God's Not Dead

I'm still waiting for a movie where it turns out that God is Jar-Jar Binks.

I want the movie where it turns out that God is the smug strawman Atheist who is actually just fucking with his worshipers because the guy literally has an eternity to kill.

He wasn't an Eldritch Abomination; he was the Cowardly Lion.

Not technically God doing that, but the beginning of Dogma has an angel doing that.

Good lord... This film REEKS to sloppy writing.

Then again, I have experienced the other way around with my Christian Testament Professor this year opening his class with "Atheism is lazy and an unwillingness to be open to truth and critical logical thought" and he used logic of a bunch of non-believers baptizing their kids to prove that? I didn't understand what he said. At all. And, since it is second semester Sr. Year, do I care? Nope. Go Senioritis!

I saw a trailer for two other films when I went to see "Saving Mr. Banks" today. I think it was Heaven is Real and then some Jesus movie. What's with the Bible fest here? I'd rather go back to twilight since... well, twilight is less likely to insult other forms of thought besides its own.

I suppose this comes to the question of how DO you deal with religion in films without becoming... in your face preachy?

My first guess would be to just simply not touch the idea. Second is to either not name the religion or use a fake one. The third would be to be very vague on weather said religion IS true or not. Or, portray a inter-religious conflict of some kind where both sides of the conflict portray different sides of the religion.

I actually wouldn't mind a film adaptation of Jesus' life where they keep weather he's the son of God or not INCREDIBLY ambiguous. One thing that always bothered me (and, by extension, my classmates and teachers when I pointed this out), was that, well, someone going up to you and saying that they're the son of god and that you should follow them is not exactly the most sane thing to say and even less so to instantly believe such. If anyone were to do that in our modern era, they'd get called crazy. A lot.

Actually, that isn't a bad premise for a film. Jesus returns in our modern day and, well, no one believes him and thinks he's crazy.

EDIT: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/gods-not-dead-movie-advocates-185900628.html

I see some very clear unfortunate implications with half of this...

edited 25th Jan '14 11:19:03 PM by lancesolous13

Well, Lance, to be fair, people were incredibly skeptical of Jesus until he performed some of the miracles he did, and even after, there were still many people who were skeptical. The fact that he was crucified at all is a testament to how many people were against him.

I know. And, in general, those who were skeptical, and justifiably so, are sort of get an antagonistic treatment a lot of times. It would be interesting to see a film that would portray the situation without a yes or no on the answer and just simply as a guy going around saying that he is the son of god, weather he truly is or not being irrelevant to the film itself.

I agree, that'd be a very interesting film to see (and I'm saying this as a Catholic myself).

"Actually, that isn't a bad premise for a film. Jesus returns in our modern day and, well, no one believes him and thinks he's crazy."

It exists. It's the first team-up between RTD and Christopher Eccleston, actually.

This looks awful. The upcoming Left Behind film at least promises top notch Cage pork, this was so dull I couldn't sit through the trailer. Seems to indicate the worst kind of Christian anti-intellectualism; faith is not well served by sticking its fingers in its ears and going "lalalalalalalalalalalalalala can't hear you" when science talks.

Let me tell you the kinds of films I remember based on the bible that were not preachy and obnoxious to an acceptable degree. The old technicolor classics that always played on Easter and Thanksgiving.

No love for Veggie Tales?

I'd like to know why most Christian films nowadays are either end of the world, Book of Revelation films or sappy dramas. I'd like to see a Christian comedy film, at least it would be a nice change of pace, and would show that Christians do have a sense of humor (yes, there are some people who classify Christians as humorless, despite that not being the case at all).

I think they're bandwagoning on Left Behind (this version.) I remember seeing this movie announced, what, fourteen months ago (? Long time, it feels like) and thinking it was a joke. "Oh, come on- a big screen adaptation of Left Behind, starring Nicolas Cage? Some Caustic Critic is just relating their wet dream."

Relevant. Also, this was actually made at my school!

Because Christians have executive meddling, too, and something with a "strong message" is far more likely to get funded than something without. Christian filmmaking, and by extension Christian entertainment in general, is kind of closed-circle. The focus is on getting out the message, not on making things that are actually entertaining.

Ayup. Most Christian stuff is poorly-acted, poorly-written, poorly everything, really. It's especially frustrating because the resources to change all that are actually out there, but nobody takes advantage of it.

edited 2nd Feb '14 5:15:56 PM by CorrTerek

It's hard to make a modern Christian movie because both sides really. The uber-religious will bash it if it isn't true to their interpretation of the text and the uber-athiestic will slam it for being propaganda.

Yeah, there are a lot of things that contribute to the problem. But focusing on "the message" and putting everything else as a distant second is a major pet peeve of mine. "The message" will be better served if they also invest in better camera work, better actors, better scripts, and better editing.

Pretty much. A lot of times, it also feels like the same exact movie every single time.

The most obvious one being, how many times can we retell the story of Jesus and never deviate EVER from that? Ignoring the fact that it is the basis of a religion, the story of Jesus is an interesting one with so many different ways to tell it, or things to expand on and explore. I mean, hell, the one question I've heard every year of my catholic education was about the gaps in Jesus' life from baby-to-12-years-old and then 12-to-24. There's so much potential right there.

But, no, we can't deviate from the Bible! Its a holy text! You don't change anything ever even if it can still get the same message across.

I'm really tired of atheists being portrayed as bad guy's constantly. Or asshole. Yes, some of them are, but that doesn't mean every single damn one was an asshat. Why can't the be the best friend character which protag may not always see eye-to-eye with, but he always has a different perspective which is/can be helpful?

Tyler Perry does Christian comedies. The quality of same is...debated.

I was actually thinking something along another line - that is, why tell just Bible stories? Whatever happened to all the saints, man? There's got to be dozens of great saintly tales, especially for Catholics (or us Orthodox, for that matter, but ours tend to be a bit too Bloodier and Gorier). Personally, I think the story of a holy man inspired by Jesus can be just as interesting, and tons more relateable, than the story of Jesus himself.

Speaking of which, I'm also dismayed by the over-reliance of "blind faith" evangelism, as opposed to offering some genuine miracles first - exactly the way saints did it. Even Jesus had to perform half a dozen divine feats before anyone would take him seriously. A lot of saints fared no worse. If a movie uses this approach, even with a Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane catch, it's still tons more convincing than 90 minutes of preachy apologetics.

You've got a point. Someone oughta make a movie about St.George and the Dragon

The only saint people make movies about is Joan of Arc.

Nah. They keep making films about Saint Nicholas.

aka Santa Claus.

Considering what week it is, you'd think they'd at least release one about St. Patrick.

Really, I know Church Militants aren't in vogue these days, but there could be a few more Badass Preachers, Warrior Monks and Religious Bruisers. If the faith is to endure, people should be reminded that Good Is Not Soft.

(I should note, though, that I say this as an otherwise secular cultural Christian. Just mentioning what'd work best to attract guys like me to the fold.)

edited 21st Mar '14 7:40:11 AM by indiana404