Ah, well I offered my thoughts (in the form of a comment) on a Jeanne’s blog post so thought I might as well as post it here as well. Why not, it is my blog after all.

Regular readers of my blog will know that we’re a Sci-Fi lovin’ family. We get to explore all sorts of concepts without the bias that often comes from a real world scenario. So suffice to say that I couldn’t wait to watch this movie. Now, my disclaimer is that we watched the film at the drive-in… not in a 3D at the cinema. I’ve heard that the movie *must* be watched in 3 D so maybe my opinion is coloured by that…

It just didn’t deliver!

Maybe I’m getting old, I don’t know but it just didn’t cut it for me.

Sure the graphics were amazing but I want more story, more plot, more character development than graphics. I just don’t get amazing computer generated graphics- I prefer the real thing. God’s creation (nature) is mind blowing and yet we still need to dress it up with even more colour in these movies? I just don’t get it. Visually it was a little overwhelming for me…but that’s probably just me. I get sensory overload easily….

Using the movie as a teaching tool allowed us to show the boys how pantheism (faith equating nature with God) can look and how it contrasts with a biblical worldview. We also contrasted the view of a biblical worldview with that of animism, which is the belief that ‘spirits’ are everywhere and are in everything (remember this in The Lion King?) Don’t get me wrong: we use all sorts of movis as teaching tools…I just don’t get the hype about this one. Epic? Classic… what like the Lord of the Rings Trilogy? I don’t think so. Not even close. As much as I love Middle Earth and Hobbiton I’ve not known of anyone who became depressed or suicidal because it was fantasy world… unlike the story which CNN reports here.

The plot was totally predictable, with very little character development. A lot of cultural, spiritual and political opinion resonates from this movie. In fact, I thought it was Pocahontas meets John Smith redone! Although I did giggle at some of the political comments like, “We will fight terror with terror.”

Give me a good old drama anyway- one with twists and turns, character development, an interesting plot, real scenery and real flesh & blood.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
Romans 1:22 – 25