Then I saw a new heaven and a new
earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea
was no more. Revelation 21:1 (NRSV)
Petter and I went to the movie Tomorrowland this week. We went expecting a typical summer action-adventure
movie; something we would like to watch but that won’t challenge us too
intellectually, theologically or philosophically. And while this movie did provide
the requisite amount of action, adventure, good guys verses bad guys and saving
the world plot we both found ourselves reflecting on the overall message of the
movie.
It is hard to summarize the film’s plot but Noah Berlatsky in
his review on the QUARTZ website http://qz.com/418227/tomorrowland-tries-to-tackle-hollywoods-biggest-cliche-how-do-you-actually-save-the-future/
writes: The plot is farcically convoluted, but in
broad outline, a group of elite geniuses have created an extra-dimensional city
from which they can view the future. They realize that the earth is going to
destroy itself through a heterogeneous mixture of war and environmental
destruction, and it’s up to genius inventor Frank (George Clooney), young
genius inventor in embryo Casey (Britt Robertson), and the robot girl Athena
(Raffey Cassidy) to prevent catastrophe.
Berlatsky goes on to summarize how the movie would have
humankind prevent catastrophe: So how
does preventing catastrophe work, exactly? The film offers three somewhat
contradictory, if familiar, answers. The first is the aforementioned standby:
blowing up the bad guys…Tomorrowland is,
to its credit, unusually forthright in acknowledging that shooting a robot is
not really a solution to global warming. “It isn’t hard to knock down a big
evil building,” Frank declares. “What is hard is figuring out what to build in
its place.”…And here’s where another Hollywood (and Disney) trope comes in:
namely optimism. Casey is, naturally, a “Special One” destined to save the
earth—and her special superability is hope. The real source of change, the film
argues, is not action, but the faith in action…the third way to change the
future according to Tomorrowland is
through gizmos, or technology. Inventions and new tech are presented as part of
a pragmatic solution—Casey is going to “fix the world” because she “understands
how things work.” Averting the apocalypse is an engineering problem, different
in scale, but not in kind, from fixing kinks in the jetpack.
Now Berlatsky’s review is that this movie a flop, that it
does nothing new and that the solutions to the catastrophe are not really what
the movie presents. This is where I think the movie actually does its
best work. The three solutions mentioned above might actually be the real
solutions to our problems. Ok I don’t like violence as a solution but like it
or not, some of the bad guys will need to be removed from power in order for change
to happen and as history has taught us people in power do not usually willingly
hand it over. And the movie gets it right that destruction isn’t the end, it’s
what you put in its place that will save us; anarchy never works long term. But
it is the other two solutions that I think offer us a way forward into
survival.
Optimism, hope, faith in action these are necessary elements
in any recipe for change. You cannot expect meaningful, lasting change to come
if there isn’t a healthy degree of optimism that change will save us. I believe
that without a firm belief in what might be you cannot envision a better world
and without that vision you cannot change things. One of Walt Disney’s most
famous quotes says is best: “If you can dream it, you can do it!” In order to
overcome catastrophe you have to have a pretty good idea of what you want to
see so that you can make it happen. Faith in action is the only thing that will
bring the change that is needed, as Gandhi said: “Be the change you want to see
in the world.”
And finally technology as a part of the solution is a must.
Averting the apocalypse is at least in part an engineering problem because a
lot of what ails our world has to do with what we have created, how we have
engaged creation, and with how we can find workable solutions to our very real
problems. For example, growing food to get maximum yield will mean engineering
irrigation systems that get the water to where it is needed with the least
amount of loss. It will mean engineering harvest equipment that has the lowest
impact on the earth. It will mean engineering delivery systems that are
sustainable. And what goes for agriculture goes for all other areas. Technology
has been responsible for how we’ve gotten into this mess and it can and will help
provide a way out.
The world is a mess but through having the right people in
leadership, having hope and putting your faith that tomorrow can be better than
today into action, and making sure that research and experimentation are funded
and happening to discover ways to improve our situation then there is hope for
the future.
Dear God, help me to have faith, to be optimistic, to put my
faith into action. Help me to lead in ways that bring about healthy change.
Help me to advocate for research and experimentation so that our best minds can
be engaged in finding solutions to our problems. Help us use the gifts you have
given us to create a new earth. Amen.
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