"This Is It" - Some Reflections

My wife and I watched this documentary a couple nights ago.  It was very entertaining.  For those of you who don't know, before he died, Michael was planning a huge concert that would play in London for 50 straight nights.  It was going to be the most amazing live show that was ever produced.  After he died they memorialize him through showing the rehearsal footage for the show.  That is what this documentary entails.  He said he wanted to do this final show, with all the classic songs, because his kids were old enough now to appreciate it and he was still young enough to be able to perform at a high level.   This was going to be his curtain call.  His final go around and he wanted to go out with a bang.
Some thoughts:

1.  Michael truly is one of a kind.  What a unique and amazing creation of God.  He truly was a culture defining force and you feel the weight of his power to do this as you watch him in recent form and then recall how he accomplished this in the 80's and 90's.  There have been few people that have walked the face of this earth that were as talented as Michael Jackson.

2.  Based on the footage from the movie you really get the sense that this show was truly going to be the most amazing concert that anyone would have ever been to.  I was sad for all those countless people who put so much work into this spectacle.  I can’t imagine the letdown for them.

3.  The band was freakishly good.  Usually in a huge production like this the band will be using tracks generated from a computer that helps enhance the sound and keep everything together.  Not with this band.  The whole thing was actually live because Michael would improvise certain aspects of the show in the moment as he felt it and band would simply have to watch him for cues and respond.  It was like Michael was the director of this huge orchestra and everyone was looking to him.  As an aside, I enjoyed seeing a female lead guitar play who could absolutely shred.  You don’t see that very often.  In fact, she is the first one I had ever seen.

4.  The opening scene of the movie has many of his dancers talking about what Michael means to them.  These reflections give evidence to serious idolatry but we probably shouldn’t expect any less.  For me, this shone a light on the devastation of the death of Jesus in the lives of his disciples.  For these dancers, Michael was their life and their participation in this show was the pinnacle of their artistic careers.  They would have done whatever he asked is unquestioning obedience.  They worked tirelessly for him and were on the edge of achieving something the world had never seen before.  When he died they would have been rightly crushed.   He was their Messiah and as you watch the movie you can relate to this sense of utter despair that they must have felt.

But Michael Jackson never walked on water.  Michael Jackson never raised the dead.  Michael Jackson never calmed a storm with a word.

Can you imagine who those disciples would have felt as they saw Jesus being murdered?  In a weird way, this movie really helped me get inside the world of the Bible and appreciate my Savior even more. Michael Jackson is going to stay dead and Jesus is alive.

I would highly recommend this movie. Definitely check it out.