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Genesis: Paradise Lost | Movie Review

Adam with an Apatosaurus in the Garden of Eden as depicted in "Genesis: Paradise Lost". ONLY for use in special pre-release movie review, done by Sara J. Mikkelson at the request of this movie's marketing team. From Genesis Movie.com
Poster for Genesis Paradise Lost Movie. From Genesis Movie.com

Years ago, when I first heard about this cool idea for a 3D movie of Genesis, I was very excited. Now after watching the movie, I am even more excited!  Our modern American culture has people’s minds saturated with evolutionary ideas. Even talking with Bible-believing Christians who don’t really believe in evolution, there are still webs of the evolutionary pictures woven into their minds of what “cave men” and dinosaurs were like.  These wrong worldviews are so embedded in people’s minds that it’s often difficult for them to visualize a truly Biblical picture of earth history. In writing about young earth geology, I always wish that you, the reader, could truly “see” in your mind what creation week, the global flood, and the ice age were really like. I can’t tell you how exciting it is to see a movie like the new “Genesis: Paradise Lost” movie that can help people get a better picture of what Biblical earth history looks like.

On Monday, November 13th, and Thursday, November 16th, the “Genesis” movie will be airing in theaters around America at special Fathom events.  I recommend that you get your tickets as soon as possible – you do not want to miss out on seeing this incredible movie! I highly recommend it for anyone high-school age and above.  It would be very good for many in younger age groups as well, of course, at the discretion of parents. Young people especially need to see this movie, as it will help them better picture the Biblical worldview of earth history.

Find tickets at this link: https://genesismovie.com/

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What is it that makes “Genesis: Paradise Lost” different from other Christian films or young-earth creationist documentaries? The animations, and the fact that it is available in 3D, help people visualize what creation week might have looked like. Minds of young people are constantly saturated with media picturing non-Biblical worldviews – I think that this movie may help many young people get a better grasp on the Biblical view of science and the Bible. My favorite part of the movie was when they were talking about Lucy and other supposed ape-men. They had the coolest animations for comparing these different skulls with human skulls.  This part really helps clearly illustrate the differences between human and animal skulls.

Pterodactyls in the Garden of Eden. Photo from GenesisMovie.com

There are a lot of great things that I love about the Genesis movie, but to be fair, I’ll be completely honest about two aspects of the movie I wasn’t as fond of. First, during the interviews, they don’t put the name or expertise of the people they are interviewing on the screen. I can understand how this is artistic license, but knowing the names of the people and how reliable they are on each topic is important. Knowing your sources helps build trust.  I knew who most of the people were, just by seeing their faces, but most of the audience probably will not. Second, the portrayal of the creation of Adam and Eve didn’t give a personal feel of God tenderly making each of them by hand and walking with them in the Garden of Eden. I can imagine this would be very difficult to portray, and I understand that both of these aspects are merely artistic license, but I want to be completely transparent in my review of the movie.

As a whole, “Genesis: Paradise Lost” is definitely a movie that every Christian should see.  This movie is supposed to be just the beginning of a trilogy, so I will warn you that it only covers creation through the fall of mankind. As a geology person, I cannot wait until they come out with a movie like this that portrays the global flood. I really hope that Eric Hovind, the man who initiated the making of this documentary, will do part two on the flood very soon. People need to see more movies like this that can help them clearly visualize earth history from a Biblical worldview!

Updated 11-15-17:

The writer of this article saw a special preview that did not include any names or titles of the people being interviewed. However, in the theatrical release the producers corrected this issue and put the names and titles of people being interviewed. Thank you to the producers for changing this!

Article Copyright October 2017, Sara J. Mikkelson

Watch the trailer:

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Written by Sara J. Mikkelson

Sara J. Mikkelson (Bruegel) is a young woman dedicated to bringing glory to God in all that she does. Her focus is creation science children’s ministry, reaching kids with truth and hope that comes from the Word of God. Sara has an associate of science degree in geology, graduating Phi Theta Kappa with honors. She is administrator of the Creation Club. Sara and her husband David both work at David Rives Ministires creationclues.com

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  1. Thank you, Sara, for an honest review. I will heartily concur on your “exceptions”; but, beside these, I am grateful for the effort to do our best with an imaginative wonder informed by the Word of God! It is high time that the truth of our and our world’s beginnings be vividly depicted, for we know how effective such visualization is in communicating these critical (crucial!) matters of the heart!

  2. A two year associates degree hardly makes a person an expert. I will watch the film out of curiosity. From remarks of some fundamentalists, I wonder how much attention and authenticity have been given to this film.

  3. I think saying Creation happened only about 6,000 years ago is wrong. I suggest more than 12,000 years ago, as proposed by Harold Camping.

  4. This movie meets all expectations for superb graphics which Is expected from movies today. And they cover much ground in the creation / evolution debate, convincingly showing why evolution is a faith commitment, not a scientific certainty – and not even science since there is no observable evidence supporting it.

    Sara is on target with her criticism, though having seen the movie I think I understand what they were trying to do. With regards to not putting the names up – the beginning of the movie spends much time going through problems with evolution, and many of the expects tell the story – often relating parts out of their expertise. Later when they get down to more details and they speak within their expertise, the movie finally began to show the names and backgrounds of the experts who were speaking. So I think they were trying to avoid the (false) appeal to expertise fallacy. By putting up the name of Dr. whoever when that person was speaking outside their area of expertise (which was often), they could be open to that charge. With regard to Adam and Eve, this is a family oriented Christian movie – and Adam and Eve are naked for the entirety of the movie. I think they were trying to be modest and keep them tastefully covered (or obscured) without having to resort to oddly placed fig leaves and the like.

    So I think I understand what they were trying to do regarding those two items. A bigger problem I had was their decision to stick entirely with the King James Version, which meant they had to translate the thing that separates the waters in Gen 1.6-7 as “firmament” instead of “expanse”. Most people picture the firmament as a solid material. But as I explain in an article that discusses this (What might Einstein think about flat earth theories?) the word is better translated as “expanse.” This is clearly seen in Gen 1.20 where the birds are said to fly in the expanse. I can see birds flying in the open air/expanse. I have a hard time seeing them fly through a solid material as it as often depicted. They even go so far as to show columns of water rising up to the sky to support this “firmament.” Such columns would not be necessary with the understanding that that which separates the waters is merely an expanse (an open space) where also the stars are (Gen 1.17) not a solid “firmament.”

    Other than that, I think they did an excellent job and recommend all go see it. I think many who don’t follow the creation / evolution issue will be surprised to see the breadth and depth of evidences stacked against the evolutionary worldview.

    • Thanks Duane – and actually, I need to recant my criticism of the movie not having the names and expertise of the individuals. I saw a special pre-release and that version did not have any throughout the whole movie. I just saw that they fixed this issue last night! 🙂

  5. Brother Duane and sister Sara,

    As the screenwriter for the animated, adapted chapter one segments of the movie “GENESIS: Paradise Lost,” I read such reviews with much interest. Thank you both for your honest yet favorable reviews and endorsement.

    As an imperfect collaborative effort from imperfect people, even I have my criticisms of our documentary movie. Yet I’m grateful even for the room for improvement which can be applied to our sequel, God willing. I’d like to muse on your criticisms of the movie for a bit.

    Personally, I ally with neither the King James-only crowd nor the KJV despisers club. Using the KJV translation was not the preference of either the movie director Ralph or myself. Aesthetically however, I think the traditional KJV fits nicely with the “period piece” feel of the film. The 1769 edition was the popular English Bible in use when Darwin first publicized his reckless theory. It’s interesting that you found the word “firmament” to be unfortunate (for me, the disappointment is with the translation “replenish” instead of fill, and the antiquated, confusing English idiom “meat” instead of food.) Perhaps “firmament” could have a helpful connotation in rendering the Hebrew word, by implying that the dual-heaven of our planet’s atmosphere and outer space is “thinness with substance”; that even the darkness (Isaiah 45:7) of deep space is not no-thing, but is some-thing of the material universe. I agree that “expanse” is probably the best rendering in English, but I suspect that most moviegoers today are unfamiliar with the misconceptions of the upper sky being thoroughly solid and supported somewhere by literal pillars of some sort. The colossal water spouts in our movie were meant to serve as the temporary mechanism that God might have used to draw out and divide the waters above from the waters below. The movie’s next shot suggests their dispersion in outer space.

    Also, the Scripture passages at the end of the movie are not from the KJV. With fear and trembling, they were studied and carefully worded in a contextually conscientious way by yours truly so as to be understandable to modern English speakers. Overall, I think we provided a little something for a lot of people: some documentary, some historical narrative; some simple concepts, some complex concepts; and some creative choices in delivery that alternately both upset and pleased our audience members, depending on the individual’s perspective.

    I appreciate you coming to our defense in regard to a minor criticism from Sara Mikkelson’s mostly supportive review of GPL (thanks Sara!). Although the on-screen titles revealing some speakers’ credentials were not intentionally delayed to coincide with speeches within their areas of expertise, I’ll claim any such incidental strength of the movie as Providential. The placement actually had to do with the director finding shots where the audience would have time to read a name and credentials before cutting away from the speaker. But you were on the right track in suggesting that we wanted to avoid resorting to the authority fallacy in building a case both for the inerrant, time-tested truths of God’s Word and against the shifting sands of speculation from fallible scientists often operating from an anti-Christ worldview (Romans 1). In the earlier cut of the film that Sara previewed, the speakers’ names and credentials were only given under their virtual picture frames at the end of the movie. We then redundantly added names and titles to faces throughout the movie as well, as a concession to a focus group test audience. Maybe this is partly the fault of television producers soliciting conditioned responses with certain formats. It seems that most audiences no longer question their expectation for the instant and false assurances of a familiar name and the validation of a speaker’s trustworthiness by a third party, no matter the party. We wanted our moviegoers to listen and consider what was being spoken, instead of being distracted while reading about the speaker. Yet we are learning the fine art of compromise on the non-essentials in getting a big vision off the ground.

    The Masterminded depths of the ancient text of Genesis chapter one evidences the divine signature. Genesis 1-11 contain more than the historical narrative on its surface, but not less. Those Christians who misinterpret these early passages of the Torah in order to eisegetically accommodate the popular “science” of our time, or who gut the historical picture that God paints only to take away the framework to apply to later Scriptures, only impoverish themselves in the process.

    fellow unashamed creationist,

    Tim

    • Hello Tim,

      Thank you so much for all the work you did to get these important messages out! I really appreciate what you did to be a part of this important effort. Thanks for sharing your own thoughts about it as well. I look forward to the sequel!

  6. I enjoyed watching the movie. But I do have one nagging question, and that is: How exactly does the ideology of the existence of Neantherthals come into play. I mean if the Lord created Adam and Eve, then just or what are Neantherthals, how did they come about and how do they fit into the biblical creation narrative?

    Thank you for your response to my question.

    • Hello Ivette,

      Great question! In the evolutionary worldview, the Neanderthal were “primitive” people who were not quite fully human. But, the Bible makes it clear that Adam & Eve were the first people, and they were created fully human (i.e., no primitive almost-human ancestors). Neanderthal were a fully human people group that came about after the global flood and Tower of Babel, as people groups spread through the world. Since there was probably a single ice age after the flood, and people groups were spreading across the globe, living in caves would have been a very practical idea. That’s where we get “cave men” that were just as intelligent as modern humans, like Neanderthal. Hope that helps answer your question! Blessings!

  7. I watched the movie with great expectation. Until 20 years ago when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, I had been an atheist and believed in evolution. I am an attorney who likes to share the gospel and when I am presented with someone who believes in evolution, I present scientific fact to help remove the veil of the evolution lie. This movie will reach some with the truth and help others to defend their faith, however, I observed that the audience was limited to mostly the choir. To reach the mass of unbelievers who are falling for the evolution lie and who resist the gospel because of this lie and their sin, you will need to make the story and facts and visuals more explosive. Less defense and more attack with specific facts of a young earth. Some will say I am being to critical but I only needed to hear 1 creation science fact to start my doubt of my faith in evolution and opening me to hear again and accept the gospel of Jesus Christ. Those who need to hear this information are not listening because the volume is not loud enough. Christ was the master creator and entertaining. Just look at some of his creations. I support your efforts and praise the Lord for those who will be saved because of your message, but could have been so much greater.

    • Great points Skip – I think that this film was probably intended more for people on the fence about theistic evolution vs. creation, rather than trying to convince atheists. But, if more Christians are equipped with answers like those in this movie (e.g, the part where they show “Lucy” skulls compared to human skulls), then more people can personally witness to skeptics. Thanks for sharing and I hope you continue to share what the Lord has taught you with those around you! Many blessings!

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