With Jurassic World set to be released this week, let’s?take a look back at the movie that started it all. In its time, it was a remarkable film with great action sequences and incredible-looking animatronics dinosaurs. It was a film that kept you on the edge of your seat while also engulfed in the possibilites and scenarios that it brings up. One can consider it a film ahead of it’s time, something Spielberg has done plenty of times.
I’ll be honest: I can’t remember the last time I saw the film, so sitting down to watch it again brought back some nostalgia, but also let me appreciate how far we have come in technology. The film is still a wonderful film, but it no longer holds that majestic feel it did back in the early ’90s. Taking another look twenty-two years later, as a more “seasoned” movie watcher, the dinosaurs are not as scary and the acting really is sub par. Yet, through it all, I still enjoyed rewatching it, while thinking to myself, “mankind hasn’t changed in twenty-two years.”
When we look at a film like this, where man is attempting to play God, the first thing we think is “this won’t end well.” Why is that? Because it never does! History has told us and proven to us that nothing good comes out of man trying to take the role of God. Jurassic Park is a perfect example of it. They constantly remind us that they have loosely and irresponsibly taken control of forces they don’t understand and have no idea how to control it. How can they possibly know? There isn’t enough science in the world that tells us we can bring dinosaurs into today’s world and control them, yet here they are trying to do exactly that.
Now the concept is wonderful and the idea that one can take fossilized mosquitos and draw out strands of DNA to clone animals that lived billions of years agao is fascinating. But how smart is it? These aren’t cats and dogs we are talking about, but these are animals that will make the fiercest of lions look like a kitten.
Dr. Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) voices his concerns perfectly in the film in that they decided to play with some of the greatest scientific and genetic forces in the universe and wield them like a child that finds his dad’s loaded gun. There is no sense of responsibility in it. At the same time, they are so preoccupied with the idea of “can we do this” that they never stopped to ask “should we?”
I look at this film and these aspects and fast forward to today and we still see these things happening. Man is still attempting to play the part of God and wield the power of nature. We are so fascinated with the possiblities and so blinded with socially driven agendas that we don’t stop to ask, “Should we?” Should we mess with the natuaral order that God intended? Should we throw out morality in order to create new rules and a false morality? What power or right do we have to do all these things?
As I sit back and watch this film and think of how irresponsible mankind can be, it reminds me how much we tend to be more like Satan and less like Jesus. “How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations! But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north. “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ Nevertheless you be thrust down to Sheol, to To the recesses of the pit” (Isaiah 14:12-15).
Satan’s sin was pride and a sense of entitlement. He thught he could and had the right to ascend to the throne and replace God. Isn’t that what man is guilty of? Aren’t we a prideful bunch that feel that we are entitled to do whatever we want whenever we want? That pride and entitlement has us slowly destroying the land. Our sins are scarttered to every corner of the earth but God says,?”If my people, who are called by may name, will humble themselves and pray seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (Chronicles 7:14).?Our prideful and sinful ways have not been working.
And just like Jurassic Park, the “dinosaurs” are out and looking to devour anyone and anything they find. Maybe it’s time to turn away, stop trying to be God, and start following God.
