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I went to see T3 with Dan today. I'd heard that it was a really bad movie, but hey, it's Terminator. You have to see it at least once. (The movie makers must really love people like me.)
Anyhow, we saw it at Grant & I-10, in a pretty small little theater. I was just expecting a fairly corny action movie, and it was, but it was also more than that. It was corny in the same way that Matrix Reloaded is; the previous movies were so action-packed that you really can't top them in any sort of sane way. So you just go over the top with the action. WAY over the top. It gets to the point where you aren't really tense about the movie, you're just overwhelmed by the rush if it all, like an old roller coaster that you've ridden 17 times in one day, but still gets your stomach as you go down the hill. I found myself laughing at/with the movie; knowing that it was unbelievable but wanting more.
Then, suddenly, at the very end, the movie changes. It slows way down, stopping all of the action, and forces you to think about the human side of it all. You find yourself overwhelmed by the enormity of John Connor's experience, and understand his character even more. More than anything, it brings you back to the idea that Terminator, as much as being about action, is about a mind-bending, dystopic idea.
Again, it's Matrix Reloaded.
I think that Terminator and Matrix are incredible symbols of the reality of the new generation and of the world that they grow up in. Terminator is the problem; we no longer believe that the world of technology, science, and progress will save us. (We are - quite literally - Nouwen's "nuclear man.") We now believe that science, knowledge, and "reality" is our destruction; it is an unstoppable freight train of inevitability. We feel like we are the only ones who really understand the looming distaster, yet we find ourselves unable to even slow its approach.
T3, like Matrix Reloaded, takes our attempts to impact that reality, to change it for the better, and preaches to us that we can only put it off, not stop it.
Matrix is a statement of our collective reaction to Terminator. Seeing that our world of continual progress simply leads to our own destruction, we check out and invent our own, local reality. It is gripping enough to lose ourselves in it, but local enough to have some level of control.
Terminator: There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.
Matrix: There is no spoon.
There is some freedom in this new worldview. We can explore new possibilities without immediately disregarding them as we might have done in the past. But we cannot forget the fact that both Terminator and The Matrix are fundamentally dystopias that do not acknowledge the larger story. We must find God in the picture.
I don't believe that God rebells against the idea of the dystopia that they present. But what He does rebel against is the idea that there is nothing beyond that broken reality. We live in a fallen world. Adam sent us into the downward spiral that we now experience, and nothing mankind can do will alleviate the fundamental reality that this world is not what it should have been. God, I think, experiences this even more deeply than we can imagine. He is not distant, guiding the paths of this world like a distracted chess player. He is passionately involved in every moment, and feels everything that is that should not be and everything that is not that could have been.
God's answer to Terminator and the Matrix is not to discard them and offer happy alternatives, but to dive deeply into them, embracing our sorrow, and offering relationship in the ashes. He offers a happier future, not through power or even through human struggle, but through submission, quietness, and peace.
We must learn how better to speak the language of truth in the world of sorrow. |
