The Gum Tree for 2007 October 22

We watched a children's movie "The Last Mimzy" last saturday. Overall, the movie was interesting; especially the part when Brian Greene made his cameo as an Intel Computer Scientist. Brian Greene, as many of you may know, consulted on the movie Deja Vu. There is one part in the movie Deja Vu when they start talking about the 'river of time,' etc. and I knew at that point that Greene's fingerprints were on that film, and sure enough, he was on the credit roll as an advisor. I also recommend to anybody who hasn't watched the NOVA series The Elegant Universe should go to the website and watch it. It is about 3 hours long, and I really enjoyed it. Back to "The Last Mimzy," it was obvious from the start that the movie contained subtle anti-religious assumptions. For Example: 1) The movie starts out in some kind of 'state of nature' in which children fly down using their minds to have a lesson from a woman in a flower patch. They learn that pollution has caused their ancestors' DNA to switch off certain 'humanist' genes (Humanism often being used as a euphemism for Atheism). 2) The religions which are explored are some obscure Nepalese and other far-eastern religions. All those religions are later explained in the movie to have a basis in Science. Likewise, the children perform miracle-like acts which are explained by the end of the movie as having a basis in science. 3) The movie references 'Junk DNA' as being a byproduct of Evolution and pollution. As it turns out, the more we learn, the more we are comming to understand that 'Junk DNA' is not the byproduct of evolution but that it has real and essential functions as regulators of the genetic software program. 4) Throughout the movie there is a creation-like narrative about a creation, paradise, a fall, and redemption through science. The imagery of the first and last scene could just as well have been taken from a Jehova's Witness Booklet. There seem to be a lot of Anti-Christian movies comming out lately (e.g. Da Vinci Code, The Golden Compass, etc.).