Big Miracle.

Big Miracle is a movie starred by Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski - which is an adaptation from a book written by Tom Rose, Freeing the Whales - with the synopsis from wikipedia.com as follows:

"Three California gray whales, trapped in a hole in the ice of the Arctic Circle, are discovered by television news reporter Adam Carlson (John Krasinski). Their plight is publicized after he does a feature on them, which he hopes might be his opportunity to move up to a larger TV market. His news story draws international attention and sets into motion a massive effort to free the whales from the ice.

Drawn into the collaborative rescue work are several normally hostile factions: Inupiat whale hunters, a Greenpeace environmental activist, an oil executive, ambitious news reporters, the National Guard, and politicians on the state, national and international levels. Also joining in the effort are two entrepreneurs from Minnesota, who provide de-icing machines to help keep the hole open."

For me, it's a beautiful movie. It's a movie about hope and kindness which at the same time also points out on how self-centered and manipulative mankind can be. I will post some thoughts  about some roles in the movie.

The Media.

The media played a major part in this movie. We can see how the media put an attention to a little place called Point Barrow, Alaska. It was amazing to see how the media can make a call of help to the global society to save the whales. 

For me, media is a powerful tool to deliver a message to people and even to move the mass in action over something. Media can be the voice for the voiceless. With such power and massive effect on people media should be in the hand of responsible people. 

Through the movie we can see how media is used by all parties to gain sympathy, support and even self promoting. It's so amazing what people would do just to get a good "cover story" for the news, what people would do to win the election, what people would do to gain support for a good cause and what people would do to gain the people's heart...and those things are manipulatively done through the media. 

Media can be used for a lot of good cause yet on the other hand, media also has a strong destructive power. It depends on how we use it. It can heal and it can kill. Especially nowadays, the media has more power in shaping people's mind. It's so easy to set a trend, a way of living through the media and for sure, it is very easy to manipulate people and to get people to do something. Once you catch people's attention, interest and heart, it's so easy to control them. So for those who work in the media, be responsible with the privilege that you have. Make sure that you deliver a message of truth, a message of facts and reality and make sure you educate people instead of messing with their heads and knowledge. 

The Politicians and The Business Man.

These people were the other related parties in the movie. If you watch the movie carefully, these people have no concern about the whales in the first place (well, except for the activists). All they care about is their reputation and their self image. Everyone is into the action of saving the whales just for the sake of "good image" and that's simply so selfish. 

Some people were ignorant about the whale issue until they found out that the issue had grown into a national issue and then they started to care because they were afraid of losing their supporters. Everyone takes a need from the event and it's so heart-breaking to see how people would make use of the unfortunates just for their own benefit. Although in the end everyone did sympathize over the whales, it's so scary to see the fact on how self-centered people could be.

The Activists.

These people were the only ones who truly care about the whales. They would fight against anything for the living rights of the whales although sometimes they could be a bit irrational. In the movie, the greenpeace activist stood against the Inuits, the native alaskan tribe who were known as the whale hunter. They hunted for living and that's just the way they lived for centuries since the age of their ancestors. The greenpeace lady argued with the Inuits because they would just let the whales died so then they could "harvest" the whales to sustain their life. She said that the Inupiats could still live from the oil company that sustain the city, but then one logical statement from one of the Inupiat leaders went like this, what if the oil dry and they have nothing left to sustain their life except to hunt whales for food and their next generation don't know how to hunt because they've never been taught how. 

Many people care about the environment and the nature but sometimes, they forget to educate the people and they forget to offer a real solution to the people. It's not always the plants, the animals and the earth that we're thinking about but we're also have people in it and they also worth to live. We blame people for destroying the nature, well, I do agree on that to some degree, because many people don't realize that they have been given so much blessings through the nature that they take everything for granted and being ignorant of the fact that the nature and everything in it are the ones that sustain their life. But, people do have the rights to live in this earth as well and we should not forget them. We need to educate the people and provide a solution to improve their lives while still balancing the nature, especially when it's related to the needs for living. 

The Inupiats.

The Inupiats are one of the native alaskan tribes. Just like native americans, the Indians, they have a strong bond with the nature. Although it seems like they're the ones who seemed to be the threat to the whales, they actually respect and care for the whales. We can see on how on of the tribe leader sang to the whales, listening to their sounds and even bow his head solemnly when one of the whales died. 

Those people who lived solely dependent to the nature, usually respect the nature even more that any environmental activist. They respect the circle of life and the life of the other living creatures. Of course they would need to be taught on how to preserve the nature resources but it doesn't mean that they know less than what we have known, when it comes to the nature, they know it best. They have their own way of living and somehow, we should respect that. 

The Whales.

" because even though they're strong and big and powerful..they're vulnerable too...what's heartbreaking is they know what's going on...they know they're in trouble and they are scared. and we ache for them too because they're so much like us. we get scared and we're vulnerable and we need help sometime too." - Rachel (the greenpeace lady in the movie)

it's one of my favourite quote from the movie. it shows us that animals also have the right to live like us and they are similar to us more that we could ever imagined. 

the whales, Fred, Wilma and Bam-bam (not Peebles because the young whale was a male) was definitely like any other family, they took care of each other and they stayed together until Bam-bam finally couldn't survive. Although they seemed so big and powerful, they're just as vulnerable and as fragile as us, humans. They can get scared too.  

Some animals might look rough and vicious but most of them would never attack if they don't feel threatened. I watched a documentary about the most poisonous snakes in the world on Nat Geo channel one day and after putting some ranks on the snakes from the less poisonous to the life-threatening ones, the narrator said something like this: "Even though they are considered as the deadliest snakes, humans are actually their biggest threat." 

We might get scared over the vicious image of sharks (thanks to the movie JAWS), we might get the paranoia that sharks would eat us just like that, but the fact is, sharks don't eat people. Many of the shark attacks happened because they mistook us for sea lions (and often happened to surfers who swam on the surface and looked like sea lions from underwater). And now, sharks are getting near to extinction because humans are consuming their fins and meat. Some people are even ignorant enough to hunt Sharks that are still carrying their baby inside of them. Some people even caught the sharks, cut their fins and then leave them on the sea to drown and died just like that. 

Now you can see that the real evil is not those vicious looking animals but humans. We are afraid of things we don't know and with our own hands we destroy the ecosystem and ruining our own homeland. We couldn't take care of our place to live. 


We don't need to wait for an opportunity to do something big to help the earth. All we need is our conscience to start caring for the place that we're living. We can start by throwing our trash into the right place, we can start by using recycle bags, we can start by taking care of the cleanliness in our home environment and we can also be the voice of the earth by passing valuable information about the condition of the earth to the people that we know and raise their awareness too. Remember that one simple action can start a chain reaction. Thus, if you care about the earth, start from small things and believe me that small beginnings can lead into bigger actions :) - start caring and start loving this earth and everything in it, because the earth however, is our home, our place to live :)