I need to pray about it.

[redrover]

I'm able to remember that Men in Black came out at the same time as The Lost World (which is the sequel to Jurassic Park). The reason I know this is because a friend and I went to the theater to see The Lost World, and at the box office, she had second thoughts.

Her words to me: 'I don't know if I can see this. I need to pray about it.'

Unsure what to say, and unwilling to just go home and wait for her to get a direct line to God to talk about the potential pitfalls of seeing fake dinosaurs and how this might apply to her religious life, I agreed to forgo the experience and we saw Men in Black instead.

(I think it's important to note here that I have no personal issue with this sort of religious fervor. If she really felt she needed to pray about it, I am absolutely, one hundred percent fine with that. I just think, were I in a similar position, I would have had that particular conversation with my deity before putting on my coat.)

Skip forward to 2012. I recount this story to Steph and Kimtoo, who proceed to create a Tumblr post with "I can't watch Sherlock Holmes. I need to pray about it." They tag it with the Sherlock BBC tag.

Comments

[calatha]

:C

I couldn't sit through Jurassic Park. I had to leave the cinema and go sit in the lobby and wait I don't know how long until it ended.

So. I can relate to uhm, that part. There was no praying involved.

[redrover]

Because you found it bothersome or due to religious concerns?

[calatha]

I was terrified.

[redrover]

I find this a more respectable answer than saying you need to go chat with God about it after making plans, dragging me to a theater, and changing your mind at the box office. No shame in finding it terrifying!

It is pretty scary, young as I/we(?) were when it came out. (Admittedly, it's my favourite, though. More than Harry Potter. I read the book 37 times.)

[redrover]

To elaborate on the above, I don't take issue with being a zealous Christian. I'm just saying: I'd have chatted with God first, then put on my coat. That's all.

[calatha]

Ah, so it was sinful to see it? I thought maybe she was praying for uh strength. I've never read any Crichton. I've got this deep-seated fear of being eaten.

[redrover]

I...honestly think perhaps she was afraid to see it and was falling back on religion as an excuse not to? Or maybe the whole...bioengineering aspect was playing God and she felt it was blasphemous. I didn't really want to analyse it muuuch more than I did at the time.

Crichton admittedly has a lot of eating of people going on in his books, but he was a magnificent author. He was extremely well-educated and it's-

No, okay, his books are all porn for science nerds. /jazzhands

Timeline doesn't have any people-eating, if you want to try him out. It's really fun, all medieval and time-travely. Jurassic Park has some HORRIFYING people-eating scenes and I would not recommend it if that sort of thing bothers you.

[calatha]

Time-travel, I could handle a bit better than bio-technical catastrophes or being ripped apart and devoured by a T-rex. :C

[redrover]

Ahhh, to be fair, his genre is techno-thriller, so even Timeline has the whole tech catastrophe aspect. BUT read it anyway. It's brilliant.

Or watch the movie, even if it's awful, because David Thewlis is in it. :|

[calatha]

David Thewlis wins.

[redrover]

That icon wins. /approves

Also, the movie is dreadful. DREADFUL. But it's two hours versus whatever time it takes you to read the book, SO.

[calatha]

If there are aspects of the movie that I find intriguing, then I probably will check out the book, so there's that.

[redrover]

And thus I embark on enabling new Crichton fans.