Augustine wrote that Christians are ideally in the world but
not of it. The fallen world is not the Christian’s true home. For the 5000 (plus
crew) prospective colonists hibernating aboard a mammoth spaceship in the film,
Passengers (2016), the planet Earth
was presumably not their true home—or maybe that home was becoming climatically
rather untenable and the 5000 were lucky souls heading for a new, unspoiled
home. In any event, the film’s central paradigm can be characterized as “travel
to” and “end-point.” That is to say, means and end characterize this picture at
a basic level. The film is particularly interesting at this level in that so
much value is found to reside in the means even as the end is still held out as
being of great value.
