The Book of Eli: Really cool but with more plot holes then you can shake a stick at.

[Piecewise]

The rule of cool states that if something is cool enough then people can overlook all sorts of inherent flaws and inconsistencies because it is just that cool. Action heroes are basically just people who exploit this rule for all it's worth and don't really even try to be reasonable in their presentation of the world. Dramatic heroes on the other hand basically make their living through being awesome while facing the inherent difficulties that being awesome has. One of the major problems with The Book of Eli is it can not decide which one of these heroes it wants to have. Thats just one of the problems though, for their are many.

Yes, the film has this problem of not being sure which route to take, be it the balls to the wall warrior or barely surviving wasteland wanderer just trying to carve out a niche in this harsh world. It's even more difficult to take anything seriously as it is soon implied that he is literally protected by god. Yes, if anyone out there didn't know it (from the title and from the fact that they fucking show you in one of the previews) the book Eli is carrying is the bible. Why is he carrying the bible? Because it's the last one and he wants to bring it...somewhere. Yeah, that's big plot hole number one. That's the last bible? Really? There are like 4 billion bibles in the world and this is the last one? They even say that people went out of their way to burn bibles (because they started the whole end of the world war) but still, I really doubt they could get each and every last bible in the whole world.

The second big weirdness is the fact that god told him to take the last bible to...someplace and that Eli has been walking 30 mother fucking years to get there. Now, let's just think about that for a moment shall we? Let's do the math. So I know where Eli eventually ends up (it's on the very west cost) but we have no idea where he started. We can assume, though, that he started somewhere in the us, because of his accent and language. Now, let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he started WAY on the other end of the US, like around Rhode Island. Thats about a 3300 mile journey from one side to the other. Now, lets do the math to see how many miles a day he had to walk, in 30 years, to reach his destination. Ok, so it comes out to about less then a mile, to only about 1500 feet. Was he just really fucking slow? Did he spend 28 of those years just goofing off? Even if he didn't go in a straight line it's pretty fucking unrealistic.

There are lots of little weirdnesses too, like how eating human flesh apperently makes your hands shake for some reason and how Eli still has a functioning mp3 player more then 3 years after the destruction of the world. Or how about his completely unexplained ninja skills? Perhaps thats just because of the aforementioned inability to chose between action and drama but it's still pretty glaring. And all these things aren't even mentioning the story and it's incessant silliness. We get all sorts of eyebrow raising stuff like the main villain wanting to use the bible as a weapon or about just how freaking easily influenced everyone is by it. It all get's rather preachy and hypocritical. Worst of all is the end spoiler, the one last brain boilingly stupid revelation that pushes the action from improbable to just utterly fucking impossible. The spoiler is that

Spoiler

Eli is blind and the bible is in braille

Now, thats not to say that ALL THAT totally ruins the movie. No, the fighting is pretty damn cool and a fair bit more brutal and realistic then most movies. All the actors play their parts well, even if the actual motivations and stories are nonsense. Oh and it has an old cannibal couple that seems straight out of Fallout. But overall, it's one of those movies that you're better off waiting to see on the internet, specifically waiting to see just the good scenes on youtube. It's kick ass fighting and setting are overwhelmed by preachy nonsensical plot, pointless characters and actions and all around tired nothingness. Personally, I'm sick of these Nuclear doomsday scenarios, when are we going to see an Apocalypse with a little originality?

 

[Karenlee33]

Finally got around to watching the DVD. I like your observations on this movie. Another flaw that I haven't seen anyone comment about is that a braille bible would be extremely bulky to carry around. It takes up about 5 feet on a bookshelf as it is an 18 volume set.

 

[AvsJoe]

I liked this movie. Loved? No, but liked.

And I don't know if this movie has more plot holes than I can shake a stick at because I can shake a stick at a ton of plot holes. I can shake a stick pretty successfully at Michael Bay's The Island, for instance. But yeah, there were a ton of questions and inconsistencies throughout this film.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

Okay so this whole film is kinda religious so in relation to your spoiler.

Spoiler

His 'ninja skills' come from the fact he was born blind so he grew up this way, he uses all of his other senses to the maximum as this is a post apocalyptic world so we assume he has to exert himself more than usual to survive.

So he uses his hearing. Have you noticed he always fires back? And generally he waits before attacking in any situation.

Also supposedly this whole time god is 'guiding him' and protecting him from danger.

 

[xperimental12]

Oh, and, looking at it from a scientific view, THE WORLD WOULD BY F**KED UP BY S**T LOADS OF RADIATION!!! Seriously, if there was a nuclear war, the radiation would still be around 30 years afterwards.

 

[Nylund]

Other problems not mentioned. First, they say the Bible was destroyed because people thought it started wars. Here, they find one, and guess what? Lots of death and the intention of using it as a "weapon." Maybe burning them all wasn't so bad. But did they really burn them all?

Recall that the Bible is comprised of the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament is common to all the "religions of Abraham" including Judaism and Islam. Judaism calls the Old Testament The Tanakh. The first five books of the Tanakh/Old Testament are called the Torah (ie, the five books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). So they actually have two copies already in the library of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

All of the Bible verses they quote or allude to are all Old Testament passages, notably, Psalm 23, which Eli quotes to Solara.

At the end, we see them place the Bible along side the Qu'ran, the Tanakh, and the Torah (which is just a repeat of the first five books in the Tanakh next to it on the shelf). Thus when Eli sits down and starts reciting Genesis from memory (and later when we see it being printed), they already have not one, but TWO copies of that story!

In fact, they already have copies of about 90% of the stuff he recites. I kept imagining Eli reciting all the really boring parts of the Bible, "Adam begat Seth. Seth begat Enos. Enos begat Kainân. Kainân begat Mahalaleel. Mahalaleel begat Jared....." and the guy writing it down thinking to himself, "you know, we already have TWO copies of this part, can we skip ahead?"

The library doesn't have the New Testament, so I guess that is a worthwhile addition, especially from a Christian perspective, but the movie definitely places more emphasis in terms of quotes and allusions on the parts of the Bible that the library already has.

So all that stuff Eli quoted to Solara? They already had it. Of course, at the time, Eli didn't know that. I'm not sure if he ever does. He dies, and maybe they didn't want to hurt his feelings by telling him that.

 

[The Bucket]

Wait, wait, hold the phone. I saw that movie a few months ago, and a vital plot point seems to have slipped by.

Spoiler

{HES BLIND! How the hell did I miss that? I always assumed he picked up how to read Braille somewhere. Gah, I feel like such a dumbass now}

Anyways, I thought it was a flawed but pretty excellent movie. Noticed a few of the plot holes, but I pretty much decided to roll with the inclusion of the bible. Although apparently, I wasnt paying much attention to it..

 

[Legion]

Sorry to nitpick, but it really bugs me when people mis-use "then" when they should use "than". In your threads title that is.

As for the spoiler, I'd suggest that this may be the reason for why it took him 30 years to reach his destination.

 

[Shru1kan]

The rule of cool states that if something is cool enough then people can overlook all sorts of inherent flaws and inconsistencies because it is just that cool. Action heroes are basically just people who exploit this rule for all it's worth and don't really even try to be reasonable in their presentation of the world. Dramatic heroes on the other hand basically make their living through being awesome while facing the inherent difficulties that being awesome has. One of the major problems with The Book of Eli is it can not decide which one of these heroes it wants to have. Thats just one of the problems though, for their are many.

Yes, the film has this problem of not being sure which route to take, be it the balls to the wall warrior or barely surviving wasteland wanderer just trying to carve out a niche in this harsh world. It's even more difficult to take anything seriously as it is soon implied that he is literally protected by god. Yes, if anyone out there didn't know it (from the title and from the fact that they fucking show you in one of the previews) the book Eli is carrying is the bible. Why is he carrying the bible? Because it's the last one and he wants to bring it...somewhere. Yeah, that's big plot hole number one. That's the last bible? Really? There are like 4 billion bibles in the world and this is the last one? They even say that people went out of their way to burn bibles (because they started the whole end of the world war) but still, I really doubt they could get each and every last bible in the whole world.

The second big weirdness is the fact that god told him to take the last bible to...someplace and that Eli has been walking 30 mother fucking years to get there. Now, let's just think about that for a moment shall we? Let's do the math. So I know where Eli eventually ends up (it's on the very west cost) but we have no idea where he started. We can assume, though, that he started somewhere in the us, because of his accent and language. Now, let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he started WAY on the other end of the US, like around Rhode Island. Thats about a 3300 mile journey from one side to the other. Now, lets do the math to see how many miles a day he had to walk, in 30 years, to reach his destination. Ok, so it comes out to about less then a mile, to only about 1500 feet. Was he just really fucking slow? Did he spend 28 of those years just goofing off? Even if he didn't go in a straight line it's pretty fucking unrealistic.

There are lots of little weirdnesses too, like how eating human flesh apperently makes your hands shake for some reason and how Eli still has a functioning mp3 player more then 3 years after the destruction of the world. Or how about his completely unexplained ninja skills? Perhaps thats just because of the aforementioned inability to chose between action and drama but it's still pretty glaring. And all these things aren't even mentioning the story and it's incessant silliness. We get all sorts of eyebrow raising stuff like the main villain wanting to use the bible as a weapon or about just how freaking easily influenced everyone is by it. It all get's rather preachy and hypocritical. Worst of all is the end spoiler, the one last brain boilingly stupid revelation that pushes the action from improbable to just utterly fucking impossible. The spoiler is that

Spoiler

Eli is blind and the bible is in braille

Now, thats not to say that ALL THAT totally ruins the movie. No, the fighting is pretty damn cool and a fair bit more brutal and realistic then most movies. All the actors play their parts well, even if the actual motivations and stories are nonsense. Oh and it has an old cannibal couple that seems straight out of Fallout. But overall, it's one of those movies that you're better off waiting to see on the internet, specifically waiting to see just the good scenes on youtube. It's kick ass fighting and setting are overwhelmed by preachy nonsensical plot, pointless characters and actions and all around tired nothingness. Personally, I'm sick of these Nuclear doomsday scenarios, when are we going to see an Apocalypse with a little originality?

Eating human flesh causes a chemical imbalance in the brain and does cause the shakes. Just a small counter-nitpick. The rest I agree with.

 

[The Austin]

Despite the fat that The Book of Eli had plot holes out the ass, and was totally and completely impossible, I liked it. Especially the machete sequences, they were very stylized.

 

[ExaltedK9]

Okay so this whole film is kinda religious so in relation to your spoiler.

Spoiler

His 'ninja skills' come from the fact he was born blind so he grew up this way, he uses all of his other senses to the maximum as this is a post apocalyptic world so we assume he has to exert himself more than usual to survive.

So he uses his hearing. Have you noticed he always fires back? And generally he waits before attacking in any situation.

Also supposedly this whole time god is 'guiding him' and protecting him from danger.

Indeed. You recall that one scene near the beginning where he comments about being able to smell the bandits that were in hiding? He also waits to hear a report before returning a bullet.

Once you know what the twist is, go back and watch it again to catch all the little revelations.

 

[Piecewise]

Eating human flesh causes a chemical imbalance in the brain and does cause the shakes. Just a small counter-nitpick. The rest I agree with.

Citation needed.

Unless you're talking about prion based disease in which case thats not a chemical imbalance, thats rouge protein turning your brain into mush before killing you.

 

[Shru1kan]

Eating human flesh causes a chemical imbalance in the brain and does cause the shakes. Just a small counter-nitpick. The rest I agree with.

Citation needed.

Unless you're talking about prion based disease in which case thats not a chemical imbalance, thats rouge protein turning your brain into mush before killing you.

That would be the thing. It was late and I couldn't think of the name. But it is possible to tell that they were cannibals based on that, however it isn't likely the first thing that pops to mind, at least for me.

Old people shaking? Weakness from age, arthritic... but I guess Eli knows his stuff.

 

[Piecewise]

Eating human flesh causes a chemical imbalance in the brain and does cause the shakes. Just a small counter-nitpick. The rest I agree with.

Citation needed.

Unless you're talking about prion based disease in which case thats not a chemical imbalance, thats rouge protein turning your brain into mush before killing you.

That would be the thing. It was late and I couldn't think of the name. But it is possible to tell that they were cannibals based on that, however it isn't likely the first thing that pops to mind, at least for me.

Old people shaking? Weakness from age, arthritic... but I guess Eli knows his stuff.

Also, eli is blind so how could he see they were shaking?

 

[Shru1kan]

Eating human flesh causes a chemical imbalance in the brain and does cause the shakes. Just a small counter-nitpick. The rest I agree with.

Citation needed.

Unless you're talking about prion based disease in which case thats not a chemical imbalance, thats rouge protein turning your brain into mush before killing you.

That would be the thing. It was late and I couldn't think of the name. But it is possible to tell that they were cannibals based on that, however it isn't likely the first thing that pops to mind, at least for me.

Old people shaking? Weakness from age, arthritic... but I guess Eli knows his stuff.

Also, eli is blind so how could he see they were shaking?

The constant tinkling of the china would be a dead giveaway. It was practically deafening when they sat down for a cup of tea.

 

[Daden]

Something in the film that surprised me was the use of automobiles some 30 years after the war. Gasoline degrades after about three months in storage without stabilizer. Even with stabilizer, it lasts only about a year and a half.

Side note: I had to chuckle when thinking about the odd target audience of this movie. Who enjoys the Apocalypse more than geeks and religious fundamentalists?

 

[Therumancer]

This movie was spoiled for me almost as soon as it came out, I'll probably see it at some point though.

From all of the stuff I've heard about it, reviews, word of mouth, etc... it seems to me that opinions largely vary depending on your idea of Christian faith.

The negative opinions who point out all these plot holes and such seem to mostly come from a lot of liberal agnostics and atheists who were both expecting something differant... more science fiction than what they got, and also tend to view Christianity as the bad guys and tend to only want to see things connected to it if they get to say kill god in a JRPG or something similar.

That's not universal, just a basic observation, without pointing fingers at anyone.

As far as the story goes, I think some people tend to miss the point that the entire thing is supposed to come accross like it could be a tale about a saint. God is there, but his prescence is somewhat ambigious and mostly implied through faith, when he takes action it's rarely flashy. What's more the story is about the journey and the protaganist himself sort of being tested, along with people's reactions to him.

You either get that, and can enjoy it, or you don't. Not every movie is for everyone. I can only speak in general terms though as I've said. As far as the well known revelation at the end, I find it ironic that a lot of people who criticize that seem to be people who have no problems with a certain Rutger Haur movie (the title of which I won't mentiont o avoid spoilers, but most nerds who know the "spoiler" with Eil will also know the one I'm talking about) featuring a very similar protaganist.

-

As far as the general questions about life after an exchange of WMD, it's important to note that technology has changed since the 1960s and 1970s when most of the well known theories on what would happen after a nuclear war were created. Not all nukes are going to leave behind massive belts of radiation for centuries, nor is there nessicarly gong to be a nuclear dust cloud. A lot depends on what hits and what doesn't, and how advanced the countries making the exchange are. The more advanced the countries, the less enviromental damage. Not to mention the fact that along with those nukes are probably going to be bio and chemical weapons.

Given US interception technology it's not unlikely that the US would remain fairly intact overall. Indeed it's been argued in some places that even if every nation on earth (including all our allies) fought the US we'd only have a 5-40% chance of survival (depending on who is making the estimates and when). That's not good until you consider the odds for the rest of the world are 0%. I mean the US has the firepower to wipe out th eentire planet with WMD 10x over single handedly, and at least at the moment we're the only ones who have any real viable interception technologies handy in numbers sufficient enough to handle a "world war III" type scenario. The fact that we developed such things despite treatires with the USSR is one of the problems with our relations with Russia. The fact that missle interception bases in Poland could hamper their abillity to fire ICBMs either accross europe or further into the EU, effectively "penning" them to som eextent was also a big part of why things got so nasty there when they were threatening nuclear strikes on Poland.

When it comes to other technologies, people seem to think that after a nuclear war people are going to all universallt revert to barbarism and forget everything that we know overnight, or ever over a period of centuries. That is not likely. People are STILL going to make things, and while we aren't going to mass produce fuel and the like to the extent we do now, people are still going to find ways to make it and get things like cars to run. People will continue to produce firearms, vehicles, clothing, food, fuel, and just about everything else. All the materials are there, as is the knowlege. Overall civilization MAY disappear but humanity is hardly going to turn into club swinging savages.

Understand that any way you look at it there is a higher baseline than the stoneage to rise back up from, so that is going to be a big factor.

As far as book burnings and such go, well... I think people underestimate what a concerted effort by most of the remnants of civilization can do. The problem of course being that it's very difficult to get that many people to agree on anything. Assuming that it happens however, then destroying pretty much every copy of a book like The Bible becomes more practical. Especially if you look at it from the perspective of a fable of sort where perhaps god WANTED that to be the last bible specifically to make a point.

At any rate, all rambling about "Eli" aside, the problem with post apocolyptic movies is that they can't get into much detail on how people would solve problems, maintain technology, and similar things. There have however been books that have covered things like this in detail over the years. While interesting to read about, what might take a 4-5 page dissertation on how the motor-bandits manufacture cars and fuel is going to make for a dull movie. In a movie they pretty much just go "hey, look motor bandits" without bothering to explain how such things could exist (and perhaps the nessecities of maintaining their society and their vehicles being what mandates their raiding due to the state of their neighbors). By the same token a dissertation on gunsmithing and how you have guilds of guys somewhere who hand craft firearms including revolvers and automatics or whatever, explaining how there are so many bullets and functioning firearms works in a book, but in a movie it comes down to "hey the motor bandits have guns!".

 

[Kejui]

Best part about that movie was the music. Atticus Ross did an amazing job on that soundtrack...

I bought it immediately after watching the movie, and the soundscape that thing creates in your mind is...astounding.

Possibly, I missed plot holes because I was too focused on the sounds. Seriously, the atmosphere created by the music was what kept me in that movie.

 

[Scorch_Phoenix]

Man, you're just nitpicking. The movies good qualities far outweigh it's bad ones. As for the rule of cool, it's very obvious. He's not a badass ninja that eats bullets for breakfast, he's a lone wanderer and he never fights unless he is attacked. He doesn't like violence and he always tries to be respectful of others instead of a cocky bruce willis type who talks shit to his enemies. The thing is that yes, he is protected by God, just like Moses or Jesus or any of that Bible bs. Now, as for the bible burning, yes it is quite possible since people suddenly turned on religion, seeing as how the world had survived a nuclear holocaust, and 30 years of searching for them and burning them (that is of course, survivors of the nuclear war, not the ones that were born after since they don't have a clue what the bible even is). The nuclear attacks would be enough to wipe out probably 2/3 of all the bibles in the world. And maybe it's not the last in the world, but it could be the last in the US or the mainland of America for that matter. Seeing as how the world has ended that would make traveling to different countries, let alone continents to be a bit impossible. So in a way, yes, it is very possible for every last bible (at least in that general area) except that one to be destroyed.

However, that being said the 30 years of walking around seems a bit far fetched since yes, he could have gotten there in a few years. 10 years at a stretch. Regarding the cannibalism, I'm sorry, do you know anything about cannibalism? What makes you say that you wouldn't get shaky hands from it? They could have gotten a disease called "Kuru" for instance, which was discovered in Papua New Guinea from a tribe of Cannibals, which among other symptoms are shaky hands...
Or of course it could be some kind of a variation or a hybrid of that disease. Soooo just to point that out, eating your own kind is bad for you. As for the MP3? psh why not? It's never said where or when he got it from. Maybe it wasn't used at all when he found it or maybe he found it a long, long time after he started walking. That's just nitpicking man, it's completely possible.

Also, define pointless characters? They are just people in that background with extra lines, just simply put there to keep the story going or to create motivations for the "main" characters, which is all that you, and the movie, should be focusing on. That would be like watching any random movie and complaining about some pedestrian in the background because he was pointless. Of course he's pointless, he's supposed to be.
Also, people are freakishly influenced by the bible, that's why so many people are Cristian. It's the reason Catholic church is as rich and powerful as it is, It's the reason why the Crusades started, it's the reason why people chose ignorance over intelligence etc. etc. And we live in a civilized world, unlike the world in The Book of Eli. Think about how people would embrace it in a post apocalyptic world. If I was a villain in a post apocalyptic world looking for followers and power, that's exactly what I would be doing, trying to find a bible in a godless world.

Also, you talk about Originality? What's not original about

Spoiler

a blind man

walking across the U.S. to save the last bloody bible from being destroyed? What kind of originality are you looking for here? Instead of sand and dust you would see acres and farm animals? Also Denzel Washington doesn't want to screw Mila Kunis's brains out...that's pretty damn original.

To be honest, I'd say Atmosphere, great acting and amazing soundtrack overshadow all the "flaws".

Also, it's a movie, get over it.

 

[helplesskitten]

I would just like to say in response to the 30 years it took him to travel from the east to west that you are indeed, retarded

He MEMORIZED the bible word for word, you think he walked while memorizing? He stopped to read it repeatedly, it took him 30 years memorize the bible NOT to walk across the US.

Check your math again by counting in how long it takes to memorize the bible and get back to me.