Escape to the Movies: Son of God

[Kargathia]

Does anyone else want to see a movie based on the Apostles? Christ is Risen and gone to heaven, and they are charged with going forth and preaching His message with their human faith no longer buoyed by His presence. I think it could be a really great character drama, and you can have fancy special effects for things like the Conversion of Saul/Paul [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_of_Paul_the_Apostle].

Speaking as an Atheist who has actually done his homework on major religions: yup, post-Jesus apostle stories offer so much quality source material you could easily make a movie per apostle.
But... the biggest hurdle when it comes to adapting the bible isn't source material, it's it being a holy book for a whole lot of people.
You either focus on staying true to "facts", and likely end up making a shitty "and then this happened" movie, or you concentrate on making a good movie, and risk the original fanbase staging riots on your doorstep.

 

[RealRT]

Am I the only one who finds it sad that Bob has to spend so much time explaining how the fact that he hates this movie doesn't mean he hates Christianity.

 

[Silvianoshei]

WHY IS JESUS WHITE!?

 

[SnakeoilSage]

Sorry to tell you this, but the mythic Jesus "is" the only Jesus. There are no records of him, his deeds, or anything else about his life in the orthodox documentation of history by historians. The gospels is where Jesus lived. You can't make a biopic of a man's life, when there is no man. It would be like producing a movie telling the true story of Perseus. How could you possibly do that?

Note: I am not wanting a religious battle. My above statement is a fact, not an opinion, or a belief.

Not wanting a religious battle, but more than willing to make know-it-all quotes at people because deep down it gets your ego off.

My point is that making a movie about a "real" Jesus would make an interesting movie, one about an ordinary man being a civil-rights proponent in a country rife with political and economic corruption has modern-day equivalents and might strike a chord with people. It might help the audience to stop looking at Jesus as a magic-man who made "miracles," it would help his ultimate message of peace and equality get more recognition. His philosophies have become background noise that Bible-thumpers ignore while they use the book and even the idea of Jesus himself as a tool to abuse, exploit, and oppress others. Making a down-to-earth movie that tosses out all the miracles and just focuses on the man being a working-class hero, bravely standing up to the rich and privileged, would upset soooo many Right-wingers, who have this mentality that if he were alive today, Jesus would somehow be another ultra-conservative "corporations are people too" stooge of the economic elites telling you to hate gays and give the 1% more tax breaks.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

That intro honest to god is one of the funniest things I've seen in a while.

And, as usual, interesting commentary by Bob.

 

[MegaSuperUberMe]

Sandler? Again? WHY WON'T HE STOP MAKING MOVIES?!

 

[nejiyellow]

The problem with your bit on godzilla is that the new movie is ignoring the franchise and is a remake/sequel to the 1954 original. You man not believe this, bob, but it was a great movie. A serious movie. Yup, you can take it seriously. The effects actually were quite good for the standards of the times. It is one of the movies that created the tokusatsu genre in japan, but godzilla itself was largely inspired by king kong and other amercian monster movies of the era. But you know what? Unlike you, I can enjoy the rest of the franchise for what it is. The orginial movie is serious, godzilla raids again, the direct sequel, tryed to be serious and was a load of shit, one of the worst movies form the franchise, godzilla vs. king kong was a big hit and, for the most parts, defined the rest of the franchise all the way to final wars. In other words, they tryed to be serious again, didn't work, so they went for camp and never looked back. But, since the rest of the franchise was tokusatsu, that's fine. The orginal movie was different. It was a great movie. One of the best movie's ever made, IMO, and right up there with the orginal king kong. Hell, the franchise afterwards had wonky starting points with a overall continuity that made no sense(no, bob, toei was not trying to be marvel), but the orginal movie was always the starting point, no matter what toei was doing. You don't seem to get that. The 1954 movie was not a cheese fest like the rest of the franchise. And that's ok. I still love the rest of the franchise(for the most part) as tokusatsu. But they aren't good movies. I can take the 1954 movie 100% serious. And once again, as always with you, it goes back to your basic mentality being:
"serious=bad, camp=good". You're so stupid as always it amazes me. I don't think you've actually watched any of the godzilla movie's and are talking out your ass as always. And all the nimrods on this forum eat it up and repeat it without thinking for themselves. fuck you bob.

PS-VR poopers sucks. Go watch the real shows, spielban and metalder, instead kids.

 

[JimB]

So when you go to the main Escape to the Movies page and see the screencap used for the video link, is that hole in Jesus's hand actually from the movie? I just noticed it, and it looks almost like a Jimquisition special effect.

 

[keserak]

If you don't have the integrity to make Jesus not white, you don't have the integrity to make a Jesus movie.

 

[Kennetic]

Best intro that Bob has done yet, it was great! I was actually very pleased with how professional Bob was during this review given his personal beliefs. His older videos were not so professional (looking at you, Book of Eli review).

 

[Endocrom]

Heh, the water walking pic.

 

[Farther than stars]

REligion is waste of time and cash as well so i guess this movie captures that part of the deal.

So, you don't feel that humanity benefits from having a concise moral framework?

The ratio of people who are religious and are actively trying to be nice and adhere to the tenets of their religion to people who say that they are while they doing whatever they want or use religion to justify it hilariously small.
What you call "moral framework" does not exist what does exist is crowd control using religion as a dog so that the sheep go wherever you want them to go.

I think you're generalizing too much here. I mean, even within a single religion, like Christianity, there is a sweeping variety from conservative through moderate to liberal. Hell, there are even Christian denominations which actively promote gay rights and abortion. Similarly, not all Muslims are terrorists who force their wives to dress in burqas and there are some very progressive sections of that religion as well.
And for many of these religious people, especially in the West, religion can offer a very satisfying safe-haven in a fast-paced, individualistic and materialistic environment. Do you think it's fair to criticize these people for spending their "time and cash" on an institution that makes them happier in their daily lives?

REligion is waste of time and cash as well so i guess this movie captures that part of the deal.

So, you don't feel that humanity benefits from having a concise moral framework?

Moral framework predate religions. Moral framework originate from the need to have "rules" for social animals. Animals without moral will simply lead to the social group break down or disappear, whereas animal with morals lead to a strengthening of the social group, so the bigger the group the more you need such unwritten social rules. Heck you can even see moral behavior , like altruism in other species.

Religion co-opted moral framework and pretended to be the origin of it, but frankly, nothing absolutely nothing in the various religious book was not in place before. Did you really think the summerian did not have a moral framework ? From where do you think the golden rules come from ? And it was there even before. And you think murder was not punished or frowned upon before the OT ? Think again.

No really, religion is not the origin of moral framework in the slightiest.

I think that this assertion is too short-sighted. It assumes that Christianity is the only definition of a religion. But when considering the origin of moral frameworks, we see that this is closely tied to paganism, which is a far more fluid form of religion that allowed it to softly shape moral frameworks in primitive societies.
However, this doesn't mean that the historical contributions of the Abrahamic religions are obsolete. For one, their monotheistic premise allows them to shift the focus of theological debate away from metaphysical issues and more towards humanistic considerations. Moreover, their reliance on universal claims of morality (as opposed to the more relativist nature of paganism) allows these religions to act as a cohesive to larger societies, as opposed to paganism, which historically was only able to bind smaller groups in peaceful coexistence.
Another reason why religion might be considered as fundamental to moral frameworks is the issue of teaching and authority. On teaching, the Abrahamic religions excel as a moral framework, because they have an institutionalized way of teaching general norms. You might suggest that this function could be taken over by schools and states in literate societies (and the French constitution would agree with you), but then you still run into the problem of authority. Laws might codified in a similar way to scripture, but as a source of norms they are very much dependent on state sovereignty and the corresponding national allegiance. Religion transcends that. Look for instance at Latin America, which turns to the Catholic Church when faced with corrupt governments and police forces.
Finally, on the point of animals, this is not unsimilar to the analysis on paganism, in the sense that animal loyalties will never extend being the immediate group (and even then with a lot of fighting for dominance within that group). In comparison, formalized religion offers a universal set of rules about being a good person towards everyone. Note here, however, that I am talking about cooperation between individuals as a social practice. This does not apply to animals like ants, who cooperate purely on the basis of their biological constitution.

 

[Quanten1972]

Farther than stars, your argument completely ignore the facts that the first big society were actually polytheist, and they were not "small band" sized, and the biggest religious country today is actually a mix of polytheism (hinduism) and what i would call religious atheism (Buddhism has no gods although i don't think it actually care to deny the existence of other religions gods - still a form of atheistic religion). In fact every single of your points was present in the society I cited : summerian, then the babylonian, roman, greek.... Formalized *monotheistic* religions do not offer more in the term of authority or moral framework than previous society did.

On the other hand, do not take it as a personal attack it is a general remark, but monotheistic believer excel at not recognizing the contribution and moral framework of previous polytheistic or atheistic religious framework, coopting it, and then pretending they were the only one all along.

ETA In fact I contend that by having a single authority which cannot be wrong , monotheistic abrahamic religion were a step backward as they were more often used as a pretence for a massacre "god asked us to kill infidel", than previous polytheistic were documented to. Polytheist religion tended to recognize their gods as often as wrong , sometimes bad guy doing rape, short temper. Monotheistic "god X is always right" is not a particularly good framework, and indeed when you look at the OT and NT by today's standard, it both falls short morally. In fact slavery was long seen as justified, since it was OKish in both OT an d NT. By today's standard the OT god is a terrible psychopath, and the NT one does not place the bar very high. ETAETA : and the role of woman was a step backward in monotheistic religion. In polytheistic religion at least they had a role, as huntress goddess, or whatever, whereas "woman should not speak up without being allowed by their guardian in church" and "woman cannot be priest" "if she does not scream it was not a rape but adulterous" and "take the nubile woman kill the boy and the baby" is not really portant of equality or morality. I contend they were also more feminine authority figure under polytheistic religions.

But really that's a lot to debate for this thread on a bad movie.

 

[Verlander]

Unsurprisingly I don't think this is getting a release in the UK.

I wonder if Jesus had Bon Jovi-white teeth? Or was a white man...

 

[thenumberthirteen]

The thing I don't get is if you want to go see this movie then why not just buy "The Bible" series on DVD? It costs around, or less, than two movie tickets, and you get what you'll see on the big screen AND MORE. Plus it's yours to keep.

I could get if they just showed the mini series in theatres (length not withstanding) as you might want the experience of seeing it on the big screen, but the DVDs have so much more. It's like if they took the first season of Game of Thrones, and cut it down to feature length. It'd be confusing, and a waste of money.

It has nothing to do with the quality of the material. Just how they're releasing it. It'll make a fortune like "Passion" did, and future audiences will be robbed of well made, big budget, religious movies since they can just re-cut a TV show.

 

[Itchi_da_killa]

Sorry to tell you this, but the mythic Jesus "is" the only Jesus. There are no records of him, his deeds, or anything else about his life in the orthodox documentation of history by historians. The gospels is where Jesus lived. You can't make a biopic of a man's life, when there is no man. It would be like producing a movie telling the true story of Perseus. How could you possibly do that?

Note: I am not wanting a religious battle. My above statement is a fact, not an opinion, or a belief.

Not wanting a religious battle, but more than willing to make know-it-all quotes at people because deep down it gets your ego off.

My point is that making a movie about a "real" Jesus would make an interesting movie, one about an ordinary man being a civil-rights proponent in a country rife with political and economic corruption has modern-day equivalents and might strike a chord with people. It might help the audience to stop looking at Jesus as a magic-man who made "miracles," it would help his ultimate message of peace and equality get more recognition. His philosophies have become background noise that Bible-thumpers ignore while they use the book and even the idea of Jesus himself as a tool to abuse, exploit, and oppress others. Making a down-to-earth movie that tosses out all the miracles and just focuses on the man being a working-class hero, bravely standing up to the rich and privileged, would upset soooo many Right-wingers, who have this mentality that if he were alive today, Jesus would somehow be another ultra-conservative "corporations are people too" stooge of the economic elites telling you to hate gays and give the 1% more tax breaks.

I wasn't trying to be a know-it-all. I was wanting to be informative. It's hard to understand "how" someone is trying to say something in "text". I was being some what snarky, but not at you, but at the subject. I meant no offence. I should have made my intentions more clear.