Movie characters who travel on fantastic realms choose – consciously or not – to engage in a journey of discovery, the maturity and knowledge of self. Whether you are traveling to other planets, in parallel universes, time travel or human subconscious, they have one goal: the spiritual evolution of the characters to turn them into heroes or gods. In reality, imagination leads to the same purpose after going through the inner journey of acceptance and awareness of the own universe in which we live.
10. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
On board of the majestic sailing ship, Pevensie brothers embark on a journey that bears them on five islands, where they face unexpected danger and adventures. While launching this journey that will change their life, courage and faith are put to the test on a voyage of destiny, transformation, which leads them to distant edges of the world. Edmund and Lucy will go through many situations that will test their courage, faith, and vanity or altruism.
A boy who does not believe in the existence of Santa Claus is coming to a magical train bound for North Pole on Christmas Eve. The boy goes through the inevitable process of maturation, which involves disbelief, denial, especially loss of innocence. Cataloguing the fantastic events as “bedtime stories” we landed on tiny painful reality leads him to lose faith and hope.
08. Journey to the Center of the Earth
Topics presented in the book gave rise to heated debate about the existence of a fascinating underground world. The film and the novel is a mixture of scientific facts, extrapolations and fantastic adventures, emphasizing the importance of young scientists: cryptology, discipline that deals with deciphering secret writings and digital documents.
07. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
We start a fantastic new journey in search of the Fountain of Youth with Captain Jack Sparrow and his ex-girlfriend, played by Penelope Cruz. The two reach on the ship of evil captain, Black Beard, suggestively called Revenge and built of Pirates bones. What attracted me to this film in particular is that combine myths with Christian teachings, namely the relationship of love between a mermaid and a missionary.
06. Star Wars
Exploring the mysteries of the universe to its board space, Luke Skywalker begins his life journey – the journey of self knowledge. Yoda’s teachings – Spiritual Master correspondent on Earth – are universal laws created by force (another name given to God). Luke turns gradually from innocent boy into a strong man, able to defeat the dark forces, being helped by the truths spoken by Yoda: “Fear is the path to the dark side”.
05. Twelve Monkeys
Twelve Monkeys start a fantastic journey into a bleak future. In fact, the future does not look bright in any science fiction film ever. In 2035, a man-made virus has destroyed most of the population, forcing to live underground. Our hero – none other than Bruce Willis – is sent in 1996 to determine the source of this contamination.
Tintin is a young reporter who comes into possession of an object that hides a well-kept secret for centuries, but will bring a lot of enemies. The discovery of a mystical object that brings an impressive journey to knowledge, maturity and awareness. It is an unwritten rule that Tintin will be involuntary subject. Thus, our hero passes through half the planet in search of Licorne, the wreck of a ship that hides a treasure, and an ancient curse.
03. Avatar
Fantastic journey that James Cameron is proposing is an exercise in imagination: how our planet would have looked if we had lived in communion with nature? We could connect to the universal bank data as Na’Vi does? This theory was supported even by the founder of analytical psychology Carl Jung, who believed that religious experience is closely related to experience of archetypes collective unconscious.
02. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a mysterious journey into the human subconscious. When Joel (Jim Carrey) learns that his ex-girlfriend (Kate Winslet) has erased from memory all the memories of their relationship, turning to the most simplistic human reaction: revenge. Thus, he decides to resort to the same procedure of “brainwashing”. Joel realizes what eventually is that love can be erased from the mind, but not much, because the body is an extension movement of the soul.
A long and exhausting journey to the dark land of Mordor and also an inner journey, in the depths of consciousness, is why Lord of the Rings trilogy resonated with millions of people. The journey of Frodo is to destroy evil, embodied by the Ring of Power, especially the discovery of human primary valences: love, loyalty, trust, hope.
