Category: Movies

I saw this movie a few weeks back when it was first released and thought it was a great movie. For entertainment purposes, I don’t think it was quite as good as Gravity, but the movie did touch upon a number of issues that are of immense interest to me.
I will try not to post any spoilers in case you have not seen the movie.

1. Climate Change The movie shows a planet earth which is ravaged by extreme weather changes and dust storms which have made it hard to grow crops and have rendered planet earth uninhabitable. Here in Australia we are in the summer season and weather is normally very good, but I have seen thunderstorms every single day for the last nine days. It seems changes are already happening. The movie paints a picture of what may happen if we fail to take action soon.

2. Space exploration I have long believed that all of the money spent on defence and weapons should be spent on space exploration, whether it involves diverting the next inevitable incoming asteroid or comet and thus averting an extinction level event, or billions of years from now, travelling to an exoplanet when the sun eventually dies out, space exploration is essential to the long term survival of humanity. This movie deals with topics like wormholes, which science indicates are possible and one of the most likely ways that we would be able to travel such incredible distances, if we are in fact bound by the speed of light.

3. Other dimensions Whilst the movie deals with the topic of other dimensions in what I thought was a rather far fetched manner, it does a reasonably good job of dealing with the subject. Most of us live and only experience life in three dimensions, height, width and depth. Some scientific theories have said there are up to ten dimensions. We ignore and tend to dismiss that which we cannot see. Some ignore the spiritual dimension which we cannot see, but which I have no doubt exists as something other than the activity of the mind. Something like 96% of the universe is made up of dark matter and dark energy, which a more appropriate descriptor would be invisible instead of dark as it can’t be seen, but we know it exists from the effect that it has on matter. Understanding who we really are in my opinion is essential to inner peace, and inner peace is essential to world peace. And that is part of the reason I really liked this movie.

I went to the cinema this afternoon, to see Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Although I was not born when the original Planet of the Apes movie was released in 1968, as a kid I have always been a big fan of the series.
This movie did not disappoint, it really is amazing just how lifelike the animation of today is.
I think each of the movies tend to carry an important message about war and peace and this one is no different. Throughout the movie, you get a sense that in any conflict, there are parties on both sides who are good and kind and just want peace, but as is so often the case, bad things happen when bad people take control. I also found similarities from the movie to what has happened in real life with the fabrication of evidence to try and justify going to war.
You also get a sense for what challenges a good leader can face when dealing with those who are banging the drums of war.