Recently Tim Burton’s sequel to Alice and Wonderland hit theaters.  Despite my first thoughts of not wanting to see it, I did.  As expected the movie was very strange.  Alice, now a teenager, who is portrayed as a little “mad” travels back to Wonderland for the second time where everyone she encounters also seems to be a little mad.  Despite the sometimes-awkward conversations and weird characters, there was one thing that continued to jump out at me.

In a lot of ways the movie reminded me of C.S Lewis’ “The Chronicles of Narnia.”   It has the same idea of another world where animals talk and humans come from a foreign world.  Just like in “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe”, this movie takes place as the evil red queen has taken over Wonderland from her sister the good White queen.  The thing that jumped out at me was the very clear cut distinction between good and evil. The red queen is feared and seeks only her own glory and power while the old white queen is humble and has vowed to never hurt any creature.  (Spoiler alert) As the movie makes its way to its final scene, we find both queens with their armies ready to fight for the throne.  Then the unexpected happens.  Each queen sends one “Champion” out to fight on behalf of the entire army, winner take all.  Immediately the story of David and Goliath came to my mind.  Alice fights with a very old and powerful sword for the White Queen against the Red Queen’s greatly feared dragon.  Before the battle begins, the talking dragon addressed the special sword as “his ancient foe”.  At first this looks like cosmic dualism, two forces that have battled for centuries without one being stronger than the other.  However, in the next scene Alice and the sword defeat the dragon for good.  As soon as this happens, total victory is given to the White Queen, and almost immediately all of creation is put back in its rightful place.  The red army drops their weapons and surrenders to the queenship of the White.  The Queen then announces judgment on her very own sister the Red Queen for her evil deeds.

This film is not one trying to communicate the ideas of Christianity, but I think we can view it in light of what we as Christians know to be true. First the obvious connection one could make is Jesus defeating his enemies on the cross and restoring creation.  However, it may be more significant as it shows how even non-believers know the difference between good and evil.  The world is longing for wrongs to be made right and will not stand for injustice.  We live in a world where evil is a reality, where crimes go unpunished, and sometimes-evil rulers rise to power.  Christianity offers the answers to these problems.  It says that the true King is coming, and he will set all wrongs right and will take evil rulers from there thrones.  The world is craving for this to come true but for some reason they don’t want Jesus to be the one to set things right.

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