I have always held the opinion that most successful movies (and movie series) tap into at least one of the following elements:
1. Time travel, time manipulation, or the multiverse theory
2. Apocalyptic events, large scale crisis, etc.
3. Origin story and ancestry—specifically paternal dynamics
In short, our storytelling is almost always centered around either stopping time because we need to change the outcomes; stopping a crisis because we need to change the outcomes; or understanding our past because we need to change the outcomes. The first two are about control. The last one is about identity.
Despite our best efforts as a secular society to throw off the shackles of religion and cling to the unseen hand of evolution, we obsess about the uniqueness of our ancestral identity. We may boldly accept the tangibles of science, but we are preoccupied with knowing the intangibles. And these preoccupations are innate to our humanness. Again, we can not escape them within our stories because no matter how far we go in creating fictional worlds, our humanness permeates through. Case in point, the most recent Top Gun sequel is not really a movie about fighter jets or alpha masculinity or defeating the bad guys. Instead, it is about a son reconciling his own life with the absence of his deceased father. Maverick’s line, “talk to me Goose”, goes from an exchange between two pilots in the first movie to a pensive and private thought in the second movie. But the line goes even farther as Goose’s son, also a pilot, has now evolved the question beyond Maverick’s self reflection to his own search for identity: “Talk to me dad…”. Neither the nuts and bolts of piloting nor biology can satisfy the deep and complex yearnings of a child directed towards his or her parents. And as loud or as outlandish our stories become, they tend to land right back there: identity.
“Talk to me dad…” might be relevant pop culture, but it is really scriptural truth reinforcing our inherent need to be a son or daughter—feeling safe and significant. When John opened his gospel, he set the stage for the restoration Jesus was to bring: identity. In verse 13 it reads, “But whoever did want him [Jesus], who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves, their child-of-God selves” (Message translation, emphasis added). Our true self hinges on knowing God as a father. Thus, knowing our father and mother in our natural lifetime is an extension of our core being. And we craft stories about just that: Where did we really come from? Who are our parents and what don’t we know about them? And most importantly, how will knowing all of that impact my potential, my destiny, etc.? We create super heroes and space operas and at the center are those questions concerning our origin. Top Gun: Maverick is only a recent example of this while Marvel Studios [i.e. Iron Man, Thor, Avengers, etc.] has been building arguably the most expansive and successful movie series around just that. In their book Images and Idols: Creativity for the Christian Life, Thomas J. Terry and J. Ryan Lister write “Origin stories are Marvel’s creative genius…the writers have tapped into our innate human need to know where we come from and modernized it for contemporary audience”. The desire ‘to know where we come from’ is human nature. And human nature is a nature, or kind, intentionally fashioned by God Himself. Thus, as Goose’s son is reaching out for the father he didn’t know, he’s really reaching towards Father God. Both are important, but only one can satisfy all of those deep and complex questions concerning our own identity.
Let me end with another scripture—scripture on why it is important and intrinsic to your very nature for the need of such a sincere request as, talk to me dad: “This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children.” (Romans 8:15-16 MSG, emphasis added).
