Having a cold, and having children with colds, in combination with a long weekend, meant a trip to the video store. We picked up a few movies.
(One was a real stinker, which I won’t mention by name but which may rhyme with "bragon bors." A lot got lost in translation in this movie: including plot, character development etc.)
One was an interesting surprise, Sunshine. From the description of the movie (a brave crew sets out to restart a dying sun with a giant bomb) I thought, "Aha, science shmience we’re making a movie. Perfect for mindless entertainment." Instead it turned out to be a good movie, although it did fade out at the end into classic horror/thriller stuff. What I found interesting was the religious/scientific debate that took place within the film. I guess my disappointment stems from the fact that instead of dealing with that issue the film just went a little slasher.
The debate in the film centres around the captain of the previous mission who (went insane?) and sabotaged it. He finds his way onto the second mission and tries to sabotage it as well. The director, Boyle, commented about this character in an interview last summer,
"Because he believes that science is wrong….the rest of us believe in science. We believe we can improve our lives. We believe we can innoculate [sic]. We believe that science can extend life. If nature threatens us, if smallpox threatens us—whatever it is—we can protect ourselves. The whole film is about that belief apart from him."http://theeveningclass.blogspot.com/2007/07/sunshine-evening-class-interview-with.html
or as the captain puts his belief more poetically in the movie
"At the end of time, a moment will come when just one man remains. Then the moment will pass. Man will be gone. There will be nothing to show that we were ever here... but stardust."
So the question becomes who is wrong here. The crew for wanting to change what has been mandated (the sun is dying), i.e. "playing God," or the crazy captain for interfering and possibly ending the lives of people on Earth.
The image of dust is everywhere. When the Icarus II crew enter into the Icarus there is dust everywhere, "80% of all household dust is human skin" When the crew are forced to try a crazy jump to their ship after they are disconnected, one character says, "We’re only stardust."
Sunshine (Clip of jump back to the other spaceship)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBRVZPBu8cU
But we know that even as dust creatures our lives have impact, as does the mission of this doomed crew, stardust they may be.
Each one of us is a dust creature, or more biblically
- Genesis 3:19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.
- Genesis18:27 Then Abraham spoke up again: "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes
But, we have been made by God, and breathed into by God, so that we may glorify God through our words, and our actions.
Job 34:14-15 If it were his intention and he withdrew his spirit and breath, 15 all mankind would perish together and man would return to the dust.
Ecclesiastes 12:7 7 and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
We are dust, and to dust we shall return. But for now, we breathe, we live, we love.
K
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