Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Confused why its an issue to have a Christian theme to a movie?

It's an issue if you have a pre-existing axe to grind.

 gorgon wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
I don't think the Nolan Batmans will be considered a classic by comic book movie fans, but they probably will be by the broader moviegoing action-blockbuster crowd and the critics because they're the poster-child for that whole "you can't translate comic books to the screen with any depth or maturity unless they're, like, super-dark and, like, super-deep brah" school of thought that prevailed until the MCU really took hold.

Uhhh.... that's what Burton's Batman was, following the TV show. super dark and super deep. By comparision

Some peopel do ignore that most of the groundwork was done way before Nolans films by Burtons excellent Batman film - the sequal was a bit of a mess sadly and degenrated as the series went on.

But IMO Tim Burtons Batman is a true classic

It's interesting that even Nolan aped the Burton batsuit. It wasn't until BvS that Batman wore something more comics-accurate instead of the black rubber/armored suit. My preference would be that they stick with a grey suit with armor underneath going forward, mind you.

It's also interesting that Burton's Batman plays pretty campy now. It was a much darker take at the time, given that general audiences were more familiar with the ultra-camp TV show than the comics. But when I watch it now...my tastes have evolved. Marvel movies tend to be quip-fests -- and some are almost straight-up comedies -- but I don't know that I'd categorize most of them as campy.

Does it - for me it succeeds much more than a Nolan fim as Burton understands that humour makes Darker elements more not less effective. Many good comedy dramas work like this so you its all fun and games and then something bad happens - bit like life.

If you just have gloom and doom undercut by well more gloom and doom its far less effective in my view.

Jack was pretty over the top but that's fine for the Joker - its why I liked Leto in Suicide Sqaud, Ledger did a fairly good job with what he was given but it was pretty limited. Jack's Joker was a "funny" man - until he melted your face with acid or stick poison randomly in your products.

@ Hybrid:

If I may make a request, please don't quote and respond to every line. Your point of view is presented more clearly as a whole. Just a request to make reading and understanding easier. If you feel the need to address someone specifically, there are other ways, like this.

Carnegie isn't an atheist. His understanding of Christianity is filtered through his experiences as a means to an end, but he's also aware that if that God exists, he's going to Hell. He asks Eli, earnestly, to pray for him. He feels his own prayers would be hollow.

And to be perfectly clear, he's not some guy doing bad things to achieve noble goals. He is abusive to his enslaved women, and tries to prostitute Samara to pursuade Eli to stay. He is comfortable with murder as a convenience. He rations the water to ensure his power. He does not possess nobility.

I'm going to try to find a link to "Billy's Story" which is an animated prequel chapter, showing a defining moment in Carnegie's childhood.


If you google "Book of Eli - Lost Tales: Billy" you'll find it. It's a five minute short. WARNING! No nudity, but mature content that may be disturbing to some viewers.

This thread has persuaded me to give Book of Eli a try. I was previously under the impression it was all "jeebus is just the bestest" which seems inaccurate now.

Ex Machina has got to be on that list.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Does it - for me it succeeds much more than a Nolan fim as Burton understands that humour makes Darker elements more not less effective. Many good comedy dramas work like this so you its all fun and games and then something bad happens - bit like life.

If you just have gloom and doom undercut by well more gloom and doom its far less effective in my view.

Jack was pretty over the top but that's fine for the Joker - its why I liked Leto in Suicide Sqaud, Ledger did a fairly good job with what he was given but it was pretty limited. Jack's Joker was a "funny" man - until he melted your face with acid or stick poison randomly in your products.

See, I can't take Nicholson's Joker seriously anymore. He's certainly crazy, and it's an excellent performance of the material JN was given. But I have a hard time believing that he could keep his gak together long enough to be a threat to the ultimate 'gak together' hero. He's too much of a clown, like the Joker of the 50s/60s in the comics.

I didn't hate or love Leto's performance. Honestly, I don't feel like I've seen enough of it to make the call. The Joker is a big presence that should dominate the screen, and one of the core mistakes of SS was in making him a bit player that moves in and out of the story. Ditch the world-saving stuff, make the Joker the villain, and make the whole thing street-level combat between bad and evil as was promised, and you'd already have a much more interesting film.

Back on topic, I think Gravity is one of the best films of the past decade and has a chance to become a classic.

kinda hard to say in general. Classics aren't necessarily good they just are movies with big impact.

So I think the MCU as a whole will become classic. Whereas the new star wars wiill just be remembered as the sequels to the big thing.

 stanman wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 stanman wrote:
There's something with creating connections to past tradition and history that grants sway over people as it gives an air of legitimacy and legacy even if none properly exists.

Hence why christianity reference judaism, why islam references christianity and judaism, why jainism references all three, and so on and so forth. Totally agree on this. But the cool part is: you don't need to be faithful in those connections! You can just make them up! Which is why Carnegie would have done if he wasn't a simple tool in a christian metaphor.

 stanman wrote:
Instead it is placed alongside the others which like the Bible each form the cornerstones of civilization in other areas of the world.

Woah I guess religions are the only way to reach civilization, and that doesn't include vast swathes of Asia that are neither christian nor muslim .

Given the context of that scene I would expect to see Buddhist text placed there as well, the foundational laws for civilizations all tend to have roots in religion so there is value in preserving religious text if for nothing else other than for providing a historical context. It helps to understand western law if you understand Judeo/Christian history just as it would help understand various Asian or Arabic laws if you know the religious history behind it. You don't have to practice a religion but understanding the text provides a lot of insight into the cultural history of groups of people and it provides a backdrop to their values and traditions.

Wisdom is how we reach civilization, compassion, morality and law are what set us apart from savagery, for most people that stems from some form of religion. As much as you may mock religion I don't recall seeing any great atheist societies that have stood the test of time, there's a few countries and empires that have tried to crush religion and most have collapsed as a result, pretty much every civilization on earth has been tied to one form of religion or another.

This is wrong. First, no civilization has ever stood the test of time. No civilization that started out has ever not eventually changed fundamentally, been absorbed into another, or fallen entirely to pieces. Second, Religious founded civilizations, with the sole exception of Buddhists, have all been super violent and/or super devastating to their own people with religion used as a weapon to control the masses. In the world right now, the countries with the highest education have the lowest census rates of religion and the least violent crime. Every country in the world with massive military forces and rising violent crime also have high rates of faithful and lower, weaker education.

Religion, (again with the exception of Buddhists), drives wedges between people, degrades morality and law and compassion and turns people towards savagery. And it's simple to see why. Religion is the house of faith and faith only exists in the space created by ignorance. If you KNOW whats happening in the world then it's not faith it's knowledge. To not know and be ignorant and then to believe something as truth anyway is what religion is all about. Between ignorance and greed you have pretty much all the worlds problems and religion is a weed that takes root in one of those 2.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 stanman wrote:
Yes it plays a large part with Eli's character but it's only one portion of the collective whole that makes up humanity's wisdom that's symbolized by the library.

Human wisdom is apparently 100% religious. Science? Nope. Philosophy? Nada. Old books used to justify atrocities? Sure!

Knowledge is not the same as wisdom, science doesn't teach us morality, or answer the question of who we are. Wisdom comes from understanding of the past and exploration of the soul which religion has traditionally filled that role, philosophy would also be a part of wisdom. People will use any excuse for atrocities not just old books. Some people have done bad things in the name of religion but most just try to find comfort, peace, and compassion in religion.

Religion, (again with the exception of Buddhists),

Many of the most brutal Samurai were Buddhists of some descritpion.

Any religion can be used as an excuse by those who want to abuse, destory, seek power etc.

Communism was notionally anti-religion and they had no issue doing horrific things without the benefit of a relgious cause - they had a politcal cause which I would agree can become much the same thing for some.

 Marklarr wrote:
Ex Machina has got to be on that list.

Only because Oscar Isaac is so on point with his dancing

Heard Ex Machina talked up a lot - saw the previews on netflix and decided to skip it. Is it really good? Or just hype?

 Xenomancers wrote:
Ex Machina - Is it really good? Or just hype?

Ex Machina is OK, but I wouldn't say it's a classic. It retreads a number of things that we've seen before, and bundles them up nicely, but it didn't really add much aside from how nicely some of the bits look. I mean, I "got" it, but it's not like I'd go out of my way to watch it again.

OTOH, if you've never seen it, and have a couple spare hours, you could do far, far worse for background noise and visuals.

4/5

 Xenomancers wrote:
Heard Ex Machina talked up a lot - saw the previews on netflix and decided to skip it. Is it really good? Or just hype?

It's not as good as Fury Road.

Ex Machina is good if you like exploring the "When does inorganic become a life form?" question.

At what point does artificial intelligence move from tool to independent entity?


And if you've gone down that road, and have seen ANY movie where the human developers are dicks and you can sympathize with the machines wanting to overthrow their oppressors, then you've seen Ex Machina, just in a different skin. Different skin, get it?!?

It's not a bad movie. I think the ending is terrible. I mean, just awful. I had hope it would break trope and go a different road, but nope. Predictable, careful-what-you-wish-for fare. The worst part is it doesn't make sense that the dude would let what happened, happen. Total lack of survival instinct. Maddening.

It's been a while, so I forget. Did they ever explain why the Rich guy wanted the nerd guy to interact with the robot? I know he said it was a Turing test, but it starts out with the tester knowing she's a robot, and also the rich guy based her synth skin appearance on nerd guy's porn predilections which seems to have further biased the test. It came across more like In The Comoany Of Men with robots than an exploration of artificial intelligence.

@GreatBigTree : That is a good suggestion. I tend to go the whole “big quote train” way naturally but not doing that is better, I agree.

Carnegie may not be an atheist but he isn't exactly driven by religious conviction for his deeds, I think we can agree on this.
Actually, I think it would be a good idea at this point to check what we agree and disagree on precisely.
Do we agree that Eli is a christian man, with christian believes that are very much akin to the current ones, rather than some crazy post-apocalyptic set of believes?
Do we agree that Eli is presented as a holy man on a mission?
Do we agree that he is presented as the best character in the story, the only one who knows from the start the right moral path to follow, and that Carnegie, on the other hand, is presented as a bad person that don't know or care about religion except as a tool for his own power, up until a change of heart at the very end of the movie?

Personally, watching this movie, it felt like an hypocritical (what happened to the “turn the other cheek” thingy?) tale of a Christian “true believer” on a divine mission resisting the tentation of the sinners and the lost sheep, ultimately dying a glorious martyr death as he saved his faith from oblivion, but the really annoying part was the incredible self-aggrandizement that I felt was at work about the bible being a book of such importance. Because it didn't felt like the incredible importance of the bible was linked to what organically happens in the story, or the settings. It felt like it was just there to mirror the writers' real-life opinion on the importance of the bible, to the detriment of the story.

BTW I found the short cartoon on what seems to be an official youtube channel so putting it here for anyone interested.

 feeder wrote:
This thread has persuaded me to give Book of Eli a try. I was previously under the impression it was all "jeebus is just the bestest" which seems inaccurate now.

Well please do and report your opinion here. There's at least two of us that believe it is, here, and then there is a bunch that disagree.

So nobody else saw The FP, or everyone has me on ignore/just skips my messages ?

 Earth127 wrote:
kinda hard to say in general. Classics aren't necessarily good they just are movies with big impact.

That's literally the opposite of what classic mean.

@ Hybrid: Thanks.

I would say Eli is a man moved by what he believes is God. I don't recall him speaking of Jesus, just God. I agree that he follows the Christian bible, that also includes the Old Testament. I would say he follows an "older" version of the belief. More akin to a crusading knight, without the invading Islamic countries element. Perhaps "questing paladin" is closest to what I'm thinking. Not paying lip service as is common today, but true belief. I agree to the holy warrior comparison.

I disagree that he's the most admirable character. In the second major scene, he ignores the plight of the other travellers when they're attacked. He leaves them to a terrible fate. I'd argue that Samara (Kunis) is the most noble character, willingly sacrificing of herself for those she cares about.

Carnegie *is* a bad man. I'd say his relationship to religion is filtered through his master/slave relationship to everything. For him, there are the masters that know the "words" and use them to exploit the people they preach to. Religion is a means to power, nothing else, and he wants to be the master of it.

I wouldn't say it's a change of heart. It hedges his bets. To Carnegie, everything is a transaction. If he can appease the God master by conning the faithful, he can be rewarded. Eli, seeming to have an inside track on the divine, can put a good word in, right? No hard feelings?

Would you agree, that setting the story against the backdrop of the destruction caused by religious intolerance, and Carnegie's blatant desire to abuse the power of religion acts as a cautionary tale against "blind faith"? (Lulz, get it? I'm so funny...)

Also, could we agree that just because religious elements are present, and the heroes win, they aren't immediately Christian propaganda? I'll reference Indiana Jones, RotLA as containing actual Deus Ex Machina when the Arc destroys the Nazis. I'll also reference IJ, TLC as saving his father with Jesus juice. And for the giggles, I'll reference the Blues Brothers as having been "On a mission from God". Except it should be spelled Ghahd.

Can we agree on that?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, what was FP? I've lost track.


@ Inquisitor Bob: The designer's test was to see if the humans would become attached to something they knew was a construct, to a degree that they'd risk their jobs / futures / selves to attempt to break them out. Even though the designer made it clear that "bad things" had happened there, to imply a threat to such an attempt.

Would you risk life and limb for your computer? I swear to an uncaring universe that if you answer in the affirmative I will send mean thoughts your way. So presumably a person would only risk themselves to save something they cared for, and genuinely believed was a "person" trapped unfairly. If the person made the attempt (usually foiled) the creation was a success. If they did not attempt to break the creation out, the creation was a failure, unable to gather the human's sympathy.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Heard Ex Machina talked up a lot - saw the previews on netflix and decided to skip it. Is it really good? Or just hype?

I liked it a lot and watched 3 times so far, but Alicia Vikander is one of my favorite actresses and her only presence means "must watch" for me

Overall a very solid movie, but all set in a couple of dark rooms with just 4 characters, maybe even 3 if we don't consider the robot maid. If you don't like movies with just a few characters and basically no setting this isn't a movie for you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
The story of running away only to return to exactly where you started? Just so you can have giant semis being chased by buggies with flame throwers?

The story is lame IMO. Visuals are good but that doesn't impress me anymore. If it didn't have Tom Hardy in it I don't think I would have even finished the movie.

Mad Max Fury Road is entirely about the emancipation of women, a strong matter that is basically never portrayed in cinema with the exception of some boring biopics, and I never understood while americans love biopics so much that every year tons of them are released in theatres.

Those women returned to the same oasis that they escaped from but not as slaves; they also realized that there were no other places to live since the prosimed land they seek dried years before. Also the hobbits come back to their land at the end, and they continue to live there exaclty as they did before their adventure. Does it mean that The Lord of the Rings has no point?

IMHO The Book of Eli and Oblivion were both at Waterworld's level, lol.

The hobbits come back to the Shire after saving Middle Earth from it's greatest evil. They actually accomplished something where they went giving the journey meaning. Just saying the story is lame - could have done anything and their best Idea is to run away from first first half of the movie and run back. I guess it's actually really smart - this has 95% of the film being on a road with semis and flame throwers (this is what the movie is about) that is great if you want action. I'd like a little more progression? Not starting all over mid film to do the exact same thing over again. That is boring.

Didn't those women eradicate tyranny and oppression from their own world? That's a huge achievement. The hobbits lived in peace at the beginning of the story, and probably evil wouln't even notice them. They were just exploited by gandalf, lol.

What progression and character development do we have in a MCU movie???

What progression and character development do we have in a MCU movie???

Tony Stark and Pepper live out their character progression and relationship mostly on screen.

it felt like an hypocritical (what happened to the “turn the other cheek” thingy?) tale of a Christian “true believer” on a divine mission

Well that's def more Old Testament than New.

I enjoyed the Book of E film - liked the style and characters - That the book was the Bible was not in doubt for me but not an issue

Marvel Movies have a ton of character progression.

Off the top of my head.

Tony Stark - IM1 - Goes from self absorbed oblivious douche to self conscious narcissist whos trying to take responsibility for the consequences of his past selfishness. IM3 PTSD from Avengers. Civil War, paying for the consequences of his Ironmaning.

Cap America. Goes from government monkey following orders to breaking order to do what he thinks is right and ends up leading from the front. It's that progress that makes him the person he is in Infinity war. "I'm not asking for forgiveness, and I am done asking permission." Cap before the prison break mission would have never said that.

Bucky Barnes - Massive progress and story over Cap 1 - Infinity war.

T'challa - Civil war sees him go from vengeance fueled to the level headed king he becomes.

Rocket Racoon - Gaurdians 1 and 2 sees him go from acting out and pushing everyone away to being a real part of that family.

Dr Strange - Self absorbed surgeon who looks down on everyone around him as inferior, to letting go of his pride and spending his life in service to others.

Ant Man/Wasp both characters progress a lot in the first antman movie. Scott Lang really steps up and tries to becomes a better person. Hope finds forgivness for her father and gets past some of her anger issues.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
It's been a while, so I forget. Did they ever explain why the Rich guy wanted the nerd guy to interact with the robot? I know he said it was a Turing test, but it starts out with the tester knowing she's a robot, and also the rich guy based her synth skin appearance on nerd guy's porn predilections which seems to have further biased the test. It came across more like In The Comoany Of Men with robots than an exploration of artificial intelligence.

because he's an idiot genius with a god complex (and the matching divine dance skills), the tests are purely to test human reaction rather than AI as he's most likely figured Ava can already choose to expediently pass or fail any test

To be fair, a lot of Marvel heroes go from being some sort of a-hole to a decent team player - that is the standard Marvel character development, which has worked pretty well in the comics and also on screen

Yeah, honestly anybody who asks what character progression/development exists in Marvel characters is just...wow. My old roommate said there was no character development in Infinity Wars. You know, the movie that was a culmination of ten years of character development. Some people just can’t be pleased. So throw popcorn at them and hope it sticks in their hair.

@GreatBigTree :

I'm not sure what you mean by "older" version of the belief.

I totally agree that a story can have elements of Christian mythology while not being Christian propaganda, sometime even quite the opposite. For instance, I'd never call the movie Constantine as Christian propaganda, despite it having literal angels and god being a very real being. But neither Indiana Jones nor Constantine follows the traditional tropes of the christian "inspirational" parable. Neither stars a character that is presented as righteous and devout (Indiana Jones isn't particularly devout, and Constantine isn't particularly righteous... and to be honest not devout in the traditional sense either ) that is tempted by the sinner but that shun temptation, etc.

The apocalypse being brought by religious intolerance didn't seem obvious to me when I watched it, to be honest. And the Carnegie part doesn't seem like a cautionary tale about blind faith when Eli is the one who is into blind faith. It feels more like a cop-out of "the bad stuff done in the name of religion is done by bad men that don't know religion, like Carnegie". Sometime the really bad stuff done in the name of religion is done by people who are 100% convinced that they are doing the right thing as ordered by their books, and they have actual arguments to support it. Sometime religion isn't the excuse, but the cause.

The FP is another unrelated movie that I mentioned earlier .

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Kung Fury was funny but I don't know about Space Cops.
Anyone else enjoyed The FP?

Trailer:

Hard for me to define "older" version of the belief. It is my experience that (Broad, sweeping, unfair over-generalization coming!) modern Christian belief is just there for the Holidays. Most days it's just a word people use to associate as "Not the other". Whereas Eli's belief is every day. He has his mission from God to achieve. A specific purpose given by (his belief) God to achieve a goal. Because he's read the Bible so many times, and may have had devout family before the war, the Grace and prayers are likely hold-overs from that. There's not much else to do on a 30 year walk except memorize a book, amirite? To me, I see Eli as a less Christian specific holy man, and more of a general Holy Man. Again, there's no regard to Jesus proper in the movie. And when Samara asks him what the book is about, he sums it up as, "Give more to others, than you give to yourself. That's what I got out of it, anyway." It's a fairly succinct summary of it, for such a large tome.

Constantine is a full-on trope of the misguided hero, that needs to learn sacrifice (a-la Jesus) before he is let into Heaven. "No matter how many souls I save..." He's going to Hell...



And somehow got out of that in exchange for hunting daemons, which he thinks is his ticket into heaven. But he's wrong, and winds up condemning himself to Hell again, in order to save the world. The sacrifice is valued by God, presumably, and then the story concludes. Direct Divine and Infernal interventions. Admittedly, his actions are self-serving, but he completes his divine quest, like Eli. He gets his reward, like Eli. The only reason Constantine succeeds is due to following a religious principle. In my view, Constantine is less devout as he is provably aware of the divine and infernal, whereas Eli is driven by a memory from 30 years previous. And in my imagination, was likely a hallucination caused by any number of causes. Dehydration, starvation, lack of sleep, mental trauma... my imagination lets this occur in a world where God is as unknowable as our own. (Agnostic bias)


Eli addresses the religious tension as having been blamed for the conflict, and the reason why the Bibles were destroyed by the survivors. The "Billy" short implies WW3 started in the Middle East over religious issues.


To me, Carnegie symbolizes the use of Religion as a tool of oppression. My own prejudice may be on display, but I have strong dislike of Televangelism. To me, it's playing on people's hopes for a better future by impoverishing them today. I recognize and support a person's right and reasons to engage in it. It's their life. But I don't like it. The Billy short also shows Billy's reaction to that, but also shows the source of his fascination with the Bible. I see this less as a cop-out than a simple warning. All things in moderation. Eli's life is a shell. No family, no real hope per se, just a mission. Eli's "obsession" with his religion is harmful to him. Zealous belief lead Billy's family to destruction. Zealous belief lets the Carnegies of the world abuse those that trust them.

In this movie, Carnegie is a genuine bad man. In this movie, Eli stops Carnegie and his men only because they try to stop him from completing his mission. He's not doing it for the townspeople and trying to help them from the goodness of his heart. Eli is not a selfless man. He is selfishly pursuing his own agenda. In this movie, Samara is the noble one. She sacrifices of herself to help others. She asks for peace during the destruction. Upon reaching safety, she chooses to go back and become the "New Sherrif in Town" to make the old town a better place, having grown as a character into a self-confident protector of the weak. Or revenge, but I think it's more of a take of hope than vengeance.

She is inspired by the calm, assured character. She sees that Eli isn't actively trying to hurt others, or abuse them. He's simply trying to get by. In her world, someone that isn't actively exploiting others is a "Saint". So it is absolutely fair to say she's inspired by him, though It does not seem she shares his depth or concern for faith.


I haven't seen The FP, nor could I imagine watching it. Campy, and placing extraordinary value on a mundane object in our world is probably fun, but I can't imagine watching a movie about DDR, or whatever they call it now.

I'll not argue that bad things are done in good faith in the real world, and I hope you wouldn't argue that good things are done in good faith in the real world. Religion is a tool. Some use it for good, strengthening themselves to do good while others use it to justify bad, and use it to facilitate that.

Oh, superficial belief isn't really that new! If you look at history, you'll find even Popes that apparently cared little for religion most day .

If Carnegie is televangelism, the movie doesn't have, at all, the Westboro Baptist Church. People doing bad things, but who earnestly believes in those bad things. What it does have, though, is a Christian paragon of virtue, that imo feel like an in-your-face role model for the “be a good Christian” message that this movie is sending.
I don't get any “Christian role model” from neither the flawed hero that don't have faith because he knows that God and the angels and daemons exist and mundanely so, or Indiana Jones who is just an adventurous archeologist.

I'm confused about your “in good faith” question, is this expression a false friend wrt French? Like, is it actually related to religion? I expect “in good faith” to be pretty close to “in good will”, as opposed to “in bad faith”, i.e. “hypocritically self-serving” or something.
Religion isn't a tool. Religion can be used as a tool, but religion isn't just what people make of it. There are some actual dogma and precept and those can be innocuous or inherently bad or absolutely terrible depending on the precept and on the religion.

Yes, “the FP” is incredibly campy, awesomely and quite certainly purposefully so! It's a big part of the appeal! But no, despite all the appearances, it's not really a movie about Dance Dance Revolution. I mean, the training isn't what a real training for DDR would be, the dance scene don't put any emphasis on real DDR moves… really it's more like a celebration of geekness, of people being really into whatever that obscure thing that they love is, no matter if it looks ridiculous to outsiders. And also a celebration on campiness \o/.

I'd say our major disagreement is in viewing Eli as a paragon of virtue. While he is possessed of some admirable qualities, few of them are Christian in nature.

I'm going to say that the Christian religion, as a whole, associates with compassion, rather than power. Eli shows no compassion, makes no sacrifices for others, denies aid to those in need. Frankly, Eli is an donkey-cave with a job to do. He's not presented as a paragon of Christian virtues. Aside from his faith in a deity, closer to Jehovah than Jesus, what virtues do you believe Eli possesses?

The religion of Christianity is not shown in an overall positive light in the movie. Again, the Christian faith is not championed. It's not even mentioned by name. Eli is following his belief in a God. Not even the Judeo-Christian God, necessarily. It is unknown if he knew about the Father / Son / Holy Spirit elements before reading the book.

The movie does NOT endorse Christianity, nor is there a champion of it in this film. Period, full stop. That is not movie content. That is a viewer bringing their baggage to the show, as I bring my dislike of Televangelists.

I'm going to need some quotes from the movie, or some kind of greater specifics. So far, your dislike of the movie seems based on a dislike of the Christian faith. You are putting forth impressions, deeply tainted impressions, of this movie without them relating to the content of the movie. If you can watch it again, and search for an instance of Christianity being referenced, you wont find it. Other than the "King James Bible".

The "good faith" means with good intentions. People have done bad things with good intentions, and they've done good things with good intentions, inspired by their faith. And some have done bad things deliberately, using their "bad faith" as a tool to oppress.

I don't think our discussion will progress further if an insistence on the movie presenting a one-sided pro-Christianity message continues. It is not in the movie. That is not contained in the movie. It is not there. An argument can be made for a pro-theist message, maybe, but specifically NOT Christianity.

I think my favorite superhero might actually be Super (2010), anyone else seen that? I thought it was pretty good.

 Thargrim wrote:
I think my favorite superhero might actually be Super (2010), anyone else seen that? I thought it was pretty good.

SHUT UP, CRIME!!!

It's a pretty good deconstruction of the genre, although I find Kick-Ass more enjoyable due to Hit Girl. Definitely better than the Wanted movie adaptation.

OTOH, Boltie is very cute!