Beyond the Sea and Making Noise in a Quiet Place

I've been singing the song Beyond the Sea this afternoon and evening.  It got in my head based on my looking up a movie clip from the horror movie A Quiet Place II, of all things.  In looking up the actual song, the first video that came up had a still shot from the movie Finding Nemo, and it turns out that song is played for the ending credits of that movie.  So, I looked into Nemo.

The Finding Nemo connection was interesting because just yesterday an image of that very scene, which was of what they call the Drop Off had come to my mind.  Why?  Well, I was thinking of flat earths and what that would mean to have someone walking along and come to the edge of the world and look out at a vast sea in front of them,and if that was even possible, and wouldn't you know it, this scene from Nemo was the first one that came to my mind.

We first see the Drop Off at the very beginning of the movie, when two clown fish, Marlin and Carol, are talking about their new home on the edge of the coral reef.  Here they are already surrounded by ocean above and to the side of them, but they sit perched on the edge of their reef and talk about the ocean in front of them as THE ocean - Marlin calls it an "Ocean View", and it struck me as a strange, but maybe fitting, analogy.

Anyway, here is the scene in question, and then I will get to the song.  If I have time and energy, I will then get to A Quiet Place, if I can.

Here is the Finding Nemo opening scene, and it is really only the first few seconds of it that I had thought of in visualizing things.

To the song, Beyond the Sea has some interesting lyrics, and for our purposes, has yet another mention of flying in the air like a bird being synonymous with sailing on the ocean:

Somewhere beyond the sea
She's there watching for me
If I could fly like birds on high
Then straight to her arms
I'd go sailing

It's far beyond the stars
It's near beyond the moon
I know beyond a doubt
My heart will lead me there soon

It is a very explicit and specific statement that if only the singer could fly like a bird, and go very high, then he would be able to rejoin his lover who waits on a distant shore on the other side or beyond the sea.  Further, this sea is given interstellar dimensions, or space references, with mention that wherever the singer would be sailing to would be beyond the moon and the stars.

Sailing, in other words, seems to equal flying, and not just any ordinary flying, but some travel either within or beyond space itself.

Here is the song as it plays during the Nemo credits, and which shows the Drop Off as the first shot:

Before I get to the connection with A Quiet Place, I will call out that I think the names in Nemo are interesting, as I think about them right now.

Coral means "Small Stone", a clear Peter reference.  Marlin means "Sea Fortress", a probably nod to Tirion, which is Peter-Gim Githil's home, and Nemo itself is an early version of Tolkien's Namo, which means "Judge", another Peter role.  Further, there is the forgetful fish named Dory.  Dory literally can't remember anything.  Dory is another form of the name Dorothy, which has come up before, and means "Gift of God", and has been compared to a few symbols pertaining to the Wise Men, including Peter.  Given her Blue color, that seems like a good fit for Peter in this specific instance here as well.  In addition, her complete lack of memory brings to mind William Tychonievich's earlier post asking the question as to where Peter's mind is... Beyond the Sea, I'm afraid, as I discuss in a post here, using the archaic use of the word "mind".

As one additional detail, recall that I had a dream in which I saw a wounded Deer leaving what had been a field or scene in which I had shot many deer who had been stealing my pumpkins.  I saw one deer who had been shot in the foot, and was thus walking with the aid of a cane due to its bad leg. Even though I did not specifically mention this in that post, I associated that specific deer with Pharazon (who is potentially Peter in my story here).  In the movie, Nemo's defining physical characteristic is a small right fin that is not usable for swimming, that is alternatively called his "lucky fin" and "gimpy fin".

Anyway, might have to start calling this movie "Finding Peter".

OK, on to A Quiet Place.  Let's see if we can hammer this out.

I had looked up this song originally because, as I said, it is featured in A Quiet Place II.  Spoiler alert ahead for the movies, as reviewing some of the plot, and specifically the ending of the second movie is important for what I am writing about here.

It is actually thinking on CS Lewis' Space Trilogy book Out of the Silent Planet that made me also then think of A Quiet Place.  Their titles were very much synonymous, with both ultimately dealing with an Earth that had become quiet, and not for dissimilar reasons (metaphorically, of course!).  For this post, I am just going to deal with a few symbols from A Quiet Place, and leave Out of the Silent Planet alone, or else this post will go on for too long.

The premise of A Quiet Place is some kind of alien species has invaded Earth, and these Beings are endowed with super sensitive hearing.  It is what they hunt by, and they have nearly, it seemed, wiped out human civilizations.  The survivors live in absolute silence, unable to speak, laugh, cry, yell, or anything.  You make a sound, you are dead.

The movie itself has some pretty substantial plot holes (for me), and so you kind of have to suspend your disbelief, but I thought the overall premise was good.  One plot hole, as always with horror movies, was how did these people live so long before the movie began based on the number of stupid decisions you see piled up in a matter of minutes, but you need to get a 2 hour movie filled with suspense somehow, I guess

The opening scene of the first movie is where I am going to start, and then I will actually end with the closing scene from the sequel.

The main protagonists are walking back from a trip to raid some supplies from a local town store, as families often do in post-apocalyptic movies.  They have a path they made that allows them to walk in complete silence.  However, things hit a snag when the youngest boy (who for some unknown reason the parents leave walking alone, unattended as the last in line in a forest surrounded by monsters...) pulls out a space shuttle, which he has inserted batteries into, and pretends to fly it up to the sky, pushing the buttons that start making a very loud sound.  Panic ensues, the father tries to run back and save his son, but is too late as an alien monster emerges from the forest and kills the boy, carrying him off.

It is this scene that curiously first came to my mind when I thought of the similar titles of Out of the Silent Planet and A Quiet Place, and I had a very specific analogy or person come to my mind:  Joseph Smith.

And in that name, I saw that little boy with the space shuttle, and an analogy formed in my mind that seemed to make some sense.

Joseph was teaching something, or brought a sound that hadn't been heard since the days of Peter, and some of that is symbolized in the image I saw in my head of the boy standing in front of the bridge, holding a space shuttle high above his head.  Joseph was trying to link worlds - literally - that are divided by space and time.  That is where his imagination and mind was.

And then they killed him, and silenced that sound, and it has been awfully Quiet once again for the last couple hundred years with respect to anything that really matters.

That story, by the way, in my opinion is also likely very similar to the story of Peter, as we might imagine it, and in some ways that image or scene might be just as representative of him and his experience on this Earth. 

So, that is our current situation, I think.  It is Quiet - despite all of the seeming noise - and that is how those in power - the real ones in power, both on this Earth as well as on other worlds - would like to keep it.

Enter, then, the ending for A Quiet Place II.  The closing scene involves the family in two separate places, divided by the Sea actually.  As in the first movie, the secret to defeating this monsters lies in the high-frequency feedback sound generated by the daughter's hearing aid (she is deaf).  It creates a noise that drives the aliens crazy due to their sensitive hearing, and allows them to be killed.

During the climactic scene, the daughter generates the feedback noise over the radio waves, which takes care of the monsters both in her location, as well as the location where her family is, since her brother has the radio turned on.  So, you have this scene were both the boy and the girl are playing this sound that is being transmitted over the air to the monsters that they are confronting.  You'll notice "Beyond the Sea" playing before she switches the it over to her Hearing Aid and puts the sound "On Air".

It is an interesting scene to watch with some of the things I have written about here on my mind, and one of the most compelling shots is where we see the Hearing Aid attached to and hanging from the Microphone.  It just really stuck out to me for whatever reason.

In my story, things will be shared across the 'airwaves', in a manner of speaking, that will involve Beings on both ends of the communication line speaking and listening, and the information that will come from that exchange will be the 'sound' (the Echo Harmonica) that will change the game in some ways.

Now, this is a Hollywood horror-suspense movie, so of course the monsters are shot or wacked in terms of what victory looks like for the Good Guys.  I guess just a reminder that violence or a confrontation of that kind isn't what redemption looks like in my story, but rather it will be prisoners going free and leaving their enemies behind - being led up like calves to the Holy Places.  But it is the sound or noise that is generated from this exchange that will assist in doing the freeing.  And it won't be a quiet place anymore, with respect to truth, and all of its implications for both the righteous and the wicked.  Shouted upon rooftops.

Anyway, this analogy and scene also just now reminded me of that dream I had of my fight with Darth Vader, and how I strangely found myself chasing Vader around with a very loud noise coming out of my mouth.  

Strange analogies and connections, I know, and they are kind of really rough and not fully thought through, but the song "Beyond the Sea" had me thinking about it, so I wanted to get some half-baked things down.