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I've still only seen the movie once, on premier night, and probably not again till blurry, so I'm not overly confident in my personal critique at this point. But I think the only reason I'm not fully on board with Dorkman's assertions is that I really, really want to like this movie.
I also thought DoS was worse than AUJ. I found myself much more frustrated throughout my viewing, with lots of different things:
Cinematography - Too many fancy camera movements attempting to make conversation scenes more interesting. Make the dialogue more interesting, keep the shots simple so I can feel like I'm a part of the scene and not on a Disney ride. I don't want an important bit of dialogue meshed with another sweeping establishing shot. And yes, those GoPro shots were awful, and contradictory to the entire philosophy of "visual beauty and perfection" these movies have been following.
Too much CG crap - Yeah.
Pacing - I actually thought the pacing (at least in the first half) was worse than AUJ. Everything flew by too quickly in the first half. Scenes needed more time to breathe. Almost zero time was spent at Beorn's house, then it seemed like they got in and out of Mirkwood and up to Erebor in just a few days. I would have liked for them to have spent more time in the wood elf kingdom. That would have been a good opportunity for character development of Legolas, Thranduil, and Tauriel, since we hardly got to know them otherwise. Besides, in the book, the dwarves were imprisoned there for weeks before Bilbo got them out. There'd have been plenty of time for that had they cut out all the running from Smaug nonsense at the end.
Bard's Backstory - Pretty lame, I thought. So it just happens to be that Bard's father is the guy known as the one who failed to kill Smaug years ago? How convenient.
I thought Tauriel was fine as a character, but I didn't understand what her feelings about Kili were. Did she have a dwarf crush, or did she just feel for him after hearing his cat-saving mother story? I was thinking the latter, but I didn't get a clear read.
Legolas was hardly a character at all, more like an orc-killing machine. But the same was true in LotR. Giving him a love interest is a lot like giving Brick Tamland a love interest in Anchorman 2. You might be able to make it work okay, but expect a cringe here and there.
I did like Ed Sheeran's credit song, "I See Fire." I've only heard two of his songs, that and "Lego House," and they both give me a nostalgic feeling, like they're straight out of the '90s. Maybe it's just me.
It's indicative that when Christianity was completely dominant throughout Europe (the Church was effectively a totalitarian regime) about 1000 years ago, we had very short harsh lives, no rights for women, gays, minorities, arbitrary cruel punishments, slavery, massive entrenched inequality, no democracy, etc. Dark Ages
Yes, a corrupt religious regime can have that affect. The Papacy of 1000 years ago was extremely corrupt. I don't really keep up on the current one, I don't subscribe to it at all. The idea of a papacy is an unbiblical concept in the first place.
Ungodly crimes have been committed the name of God, just as many more horrible crimes have been committed by atheist rulers like Stalin and Mao Zedong. But you can't judge a faith by its worst so-called adherents. Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11) are a testament to that.
Darth Praxus wrote:
Whenever people bring up how none of us deserves His compassion, we all deserve to burn, etc. etc., I really do wonder: why can't He just do what He commands us to do and just forgive? Why all this pointless rigamarole with the cross and salvation that ensures that some will burn, rather than just Him doing what we're ordered to do
Because although He is a loving God, he is also a perfectly JUST God. He can't let evil go without punishment. It must be paid for. That's why Jesus came as a man - to pay our fine with the sacrifice of His perfect and sinless life.
Well, I'm off to a new year's party. Wish I had time to talk about slavery and such, maybe some other time.
That's pretty crappy of God, IMO. At one point he went way out of his way to show himself to people to get them to believe and performed miracles right in their faces. Why was that good enough for them but I'm supposed to take a book's word for it? I think if he cares that much I deserve at LEAST as much evidence as he was willing to provide then -- and note that providing that evidence explicitly did not infringe on free will or faith.
I'm gonna defer to Romans 1:18-20 on that one. The evidence we've got is plenty. You may not accept the evidence, but that doesn't mean it's not there.
Regardless of whether it's "enough" or not, you can't deny that God gave (allegedly) far more evidence to a bunch of illiterate first-century Palestinians.
I don't understand what illiteracy has to do with it, and I also don't see how that makes Him a crappy God. We don't deserve any grace at all, so the fact that He's done anything for any of us shows his compassion. He's not going to save everyone, plain and simple; and it's not fair, only because none of us deserve it. The fair thing would be to let us all suffer.
You may disagree, but an opinion on what is good or bad based on a morality that has no ultimate grounding in anything but fallible human reasoning doesn't change what is truly good from biblical standards. If you don't accept those biblical standards of good and bad, you don't accept the biblical God and that opinion of Him is therefore pointless anyway.
Darth Praxus wrote:
Has there ever been a flame war here? I haven't really actively used the forum until 2012, so I don't know its entire history.
In my experience on this forum, the cat photo initiative has done a solid job in preventing such things.
You can think, and reason, and calculate all you want, but in the end the real world is what you experience.
Though experience is not always reliable either. The devil has his hand in things too, and he's called "deceiver" for a reason. I only trust what I interpret from my experience if it aligns with scripture.
That's pretty crappy of God, IMO. At one point he went way out of his way to show himself to people to get them to believe and performed miracles right in their faces. Why was that good enough for them but I'm supposed to take a book's word for it? I think if he cares that much I deserve at LEAST as much evidence as he was willing to provide then -- and note that providing that evidence explicitly did not infringe on free will or faith.
I'm gonna defer to Romans 1:18-20 on that one. The evidence we've got is plenty. You may not accept the evidence, but that doesn't mean it's not there.
I agree that personal experiences are not usually a good way of arguing the existence of God, and are not always even a great personal reason to believe in a particular God. Of course it does depend on the experience, as Jesus performed miracles so that people would believe in Him; but sometimes in our lives those events are not as blatant as walking on water, and sometimes (make that "all the time") people make errors in their interpretations of events. To me, they are great things that we can use to lift up God's name and give thanks, but stories like that tend not to hold water in a serious debate over hard evidence.
Well, the callbacks were kind of amplified in my theater because I went to the midnight premier (worst way to watch a movie you care about). So maybe those moments aren't as bad without tens of Tolkien fans cheering and screaming. I've been meaning to see it again, properly, but I haven't gotten around to it.
That bloody injury went on for ever. First thing that should have been cut.
But they had to include Kingsfoil (it's a weed, don'tcha know).
PJ didn't have to beat us so hard over the head with his LOTR callbacks, from the Kingsfoil thing to Gloin mentioning his son..... GIMLI.... *wink wink*
But those moments were setup well, so they came up organically...
The intriguing (and funny) thing about it is that these people have no sense of morality or integrity, and will do whatever it takes to get out of a bind, no matter how immoral it is. They even get the little kids in on their schemes, and more often than not, they get away with it. Shamelessly.
Just finished trucking through season 1 of Shameless. Great show. It's shot and edited extremely well, and Joan Cusack is brilliant and hilarious (as well as everybody else in the ensemble cast).
Just got back from the premier and I'm exhausted. I think half my brain cut out about halfway through the movie so I really don't want to say much about it. I'll have much more to say later but for now I'll keep it simple and say one good thing and one bad.
Good: Smaug was really cool. Bad: The cinematography, for the most part, was detestable (in my opinion).
1. Prisoner of Azkaban 2. Philosopher's Stone 3. Chamber of Secrets 4. Deathly Hallows Part 1 5. Order of the Phoenix 6. Half-Blood Prince 7. Goblet of Fire 8. Deathly Hallows Part 2
Actually I did read Azkaban on a whim one Summer in high school. Liked it a lot.
I don't watch a lot of TV shows. I've got 3 that I'm keeping track of at the moment.
Community: This show first aired in my first semester of community college, and it's had me hooked from the beginning. Yes season 4 was disappointing, but I'm optimistic about season 5... and 6... and the movie...
Psych: James Roday is hilarious, and Dulé Hill is a great complement. The comedic timing and writing is just great. The show has just about run its course going into its 8th season, but it's been great to this point. Always a joy to watch.
Game of Thrones: I don't have HBO so I haven't even seen season 3 yet. From what I hear it's a doozie. Can't wait to get my hands on the Blu-Ray.
It's NOT special, it's another really well done piece of VFX, just like every other tentpole movie out there.
The extent to which this film is created in VFX is far beyond other tentpole films. GRAVITY is on a level with AVATAR in terms of VFX achievement.
And this movie isn't making waves simply because of the technical achievement or the "cool VFX". It's the overall visual experience. And in a movie, the visuals are a big deal. It doesn't matter how they achieved the visuals they did, whether it was VFX or they went up into space and staged it all.
There are a lot of high-grossing movies out there that don't have much going for them beyond cool-looking effects, and I think that's why people tend to downplay visuals sometimes. This movie is different. It's not about splosions and CG robots. They created an incredible audiovisual experience that's never been matched before. It takes you for a ride, and it's not something that should be brushed off. This isn't Transformers or Thor.
An easy way to introduce little ones to great movie franchises is through the LEGO video games. I know a second grader whose favorite movies are Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Pirates of the Caribbean. I'm not sure if he's even seen all of the movies, but he loves the games. Sow the seed!
It seems to be something that a lot of people tell me whenever I try to talk religion with them, that 'It doesn't matter if it doesn't make sense, so long as you believe in it." or "So long as you believe it, it will be true."
Which I find to be an entirely mind boggling sentiment.?
You're right to find it mind boggling, it's a ridiculous statement. Universalism is pretty popular these days and it's just baloney. They wanna have their cake and eat it too. The problem is, 2+2 ain't 6. Ever. It's not 4 for you. It's just 4. Belief in something doesn't make it true. The truth of it makes it true. So if we have contradicting beliefs, we can't both be right. People don't like to accept that there are universal truths that apply to everyone.
This is one of the few things that Christians an atheists can generally agree on. We are not all on "different paths to truth." Some people are just wrong.
I just made an argument which accepts that particular God exists without assuming the Bible is true. They aren't mutually necessary points of order.
If you don't believe the Bible is true, you don't believe in the God of the Bible. You may say or think you believe in that same god, but it's not the same god.
Dorkman wrote:
It is, after all, possible to believe some parts of the Bible and not others, as even Christians do.
I completely disagree with picking and choosing what parts of the Bible you want to believe. Of course people have different ways of interpreting everything the Bible says; but, however you want to interpret it, you'd have to do some serious snipping of the text if you want to make the case that God is evil - so much so that you wouldn't be left with the same god at all.
Also, presupposing the God of the Bible exists and is the one who wrote the Bible -- well, that's hardly an unbiased source, is it? It's more than a little plausible it's loaded up with more than a little pro-Yahweh propaganda, don'tcha think? I mean, you say God's wrath is justified because we're wicked, but if God's the one who wrote that -- well, he would say that, wouldn't he?
If you don't accept His existence upfront then any argument about whether or not He is a good God is irrelevant. An argument like that always assumes the truth of the Bible, no matter which side of it you're on.
My point was that if you believe the Bible is true you have every reason to praise God. If not, then the argument is pointless. If you say you believe the Bible is true but also think God is evil, you don't really believe the Bible.
I am a Christian. I never talk about this stuff on here because I know it probably won't really make a difference anyway, and I believe there's value in living peaceably with all. And I mean that especially here because I love you guys and I've learned so much from the FIYH podcasts and this forum.
But given the topic of this thread, I'll leave some stuff here for anyone who might be interested.
"I choose to believe the Bible because it's a reliable collection of historical documents, written by eyewitnesses during the lifetimes of other eyewitnesses. They report supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies, and claim that their writings are divine rather than human in origin." - Voddie Baucham
A frustration that I have is that people try to turn the God (Judeo-Christian) argument into a scientific one, when it really isn't. You can have an endless discussion about whether or not the idea of God is scientifically viable; but at the end of the day, you can neither prove nor disprove His existence empirically. When you get down to it, the Christian conclusion is that God exists independent of the universe He created, independent of space and time. The real argument is more historical than scientific. The matter is whether or not you believe the history. The video goes into detail about that, I won't go on about it myself. Another interesting thing to look into is Mark Driscoll's “Vintage Jesus” sermon series (Full disclosure, I've only listened through about half of the series to this point. And no, this is not the only research on which I base my beliefs. Just a couple sources I've found useful.).
Now, on the morality of the God of the Bible (***ASSUMING HE DOES EXIST***):
Francis Chan: Erasing Hell
This is a video geared toward Christians, but he raises some interesting points. Main takeaway for me:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9
Remember, all of what I’m saying now PRESUPPOSES the existence of the biblical God. If you don't want to entertain that thought you may want to just skip the rest of this.
We can form conclusions and opinions using our own human logic and reason, but it is important to remember that God’s ability to reason and his sense of justice far exceed those of any human. We may think God is evil because he did this or that, but as humans, our sense of reason is fundamentally flawed. It sounds like a cop out, but if you accept the existence of the God of the Bible, you have to accept that too. And it makes sense, because there’s obviously no way we imperfect humans can fully understand everything. But of course, that doesn’t mean we can’t raise any decent points, especially with the help of scripture…
People like to make the argument that the God of the Bible is evil based upon his wrath displayed in the Old Testament. But the Bible asserts that we are the wretched and sinful ones, and we deserve any punishment that God brings upon us. The God of the Bible is not only loving, but He is just. If we live a life of rebellion toward God, we get what we deserve. And we have all inherited a heart of rebellion as a result of the fall of Adam and Eve.
A common question is raised: "Why would a loving God allow such horrible things to happen to good people?" The proper question is this: "Why would a just God allow such good things to happen to sinful people?"
Answer: Because He loves us, and that's where Jesus comes in. He is a just God, and He can't let us all off the hook for no reason. We can't become righteous and worthy on our own, so he sent his own son to live a perfect and worthy life, and sacrifice it in place of our sinful lives so that we might become that righteousness through him. (See 2 Corinthians 5:21)
People also argue that God is an egomaniac; that he's after our attention and praise like some sort of suppressive dictator. The thing is, He is the only one in history who actually deserves it; and we are better off when we are living for His glory. We are to delight in Him for His glory and our joy.
“Self-forgetfulness in the presence of greatness is the capstone of joy.” - John Piper
"There can't be a more solid foundation for our salvation than to know it's not based on my value but on God's infinite value.” - John Piper
“My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can’t help doing, about everything else we value. I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.” - C.S. Lewis
That was really long and veered somewhat off topic. Sorry about that. TL;DR If the biblical God exists, he’s totally worthy of love and praise.
