Dinosaur: A journey of faith, determination and hope

Surely Dinosaur is far from being the best movie to impress and capture people's attention, unless you grab the whole message behind the story which is not only about survival, but determination, courage, faith, patience in the midst of difficult situations and perilous times challenging one's life. In fact that's what captivated my attention personally.

Featuring one of the most spectacular scene, the movie opens up during a period of attack from an Oviraptor with an Iguanodon mother forced to abandon her nest with only one egg surviving. The egg is taken by the attackers, who, inadvertently drop it into a river and ends up on an island inhabited by lemurs. The lemurs witness the egg hatch and must decide what to do with it. Yar, the father of the Lemurs family is skeptical about that beautiful creature. "Things like that grow up to eat things like us" he says but cuteness wins over. The family ends up adopting the small creature, they name him Aladar and raise him as their own. Aladar grows happily and healthily among his beloved Lemur family and turns out to be herbivorous.

Unfortunately, their idyllic lifestyle is abruptly interrupted when meteorites strike their rich and abundant tropical paradise, and turn it into a deserted and morose wasteland with no water and no hospitable "mating ground".

Begins for them a long pilgrim journey in search of water. That's where, I admire the courage and determination of those poor animals, who, deprived of their beautiful homeland and amazing lifestyle, do not sit down and mourn and go into a state of despair as we humans we often do in perilous times, but, they stand up and face the situation. You might think it's just a movie to entertain kids but the message behind just a movie contains and important lesson not to be ignored. The animals encounter all sorts of challenges - fatigue, pain, enemies attack, dryness, discouragement, thirst- but in the midst of them all, they nevertheless continue their journey. They have one thing in mind; defy adversities. To me, this is the most amazing example of faith, courage, determination and hope no matter the odds and they pay off all the time. They finally find water and with the help of providence, it also begins to rain.

Critiques have raised one point which does not make sense to them. When the creatures finally find water, they don't cheer and raise their open mouths to heaven, instead, they seek shelter in a cave where they can stay warm and dry, also they do not seem to look for food and this latter issue is never mentioned. When the torrential rainstorm passes, they are again trekking through the hot dry desert looking for water again.

In my personal opinion, the movie might purposely lack those details; (This is not a confirmation but only my opinion). Remember that the creatures suffer trauma and are stressed as their green pastures is destroyed, therefore they response abnormally to the situation. They desperately crave for water, find it along with providence which sends them abundant rain- what do they do? Run to a cave instead of making the most of it and when it stops, they look for water again. Besides water is also important to prevent dehydration. We humans we behave in the same manner. Whether the details were purposely missing or not , the main features worthy to retain are the faith, determination and hope of the herd. At the end, after a perilous time and a hard journey, they end up in green pastures again. Their effort was not in vain.

How about us humans, we are so easily discouraged and we mumble each time we face adversary. Shall we not learn something from these dinosaurs?  Let me share two portions of bible scriptures here:

Mathew 7-7: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

James 1: 2-6: My brethren count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 3 knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. 4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. 5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

WATCH A TRAILER HERE: