Friday, November 21, 2014

Interstellar, or why TGC should not be doing film reviews

Part of my concern with Kuyperianism in any form is that, in an attempt to Christianize everything, what we actually accomplish is a shoddy piece of work, especially if we know next to nothing in that field. Here on my blog, I keep to the stuff I know. I for one do not see any mandate to take "every square inch" and comment on every single issue here, as if there MUST be a Christian view of everything that is just waiting for my input.

TGC, with its idea of "every square inch," has posted a review of the movie Interstellar. In the review, there is a critique of the supposed utilitarian view of love and a lack of meaning of the events in the film. The problem is that I do not see at all any indication that this is what the film is trying to convey. Must a movie drag out emotional scenes in order to not promote a utilitarian form of love? Why must we analyze and over-analyze a movie, instead of just enjoying the narrative? If there is anything to take away, it is the portrayal of the real-time effects of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity with its concept of relative time on humans and human interaction and society. The film is focused on science, and adds some drama of course in order to create a narrative, a narrative by the way which is not unique in film (e.g. saving a person who then betrays you and jeopardizes the mission).

The main issue that Christians can comment about is the idea insinuated that future humans are the ones who created the Tessarect and sent it back in time, because it shows the secularist view of autosoterism, or self-salvation. That at least has some merit for discussion. But instead, that is mentioned once in passing and then we shift to those issues which are not even the point of the movie. The author mentioned about "meaning," but true secularists do not need a transcendent meaning; they create their own meaning for their lives. The naturalist scientific narrative focuses on solving problems not on creating meaning, and there is why the reviewer misses the boat in his review. Plus, since the film is supposed to be mostly scientific, why not focus on the scientific aspect of the movie, instead of picking on minor details which even Christopher Nolan probably is not concerned about?

Sometimes, such movie reviews ruin the movie more than they contribute to it. I rather have my mind trying to comprehend the idea of a person communicating through gravity waves in the Tessarect, then read a shoddy review of the movie.

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