Earth is destroyed – yep I warned you of spoilers – and the aliens deposit the kiddos on another lush planet complete with a single huge tree in the middle of the field. The message here could not be more clear. It is not God who put man in the garden with a tree. We are here on earth because of aliens who dropped us here. And someday… in the benevolence/malevolence they will move us when the time comes.
This mockery and denial of the truths of the Bible is pretty in your face.
I once had a discussion with a guy who refused to believe that Jesus was God-in-the-flesh… but would entertain the idea that Jesus was an alien we all just misunderstood.
I wish people would read what Jesus said before making such ludicrous statements.
When I was exploring Christianity, I wondered how ‘aliens and UFOs’ fit in with everything. So I’ve done a lot of reading on the subject.
I definitely believe in a spirit world. I believe in light & dark, angels & demons, truth & deception… and believe that ‘aliens’ an the message of this film are demonic in origin. Of the recorded ‘statements’ that ‘abductees’ have ‘received’ from aliens a consistent message comes across – “why do you keep making such a big deal out of Jesus?” Never Mohammed, Allah, Buddah, Krishna… Always the attacks are against Jesus. The Creator-Redeemer God.
The deception..subtle and not-so subtle is this… aliens (demons in masquerade) are here to ultimately save us because they put us here – and there is no need for belief in God – especially Jesus the Christ.
“… Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.”
2 Corinthians 11:14 (NIV)
SPOILERS in review
and this is a long post - so buckle your seat belt..
I went with a bunch of friends to see the newest Nicholas Cage film last night and began loving it… only to feel like once again I wasted $8.50.
First off – the FX were breathtaking and disturbingly realistic in places. Kudos.
It went from cool to creepy cool to absurd to downright disappointly offensive. (not as in call the ACLU, but like… “really? Are you serious? ugh! This is why I avoided the Da Vinci Code”)
The film sparked a great discussion afterward as we hung around and eventually the management told us they needed to lock up for the night and we needed to head out.
The premise of the movie can be mostly ascertained from the trailer. (see previous post)
The movie starts with some great light/dark allusions.
A main character’s name is Lucinda (meaning: beautiful light) Embry (an obvious nod to the word ember)
The shots of the earth at night slowly coming to “light” as towns and cities switch on.
The elementary class singing “This Little Light of Mine” – albeit stripped of it’s original spiritual connotations.
So far intriguing…
Nic Cage’s character (John) is a single-parent, widower astrophysicist wrestling with eternal questions of purpose vs random coincidence to the universe. We learn that his father, who is estranged with, is a pastor and his sister (Grace) continues to be a voice of ‘faith’ in his world. John’s faith in ‘purpose’ (or order, or design, or will, or sovereignty – take your pick) died when his wife died in a horrific hotel fire years ago.
As John begins to discover the predictions in the letter coming to pass and his inability to stop them, he begins to wonder again if there is purpose, design and order.
Here’s where the movie began to get cool/creepy.
His son, Caleb, who has a hearing impairment, begins hearing (and later seeing) ‘the whisper people’ – at first one lone figure who looks like Keifer Sutherland from Lost Boys in a Matrix trench coat.
Then more figures begin to appear.
This is where it begins to verge on absurd.
The ‘whisper people’ are also seen by John (Nic Cage) and they all dress alike and have that 80’s new wave, Depeche Mode look to them. So now every time we see them, it begins to look like an 80’s-new-wave-Matrix obsessed band posing for their latest [dark] album cover. Laughable. Creepy… but laughable.
SPOLIERS START HERE
The numbers: date, number of dead and GPS coordinates – so you know when and where. But the last number ends with EE and no GPS.
Depehce Mode - are they part of a shadow element of the govt.? are they angels? Demons? They turn out to be able to do some remarkable things – disappear, shoot blinding light out of their mouths. Scratch out govt. conspiracy. Bible angels are fearsome in their appearance, but they don’t stalk people and scare the snot out of 10 yr olds who are sleeping. In fact, most of the time they tell people, “do not be afraid.”
So.. demons? Or……hmmmm?
Lucinda (the girl from the start of the movie who wrote down the numbers) is long dead...but has left one final note scratched into the underside of her bed in her trailer home before she OD’d – John finds this: Everyone Else
So now John figures out when the end of the earth will take place. He also sees that Lucinda was fascinated with a wood engraving Bible picture of Ezekiel’s vision (torn from said Bible). Ah… now it begins to dawn on me where this is headed. I have just wasted $8.50.
Here comes the ‘Ezekiel saw a UFO’ story again.. the denial of a sovereign Creator-Redeemer God. Oooh and look at the picture again…. ‘God’ is surrounded by blazing light. Some of these film makers / screen writers need to READ what Ezekiel says he saw and read good ol’ ‘Zeke’s message! He wasn’t about UFOs!
Being an astrophysicist, John realizes the end of the world happens tomorrow due to a massive solar flare. What to do… what to do… hide in caves? Go back to Lucinda’s house??
As an aside – John’s parenting is so bad it is more than laughable.
- He drinks to excess – in fact in one scene he awakes at 3:25 in the afternoon after a long night of TV and JD to a phone call from Caleb wondering if he’s going to pick him up from school. Hello?? How did Caleb even get to school that day???
- His kid, Caleb, goes to talk to strangers in a car ALONE out front of the house. How does John respond, “didn’t I tell you not to talk to strangers?” and pretty much leaves it at that – no concern, no why not to, no what did they say…sheesh
- Knowing and having seen the ‘whisper people’ (Depeche Mode) stalk his kid… John leaves Caleb and another child ALONE in a vehicle at night in the deep of the forest while he and Rose Byrne (what was her character’s name – Diane?) go to investigate the scary trailer. Hmm wonder what’s going to happen?
Anyway back to fairy land… Depeche mode have offered the kids that they can escape the coming doom if they choose to ‘leave’ with them.
Later DM steal the kids – I guess they honored the kids’ choice? Scratch off angels again. Demons?....hmmm or….
You guessed it – ALIENS!!! The aliens have come to rescue a few ‘chosen’ children to ‘start over’ on another planet - only those who 'heard the call', since Earth is doomed. The aliens are the ones who have been giving the warnings through the numbers and whispers (which btw lead people to insanity).
Their spaceship is – you guessed it – a wheel within a wheel!
Depeche Mode shed their human exteriors and become faceless, genderless beings of light whose radiating ‘essence’ is purposefully shaped to be like wings. Ah, so Ezekiel saw aliens and described them as best he could as having wings. Absurd.
The kids finally decide to go with the aliens, Nic Cage reluctantly agrees to let his kid go and contradictingly tells his son not to worry because they will be together again (in heaven) – wait… is there a heaven… or this… evolved alien reality?
The spaceships leave. Nic/john is reunited with his pastor-dad who assures them that ‘this isn’t the end.’ Either suggesting heaven is next (but wait…I thought this was aliens) or that the coming reality of the Earth’s destruction won’t be due to a solar flare. Possibly intimating that Christians blindly hold to the events in Revelation, Daniel and other end-time prophecies as real future events.) And just to be clear... after having recently re-read Revelation I think that a massive solar flare is quite possible and would do enormous damage(REV 16:8). that and a possible asteroid strike (REV 8:8). Read the Book... you'll see.
Earth is destroyed – yep I warned you of spoilers – and the aliens deposit the kiddos on another lush planet complete with a single huge tree in the middle of the field. The message here could not be more clear. It is not God who put man in the garden with a tree. We are here on earth because of aliens who dropped us here. And someday… in the benevolence/malevolence they will move us when the time comes.
This mockery and denial of the truths of the Bible is pretty in your face.
I once had a discussion with a guy who refused to believe that Jesus was God-in-the-flesh… but would entertain the idea that Jesus was an alien we all just misunderstood.
I wish people would read what Jesus said before making such ludicrous statements.
When I was exploring Christianity, I wondered how ‘aliens and UFOs’ fit in with everything. So I’ve done a lot of reading on the subject.
I definitely believe in a spirit world. I believe in light & dark, angels & demons, truth & deception… and believe that ‘aliens’ an the message of this film are demonic in origin. Of the recorded ‘statements’ that ‘abductees’ have ‘received’ from aliens a consistent message comes across – “why do you keep making such a big deal out of Jesus?” Never Mohammed, Allah, Buddah, Krishna… Always the attacks are against Jesus. The Creator-Redeemer God.
The deception..subtle and not-so subtle is this… aliens (demons in masquerade) are here to ultimately save us because they put us here – and there is no need for belief in God – especially Jesus the Christ.
“… Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.”
2 Corinthians 11:14 (NIV)
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