I am going to list a few Tom Hanks movies. \u00a0Apollo 13. \u00a0Castaway. \u00a0Sully. \u00a0Captain Phillips. \u00a0 Saving Private Ryan. \u00a0Forest Gump. \u00a0Toy Story.<\/p>\n
Now which are based on true stories? \u00a0Besides toy stories, it might not be clear.<\/p>\n
The surface answer is this. \u00a0Sully and Captain Phillips are hollywood versions of the real events. \u00a0Tom went both to Captain Sully who was the pilot of the Miracle on the Hudson, as well as Captain Phillips who was held hostage by\u00a0Somali pirates and basically said to them prior to filming the same thing, “I am going to say things you didn’t say, and do things you didn’t do, but other than that, I want your help to make this as real as possible.” \u00a0 \u00a0Castaway was fiction. \u00a0Saving Private Ryan was loosely based on a true person, Forest Gump contained a\u00a0fictitious\u00a0character who taught about a box of chocolates and was cleverly edited in real historical events, Toy Story is a cartoon, and that leaves only Apollo 13 as up for debate. \u00a0We will look at Apollo 13 in a bit.<\/p>\n
If you were told Castaway was based on a true story and Captain Phillips wasn’t, you really would have a hard time telling the difference. \u00a0 If you weren’t familiar with Captain Phillips and just watched the movie without seeing the credits, you could google the movie and read what your search said. \u00a0You could try and travel to the area in Somalia and see if you could find some survivors and find out if they did indeed get killed by NAVY seals. \u00a0You could find the crew members of the Maersk cargo ship and interview them or you could find Mr. Phillips or Mrs. Phillips.<\/p>\n
Bottom line, the only way you could know for sure is if you were the one being hijacked. \u00a0 Or if you were Mr. Phillips.<\/p>\n
If you googled “was Castaway based on a true story?” and some jokester had a site up saying it was and giving pictures of a bearded guy and presented some artifacts such as a Fed-Ex name badge of Tom Hank’s character you would believe it was real. \u00a0If the movie began with “this is based on real events” you would let your guard down and embrace the story.<\/p>\n
What I am trying to show you is that what we think determines reality can be greatly manipulated.<\/p>\n
Now let’s switch gears. \u00a0I took my kids to see Pete’s Dragon over the weekend. It was a live action Disney movie with a CGI dragon and human actors. \u00a0 The dragon did not exist except on film, yet here I was emotionally rooting for Elliott the dragon. \u00a0 Sad when it was abused or in danger, happy when it escaped the clutches of those hunting him. \u00a0 \u00a0Broken in the beginning when a young boy lost his parents in a car wreck and he was left alone in the world. \u00a0Able to identify with the characters. \u00a0That is the magic of Hollywood.<\/p>\n
It “felt” real, it even looked real. \u00a0 But why did I know it wasn’t real? \u00a0Mostly because I had that expectation from a Disney film.<\/p>\n
But what if I was shown this movie as a child and told dragons were green and lived in the north and here is one caught in captivity? \u00a0And I was shown pictures of these realistic CGI dragons and shown them over and over for years? \u00a0I would have a huge desire to see something so exciting, and I would have been emotionally stirred, and I would be rooting that they would be real. \u00a0 And let’s say they dig up some bones and have a skeleton and say this is Elliott. \u00a0 And say everyone in school believed in dragons, and certain scientists taught classes about what they ate and did and how they smelled.<\/p>\n
And some punk comes up to you and says, “dragons are not real!” \u00a0 You would think that this kid was of the lunatic fringe. \u00a0You SAW a dragon for yourself. \u00a0Seeing is believing.<\/p>\n
Actually, that is wrong. \u00a0Faith is seeing. \u00a0Faith is believing. \u00a0 This is going to get a bit bumpy. \u00a0But bottom line, I believe in dragons, but not in Pete’s Dragon. \u00a0The bible talks about dragons and uses the word dragon. \u00a0And the bible describes a creature in the ancient book of Job called Behemoth which has the tail of a ceder and is the biggest creature God made. \u00a0It fits perfectly that of a brachiosaurus. \u00a0The word dinosaur wasn’t invented until 1842 by Sir Richard Owen, yet all over the world you have dragon legends, dragons on paintings in caved, or on stones in South America. \u00a0 There is great evidence that dragons really existed, and they were created on Day 6 before man was made, lived in the garden with Adam and Eve, and that Noah brought baby dragons\/dinos on the ark. \u00a0After the flood, the world was very different. \u00a0Vegetation was depleted, and there was less oxygen. \u00a0Brachiosaurus had the nostrils the same size as a horse. \u00a0It would have not thrived in the post-flood world. \u00a0The dinos grew smaller and were slower. \u00a0They were more easily caught or hunted. \u00a0They slowly died off, though there are reports in the Congo, etc of giant lizards still alive.<\/p>\n
But this isn’t about dinosaurs. \u00a0This isn’t about the loch ness monster. \u00a0This isn’t about Bigfoot.<\/p>\n
It is about why we should doubt what we are taught. \u00a0We need to question things. \u00a0Besides the dinosaur.<\/p>\n
I started talking about Pete’s Dragon to lead into this. \u00a0Before the movie, was the preview for the Star Wars movie coming out in a few weeks, Rouge 1. \u00a0The full screen was covered in stars and it was impressive. \u00a0Now question — what came first, the movie or the shot in space? Was this shot in space made in Hollywood or was it a shot of the night sky? \u00a0And how would we know the difference?<\/p>\n
In other words, the shot of space that looks real and is in the Star Wars movie — is it real? \u00a0Or did Hollywood create a vision of space and we really are fascinated about it and these images are what we see both in our minds and from NASA when we think of outer space?<\/p>\n
And how can we tell when\/if we are looking at real space and when we are looking at Hollywood special effects?<\/p>\n
What I mean is this — the Star Wars movies have a budget of $200 million. \u00a0NASA’s budget is in the billions. \u00a0Why do we think the earth is a spinning globe? \u00a0NASA says it is and shows us a round photo of earth. \u00a0We have played with a spinning globe from way back as far as we can remember. \u00a0We see the spinning world when we see Jurassic World, and anything from the Universal Studios. \u00a0Here I am again talking about dinos.<\/p>\n
NASA “owns” every space agency on earth. \u00a0 You don’t get to choose between NASA or American Airlines to visit “outer space”. \u00a0They give you pics of planets, stats on the astronomical numbers regarding the speed the earth spins and travels though the universe, and are getting folks excited about an upcoming voyage to Mars.<\/p>\n
But is it real?<\/p>\n
The great bible theologians, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, sang, “Space is the final\u00a0frontier\u00a0but it was filmed in a Hollywood basement.”<\/p>\n
Many claim –and I agree with them –that we have never been to “space.” \u00a0We have been a few miles up but we have not traveled to the moon. \u00a0And we aren’t going to Mars.<\/p>\n
And they are finding that planets aren’t these solid spheres that we can land on and explore. \u00a0And make movies about.<\/p>\n
So Apollo 13 is a true story because they told \u00a0you, but Gravity is a work of fiction. \u00a0What if both were fiction? \u00a0Ever heard of the movie, Capricorn One? \u00a0It starred the famous Buffalo Bills all-time murder leader, OJ Simpson. \u00a0And was about a fake moon landing.<\/p>\n
There is a good youtube video called A Funny Thing happened on the way to the moon.<\/p>\n
Houston, we have a problem. \u00a0 See about 1,000 miles up is a high radiation belt called the Van Allen Belt. \u00a0I do not think that is the firmament the bible talks about. \u00a0But no one has traveled above that, and the moon it seems is above that. \u00a0And then the firmament – a literal\u00a0impenetrable\u00a0dome above the earth. \u00a0Google\u00a0operation\u00a0Paperclip and Operation Fishbowl if you want to go down some interesting rabbit holes. \u00a0And above the firmament is water and above the water is God’s heaven.<\/p>\n
Someone is lying.<\/p>\n
And it is not God.<\/p>\n
NASA has lied over and over. \u00a0One thing with natural lighting — shadows all do in one direction. \u00a0The moon shots have different shadow angles. \u00a0Professional photographers can prove these were staged with artificial light. \u00a0 The whole thing is fishy — they went to the moon, which Richard Nixon said was on par with the week of creation as far as crowning achievements of the world go, and yet they barely had any photos? \u00a0They couldn’t film 360 degrees around? \u00a0IE, in the TV studio, you don’t see the “4th room”. \u00a0 Hollywood barely touched the moon landings besides the interesting one, Capricorn 1 about faking the moon landings?<\/p>\n
In “space” the American flag flaps in the wind?<\/p>\n
And while we can’t get a cell phone bar out in the woods, in 1969, astronauts were able to call Nixon from the moon.<\/p>\n
Things don’t add up. \u00a0And it is not just me.<\/p>\n
Outer space\u00a0may be nothing more than a figment of our\u00a0imagination.\u00a0 \u00a0To infinity, and, wait, we can’t go beyond the firmament.<\/p>\n
I thought it would be perfect to end with Toy Story.<\/p>\n
And Hollywood is a perfect compliment to those actor-nots lost in space.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am going to list a few Tom Hanks movies. \u00a0Apollo 13. \u00a0Castaway. \u00a0Sully. \u00a0Captain Phillips. \u00a0 Saving Private Ryan. \u00a0Forest Gump. \u00a0Toy Story. Now which are based on true stories? \u00a0Besides toy stories, it might not be clear. The … Continue reading