If you search the 2013 sci-fi film After Earth on Google, you quickly realize that it’s a far cry from being critically acclaimed. Regular audience members and critics both found it in some way unsatisfying.
M. Knight Shyamalan, After Earth‘s director, seems to be drawn to plots steeped in science fiction and the supernatural. Having seen the Mel Gibson film Signs (2002) and the Mark Wahlberg film The Happening (2008), both of which he directed, I can say After Earth seems to be one of Shyamalan’s better films. It has a more distinct plot and a rather noble message.
If you can sit through a Terrence Malick film or Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014) and come out of it having taken something meaningful away with you, there is merit to be had in After Earth.
Beyond comparing and contrasting it with other Shyamalan productions, the film can stand alone on its own two feet. The landscapes are sublime, the acting down-to-earth, if not cozy at times. Maybe some folks just don’t like Jaden Smith. But I think he and his dad Will Smith pull off an interesting father-son dynamic with their characters in the movie. (It’s also one of Will Smith’s better sci-fi films.) Nevertheless, what’s really the meat of this film is its message.
Cypher (Will Smith) along with his ambitious young son Kitai (Jaden Smith), who wishes to prove his strategic worth to his father, make a premature crash landing onto Earth. Finding themselves in a danger zone, and with Cypher injured, a great responsibility falls on Kitai’s shoulders.
It’s up to Kitai to make his way through the terrain of a hostile Earth, retrieve a beacon kept in the now-severed tail section of the ship, and transmit their whereabouts. His mission is, not surprisingly, fraught with danger. What is key to the story and to his own personal development is how Kitai responds to the perils he confronts.
As his dad, Cypher, explains to him, “Danger is real…fear is a choice.” Fear comes to the forefront of the storyline as the stakes are raised when Kitai must face an Ursa, an alien organism that senses its prey by picking up how much fear they showcase. It’s through fear that an Ursa is able to hunt successfully. Controlling your fear becomes, for Kitai particularly, a matter of life or death.
I wouldn’t go as far as Cypher when he says that fear isn’t real. The experience of anxiety is something almost all of us can relate to, and it can have a massive effect on a lot of what we do. It can be the root cause of action or inaction. If it becomes something that immobilizes us, it isn’t good. There are, in many instances, situations which we stress over that we have no immediate control of. Anxiety can encroach on nearly every detail of our lives – if we allow it to.
Traveling through a forest on the now-inhospitable Earth, Kitai falls into a frenzy of fear on several occasions. But, when confronting the Ursa, he learns to temper his fear – to, as the film suggests, “turn off” his fear somehow. For Star Wars fans, this idea of overcoming fear is likewise distinguishable as a crucial step for any virtuous Jedi.
In reality, fear can’t naturally or perfectly be suppressed. What we can do is decide what we do with the fear that rests on our shoulders. Jesus, as part of one of His most iconic addresses following the Beatitudes, tells His audience that inordinate fretting will take us nowhere. It can only hinder us.
“And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life? Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day” (Matthew 6:27, 34).
Kitai learned that getting past your fear allows you to focus on pursuing a path of virtue and victory, that being afraid of the ever-present dangers does not make them go away. Rather, the hero knows he is called to action.
Anxiety and fear can creep into nearly any part of our lives. Do we neglect relationships with others? Do we despair over something? Are we holding back from relinquishing ourselves to God out of fear?
In all things, our Lord has triumphed. In the prelude to His passion, Christ prayed and asked that the approaching suffering might pass. Nevertheless, He submitted His will to that of the Father and thus defeated sin and death. In our fears, let us model ourselves after the Son of Man, Who brought His human anxiety before God. Let’s take our woes and worries to God just as He did.
John Tuttle
John Tuttle is a Catholic journalist, blogger, and photographer. He has written for Prehistoric Times, Culture Wars Magazine, Those Catholic Men, Catholic Insight, Inside Over, Ancient Origins, Love They Nerd, We Got This Covered, Cultured Vultures, and elsewhere. He can be reached at jptuttleb9@gmail.com.