History Headscratchers / TheBookOfEli

** No, no, no. This twist gets a whole new level if you have even smallest experience with blind people. I'm kind of therapist, I have trained blind peaople. Thing that Denzel pulled in this film are fantastic. I could say it's a instance of Viewers are Geniuses trope. By the time Eli & Sollara arrived at the old couple house I realized that Eli is blind. Why? Because he made that clicky echolocation sound with tounge and because he kicked a step. Kicking step in such manner is one of the first thing you tech to blind people, to indicate if there is a step. It's those little thing: head position, tongue clicking, little moves and things like retreating under the bridge to get a advance of lack of light, and sound reflection. Truly superb acting. Yet it took me 5 years of training to notice it halfway through the film.

*** Has at least JohnnyCash on it, that's worth keeping. Still we can assume that the people at Alcatraz copied the contents somehow.

** Eli didn't seem to know for sure where he was going, besides "west".

* Did the final scene stretch the willing suspension of disbelief on anyone else besides me? You know in the opening where Eli fights a whole gang of murderous bandits with nothing but a machete? Well the reason why movie protagonists in films like this have to be at that level is because almost no one in real life could survive in such a hell hole for very long on their own. Not only do you need fighting ability, but survival skills, craftsmanship, endurance, creativity, the ability to [[Film/FirstBlood eat things that would make a billy goat puke]] and a whole host of other things that are essential for long term survival in an apocalyptic wasteland. In other words, it takes a lot more than just putting on Eli's shades and his ipod to walk back home - Solara is absolutely screwed. It stretches credulity that she could possibly make it and yet the scene plays it as a ''handing over the torch'' moment that is simply not backed up by her stated abilities up to this point.

** That's the same as asking how 6 million people can suddenly start being shipped into furnaces and ghettoes. Systematic elimination is possible with persistence and time, and religion is a touchy subject. Isn't there at least one RealLife example of a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_China highly populated secular nation]] that at one time pretty much [[CulturalRevolution eradicated religion from its borders]]?

* is it just me, or was GaryOldman doing his best [[{{Series/Deadwood}} Ian]] [[{{Kings}} McShane]] impression for this movie? Not much of a complaint as I like both actors, but when I look back on any given scene, I keep picturing [=McShane=] in Oldman's place.

*** I'm... pretty sure that's not the basis of the Bible. At any rate, I can't see Carnegie taking that route if he wants to use it to take over people's lives. I think the main reason is the first response -- The Bible was the big book before the Flash, Carnegie knew it, and so he didn't see any value whatsoever in anything else, even the Quran, the Torah, or anything else that wasn't the Bible. (Actually, [[FridgeBrilliance that kind of makes sense]] -- not only did he plan to turn the Bible itself into a tool of raw power, but he didn't want his people getting exposed to anything else. Or maybe I'm overthinking it.)

** It's stated at some point in the movie that it is the common belief of the people inland that "Nothing Lies to the West", because they don't have any proof and therefore don't believe that anything is left in the west... so they instead take shelter in inland towns where they can be safer.

** Indeed, he was already dying from the moment Carnegie shot him. God kept him going long enough to complete his mission. And he was able to die peacefully, which in the BookOfEli Universe, is rare. And he's in Heaven, which is pretty good too.

* is it just me, or was GaryOldman doing his best [[{{Deadwood}} Ian]] [[{{Kings}} McShane]] impression for this movie? Not much of a complaint as I like both actors, but when I look back on any given scene, I keep picturing [=McShane=] in Oldman's place.

* We are led to believe that the entire world is in drought for most of the movie, yet when they reach the coast it is obviously green. Why the heck were they still hunkered down in the water challenged interior?

** Generally speaking, when actors go uncredited, it's because they request it for whatever reason. James Earl Jones declined being credited for his work as Darth Vader, for instance. Now, why Malcolm specifically went uncredited, or why he would request to go uncredited, I couldn't say.

* Why wasn't Malcolm [=McDowell=] listed in the credits? Granted, his role wasn't huge, but it wasn't miniscule either, and he's a fairly well-known actor.

* Why wasn't Malcolm [=McDowell=] listed in the credits? Granted, his role wasn't huge, but it wasn't miniscule either, and he's a fairly well-known actor?

So, Solara shows Eli where [[spoiler: Carnegie gets his water from, hoping that he would let her travel with him. When they get out, he says he forgot his glasses inside, sends her to get them, and locks her in. He insists that he isn't a liar, because he never said he would take her with him. So, telling her that he forgot hi glasses when he actually didn't isn't considered lying.]]

* Umm..isn't Tanakh (which is shown on the same shelf that Eli's book is placed upon)also 77% of what Eli's dictated? And if it survived,why didn't the B****?

** No, he meant the Tanach, (It's two books to the left of the Kings James Bible in that last scene) which stands for Torah, Nvuim, Ktuvim. It contains the Torah (the first five books of Moses), the eleven books of the Prophets and the five megillot. These are also considered the Old Testament of the Bible, although they were adapted with some alterations.

* Umm..isn't Tanak (which is shown on the same shelf that Eli's book is placed upon)also 77% of what Eli's dictated? And if it survived,why didn't the B****?

* Do you know what bugs me? That this movie was VideoGame/{{Fallout}} with Fundamentalism mixed in. The world has ended and the BEST book to save is the Bible?Really?No history of science? No the complete history of the World, What about Adam Smith? Plato? And, no the collection in the end does NOT compensate, actually that makes it worse, because we didn't see a movie about any of these book we saw a movie about the Bible. Oh and by the way, I agree with Carnegie, that book would be a tremendous advantage for conquering because it has already used for that countless times. And the Torah and Quran. Really, I hate book burning, but if 2-3 books have destroyed the whole planet in the wrong hands again and again, I would at least lock them up,somewhere really really safe. NO REPRINT THEM AND START PREACHING AGAIN!
** Because clearly countries have never been conquered through knowledge of chemistry or biology.
** The idea of Democracy was used to initiate a reign of terror in Athens in the past. It is the nature of things that grant people hope to be maipulated by the greedy in order to attain power
** Finding out that the oh so important book was the Bible and not something actually useful to a post-apocalyptic society, like a book on medicine or agriculture, killed any desire I had to see this movie.
*** Except the harsher UV rays from the hole in the Ozone layer would probably make old knowledge about agriculture less useful and it's not like a book on medicine is gonna help when you're in the middle of the desert with a bullet in your head. Rather, I think they chose the Bible because they wanted to highlight the importance of faith when all hope seems lost.
** The Bible's a culturally important work and worth preserving.
** The movie makes it very clear at the end that the group at Alcatraz are all about spreading information, not faiths. If Eli had had anything else, it would have been just as precious to them. Being a religious text made the majority of the movie's plot, or was the farmhouse fight not worth Carnegie going after a book that could be used to influence others by faith?
** Uh... Eli isn't perfect, and Carnegie could have used it for bad. '''THERE ISN'T A PARABLE THAT'S SIMILAR TO ELI'S'''.
** Someone's ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontLike.
** Talk about HollywoodAtheist.
** Whoever said it was the "best" book to save? There's only a few characters who even know what it is, and of those Eli himself is a believer and certainly wouldn't agree that the Bible is evil, Carnegie WANTS to use it for evil, and the librarian at the end clearly does NOT see it as THE one book, but one out of many.
** Can someone tell me when JustBugsMe became an excuse to start spewing hate speech?
*** I think it became that way when the one for FamilyGuy was created.
*** You call it hate speech, some would just call it an opinion you don't agree with.