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I read most of the comments in the recent thread about this movie but thought I'd start another for those of us who managed to resist the pop-culture peer pressure and NOT read the book.I did not read the book, and, after reading lots of reviews, had decided not to waste my $6 (senior price $5 plus $1 for a soda; the popcorn--which I LOVE at the Harkins theaters--is free) and my time. Ebert's and Roeper's TV reviews changed my mind. Comments to the effect that Akiva Goldsman and Ron Howard are better at writing a 'DaVinci' script than was Ron Brown at writing the novel, plus my love of Tom Hanks' work, caused me to see it.
I thought it was a plenty-good-enough movie, well worth my time, and I MIGHT even see it again, altho I think I won't buy it. I was well entertained. Whatever acting performances others didn't like, I didn't even notice, altho I certainly noticed McKellan's performance. The ending was NOT a let-down; I thought it was very human and humane.
That any person of any religious faith would be offended by or even bother to NOTICE this book or movie is laughable for me--it's FICTION, folks!
After reading this, seems I've responded to this movie about the same way some who didn't read Clive Cussler's 'Sahara' responded to the movie--it was plenty OK. I love and have read and own all the Cussler (fiction) books; I thought the movie stunk, and I still hope Cussler wins his suit against the studio.
Follow Ups:
N/T
*** Q:Why's the chicken cross the road?
***A: Fats Waller: They don't, they all stay on my side now...***
There seems to be two schools of thought on this issue. What I am about to say applies to both the book and the movie:Dan Brown indeed did his research, there is considerable evidence - a major piece being the Gnostic Gospels - that there was a move on the part of the Catholic Church to supress and discredit Mary Magdalene for whatever reason. Heck when I went to Catholic school we were taught she was a prostitute- and there is NO evidence to support that now.
So I don't think you can just laugh off either the book or the movie to "Complete fiction".
Music is Emotion
Yes now that you tell that is true. She was a prostitute.
I will have to go further down that...
so any further point is moot. The Davinci code is fiction in no way more a sense than the Bible is. The difference is that one group of readers knows what they are reading is not gospel!
I don't belive there were Romans, or Greeks, or Egyptians, or Jews. It's all made up by those countries as a ploy to boost tourism. They used evil Disney technology to make all those ruins look old.Saying that everything in the bible is fiction is as silly as saying it's all, verbatim, the truth.
/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/
and note the word novel not book because there is a difference. Of course there are aspects of the Bible that are true -- There were Nazi's in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Nazi's existed but that hardly makes the CRUX of the story factual.The backdrop of what is in the bible may hold lots of truths and Victor is probably correct that it is the "interpretation" that may have led to the problems. Starting with people who formed religions -- oops thought a burning tree was God.
The Indiana Jones series pushing lies. WW II is an hitoric fact and they used that as a back drop. Should we be upset about the fantasies in the Sinbad series? Bagdad is a real historical city. People may belive those movies are true stories. or even worse, people may belive KIng Kong is fact. The really id make movies in the thirties and dinosaur fossils have ben found!!!
Nor did they insult anyone's beliefs.
My father-in-law believes that man lived with dinosaurs.
Because he saw it in the movie, Mighty Joe Young.Some people are really that stupid.
I could go on about his lunacy.He also believes that the space shuttle flies to the moon
and back with passengers to the secret space station.
From one of the Airpalne movies.So be carefull about what you say. :-)
... the USA won WW1, WW2 and the Vietnam War...
We should protest the Jurasic Park movies for fear that more people will believe dinosaurs and people coincided.
As for being insulted, that is the choice of those who feel insulted. To bad.
For a DVC believer, check EdM's post above. As for your other comment; the difference between your position and a bigot's is that the bigot acknowledges he's being offensive.
I am bigoted against serial killers, murderers and rapists. I might even get real close on Republican deliverance level of intelligence presidents. Want proof we are related to Monkeys -- for heaven sake -- IT"S CALLED A FREAKING TAIL BONE. See there used to be this thing called a tail sticking out of it. If you look close Goerge Bush even has those monkey ears and furrowed brow. His vocabulary is so seriously curtailed that if you want evidence of the between stage of Cromagnon Man and and human -- well there he sits (Kind of like Planet of the Apes and the moneky really does have the bomb.)Religion the entire Christian set revels in these bafoons -- Pat Robertson is one of the beacons of intolerance in the entire world. What's worse is the soft handed way they revel in their bigotry. Oh your a GAY -- "well I love you but you are an evil spawn who is going to hell." And they they trot out UTTER NONSENSE that such relationships destroy society that God is against that sort of thing because they heard him last night in bed say so -- how exactly it's going to ruin the family is never remotely expalined because the only rubbish they can trot out is some line of text in the bible. Evidence? Well none of that is needed for anything.
The difference between a religion and a cult is the size of membership. And I'm sorry if it isinsulting that I am attacking a person's faith - but religion is responsible for FAR more hideous acts than insults. I'm tired of completely unreasoned illogical, unproven, unsympathetic, "faiths" posing as the beacon of Good and fair and right.
Start with the ten commandments -- it is such bogus crapola and gets worse from there. Think logically and everythng past the Golden rule is redundant -- guess there was a close out sale on stone tablets and they wanted it to sound impressively verbose.
... I am against all religions equally.
But just take christianity...
You have a god who got a 14 year old girl pregnant...
"You have a god who got a 14 year old girl pregnant..."Maybe God is a Canadian -- the legal age of consent in Canada is 14.
So you think h believes the DaVinci code is a true story. That isn't how I read it. I read it that he thinks the bible is a mythical acount of history. I would agree with that by the way. So what? So what if some people believe the myth put forward in the DaVinci code? So what? People believe all kinds of things including the Zodiac, Hinduism, Islam, Judism, Christianity in it's multitude of flavors, Bigfoot, alien abductions etc. So we are not to make or see movies that tell stories based on certain myths because they may upset others who believe in opposing myths? That is bigotry. It is also a sad case of insecurity as I mentioned before. As an agnostic atheist I am not offended by movies that tell stories based on myths of any kind. Hence I am not the bigot here. I enjoy myths of all kinds.
You are correct, and I suspect it is the literal acceptance that some try to enforce that pushes the others to their extreme.But at some point one must raise above his childhood experiences and nasty Catholic nuns and start seeing things for what they are.
Exactly what points to that brilliant conclusion?One can perfectly be a non-religious person and yet see the archeological and historical evidence of certain events.
Perhaps the word you are searning for is "interpretation"...
But when you apply it to the bible stories it is amazing how little is actually supported by other sources. I mean just because Jeruselum existed doesn't varify the stories told in the NT. One can look at the well kept records of the ancient Egyptians and find no colaberation with Exodus. No archeological evidence to support any of the Genesis stories. The bible really does have an amazing lack of outside support for it's stories.
Its about the the First Century AD and later. There's a rich written history of the era. No one's been shy about correcting the record when new evidence is found. The differences in social sophistication between the time of Exodus and Jesus' time were even more profound than between Jesus' time and now. Bundling it all together as "biblical fiction" is a convenient way to religion-proof one's self, but ignores the historical record.
No it's not "about that era" at all. It is about a make believe story derived from that era. Just because it uses historical information to help dress the story doesn't make it an attempt at revisionist history. Did anyone call it a documentary? If people of faith ar so worked up about this *story* then I think the real problem lies in their faith. The whole "contraversy" smells of profound insecurity.
sa
I was going to post a long response, but suffice it to say that posts like yours show why the "its only fiction" remark is hollow. Giving credence to pure bunk camoflaged with cleverly stacked psuedo-facts at the expense of two millenia of fairly well-documented NT study is one of the reasons why people are concerned about DVC being taken as a plausible (vs verifiable) contradiction to the NT. Not to mention that it reduces the whole Christian faith to a prop for entertainment.
have ANY basis in reality!The New Testament and especially the Old Testiment are more fiction than any book Dan Brown ever wrote.
Don't forget Brown was sued by legiment researchers who claimed he stole their ideas.
Sure most of the book was fiction but it is based on what very could be fact- that Mary M had more of a relationship with Jesus then were were led to believe for 2000 years. That's all I'm saying.
Music is Emotion
The debate over DVC relates to historical evidence not the faith issues. The NT has been virtually under a microscope for two millenia. Its provenance is thoroughly established. The record of its study alone is documented to the 2nd Century. The Gnostic gospels; Brown's basis; are de-coupled from the NT gospels by 200 years and there is no independently verifiable line of authorship. They were excluded from the NT because they promote concepts that directly conflict with the fundamental tenets of Christianity. The Gnostic concepts are closer to the Koran than to the NT. Even if one were to accept the Gnostic texts, they're directly self-contradictory relative to the supposed Jesus-MM "thing".
gd
For OT reality, the existence of the Jewish people is evidence enough, nevermind that archeological findings support support the OT. Additionally, the Jewish calendar goes back over 5700 years.NT, even Hebrew historians, namely Josephus, support much of the NT writings.
What archeological findings support any of the OT stories?
nt
And let's not forget that Jehrico, the real Jehrico, predates Genesis.
preserved by the Jewish historians for millenia.Plus you'll like this story. The Egyptians wanting to sue the Jews for the gols taken wheb the Exodus occurred.
The ruins don't support the biblical story in any way whatsoever. There is no evidence of any sudden destruction. Heck there weren't even any walls to come down. Even worse is that Jehrico predates the biblical story by a seveal thousand years. And I don't find a group of wacky Egyptians filing a wacky lawsuit as evidence of anything. The Egyptian records of that era are quite detailed. There is no mention of any of the events in Exodus.
We already have reason and impirical evidence to contradict NT and OT. I like the idea of using christianity as a prop for a good story though. It worked for me. Maybe that is why I liked the film at all.
Dan Brown's whole premise is either based in pure speculation or downright lies (see Plantard's Priory hoax for a prime example). There is very little in the way of "fact" to be found, and to defend it as such is only adding fuel to the already overdone controversy.
s
The research is used to dress the story. The dressing is there to help suspend disbelief. This is a common device in story telling. No one involved in the writing of the book or movie has ever suggested this was a real conspiracy.
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