I was raised baptist and I remember going to sunday school every week and all that, but I'm not religious, nor have I ever really been. Even when I was a kid I never bought into it. The best way I can describe how I felt in church was the same way you feel when you're stuck in a store about to check out or just walking around and one of the employees starts trying to get you to buy some random crap or 'take advantage of this great promotion' they're having. It's just an awkward feeling where you don't want to utterly crush this poor bastard's soul by telling him to fuck off, but you really just want him to go away as soon as possible. I felt like that at church.

Anyway, I think you guys did a really good job of talking about this flick's theology (or lack thereof) and of thinking up some pretty simple and obvious ways that it could be tied into the myths and make so much more sense if you're aware of the various rules and dogma. With a few tweaks to the plot you could probably remove any trace of religious aspects of the film and make it a military cover-up of human experimentation on the public in some random little desert town, or made it a movie about some non-christian cult who are obsessed with this woman's child for some reason.

Two scenarios for how this movie got screwed up:
1) Like you guys say, it started out as a script about the apocalypse that was probably pretty decent, but re-written to remove a lot of the theology so it wouldn't offend people and to give it more action / horror beats OR
2) It was some other kind of movie (monster / zombie / whatever) that someone decided to re-write to shoehorn some theological bullshit into to give it a more original sort of feel from your typical horror / monster movie.

Either way, this movie amounts to a dumptruck full of "meh".

Everyone where I worked said that this movie was "awesome", which is exactly why I knew to avoid it like the plague. These people loved Transformers 2 and Last Airbender and hate anything I find even remotely decent. Most of them have never even heard of movies like The Prestige. I guess if the trailer has people talking and not shooting and stuff exploding, then they don't even register its existence or something. Living in Alabama is one of the most depressing things I've ever done in my life. Some days I actually consider moving back to Detroit...

EDIT!!!
All of you should go out and buy a copy of Good Omens. Terry Gilliam was going to make it into a film, and I think it might still be on his slate somewhere but god knows what his slate looks like lately. It's one of the most interesting takes on christian theology / end-of-days / four horsemen stuff I've read. I also love that the horseman Plague gave up after penicillin was invented, so the job went to Pollution instead.

One of the few DIF movies i know nothing about and don't plan to see any time soon but it was an entertaining conversation. If it's as bad as all that, the filmmakers should be kind of flattered that such a thoughtful fan commentary exists - even if it ends up being negative. There used to be a religion thread here and i can't remember if this was ever discussed, but i wonder what Dorkman's favorite movie dealing with religion is. The Passion of the Christ? (What a well-made movie that is.) The Life of Brian? THX-1138? ("Buy, and be happy.")

I thought it was interesting when American Gods was mentioned (in response to someone in the chat) because in my mind that book is The Sting, or Die Hard and has nothing to do with religion. Odin you trickster!

Without having a bunch of friends over to razz on it with you, and/or for the purposes of a podcast? Nah.

You know, I was actually gonna watch this, to have some backing when I heard the commentary. After the first 30 seconds or so, I realized I didn't have to.