Quick correction, when we started talking about Rapture theology I brought up the John Birch society -- they're not an organization specifically devoted to Rapture theology. Rather, they're a right-wing organization obsessed with conspiracy theories and particularly a belief in the coming One World Government, of which they have long believed the U.N. is the face.

They have a strong overlap in the Venn diagram with Rapture believers, including the LEFT BEHIND series' co-author Tim LaHaye. The series is clearly marked by their ideology, particularly in the way that the series' Antichrist makes his play for power -- by becoming head of the U.N. But the John Birch society is not itself a Rapture-promoting organization.

The belief in the Rapture and seven-year tribulation is called Premillennial Dispensationalism; it's a view of eschatology initially developed by John Darby (not Birch), and popularized in America -- along with a number of other iconic fundamentalist beliefs such as the 6000 year old Earth -- by the Scofield Reference Bible in 1917.

The blog I mentioned is http://slacktivist.typepad.com, where he has been going page by page through the LEFT BEHIND series and analyzing why it fails on every level -- as theology, drama, literature, a reflection of humanity, you name it. He's been at it for like 5 years now and it's an amazing read, and I think it would be even if you haven't read the LB series (though I have read the series, so I could be mistaken).

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.

Last edited by Squiggly_P (2011-01-31 03:25:55)

No, it's pretty clear that Michael wants to save the baby because the baby's gonna do...you know...stuff.

You're right that the movie does try to play the hand like it was Michael's courage in saving the baby that changed God's mind(?), but there's still the Terminator ending where they are planning to raise the baby to save humanity from...stuff.

A listener on Twitter says we're not far off the mark regarding how this happened. Apparently the original screenwriter, who is Catholic, wrote a straight-up Biblical Apocalypse movie with demons and presumably the devil as antagonist.

It was the director, who is Jewish, who wanted to make it Old Testament, with angels and a vengeful God, so he Find-Replaced his way into a co-screenwriting credit and turned the movie into wharrgarbl in the process.

Fun episode. I'm not sure if I should add or subtract points when no comment was made over who could or couldn't drive stick, so I'll just let that go I'll second the recommendation of the books of Bart Ehrman. Actually, more his lectures available at The Great Courses , which are often on sale for $30-40 and well worth it. The books can get a bit repetitive although they're still interesting.

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.

Silly me, i meant The Last Temptation of Christ. I always mix those 2 up.

I think once Bill Cosby did his bit on it there became no way to take it seriously There was a Noah movie I saw as a kid in the late 70's, In Search of Noah's Ark, which probably also killed future projects.

What, no mention that he's a drunk?

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.

Watched this last night for the first time with DIF. It really was kind of amazingly boring and completely failed to live up to the basic premise. I can't think of another zombie movie where the zombies had a specific target, let alone one where they were zombified by demons/angels. Yet this totally fell flat because it made no sense.

I started this quite late and thought for sure I'd turn it off, but the discussion was really engaging. Thanks!

Re: the Plinkett test: I think Mr. Plinkett’s point was that Luke, Han, Leia, Obi-Wan, and the droids are stock characters (orphan with secret greatness, lovable rogue, plucky princess, cunning mentor/manipulator, stalwart servant, and I think C-3P0 is a hooker with a heart of gold). That’s great for a kid’s movie (Belle and the servants in Beauty & the Beast, for example, are largely the same characters); but you don’t want them in every movie. The question is: if these are not easily-categorized stock characters are they complex character or flat characters? In the prequels and in Legion, they are flat.

In my experience, atheists tend to be fairly well versed in religion, sometimes more so than theists.