The Book of Eli

[kelltrill]

Okay, I apologise in advance to those who have not watched the movie yet, but I have to talk about it before I lose my mind. The spoiler tags are there for a reason.

[spoiler:1xm3sn4d]What did you all think of the movie? I had no idea it had such a religion overtone and ended up watching it with a very Christian friend of mine who left the theater with a profound sense of self-satisfied smugness. She reckons the girl at the end was picking up the main guy's mantle and taking the "good book" back to her mom.
I can't decide which angle the movie was coming from. On one hand, they openly state that the Bible was a potential cause of, and prime suspect in, the final world war that resulted in the "flash," which created the desolate wasteland of the entire world. And yet, despite this obvious religion-causes-apocalypses and mad-power-hungry-religious-fanatic theme, it still ends with this lustful sense of religious hope, love and peace that the Bible can bring to its true adherents and followers. Was the message supposed to be ambiguous? Thoughts? Opinions? I thought the cinematography was beautiful and the overall plot line and twist at the end was well executed regardless of my personal prejudices.[/spoiler:1xm3sn4d]

[notself]

It's all target marketing.  For every violence loving atheist there is a movie.  For every violence loving believer there is a movie.  This one is targeting those who believe in Abrahamic religion.  "Eli" is old testament so you have happy Jews, Christians and Muslims who love violence in their movies.

[Squid]

Eh, I prefer zombies and ninjas.

[ClicheGuevara]

[spoiler:38dkqc94]I loved the scene with the old cannibal couple[/spoiler:38dkqc94]

I thought it was a decent flick overall, I love post apocalyptic movies myself.

[G-Roll]

i liked it.

i also found it insteresting that it ended up getting used for the good of humanity, but the bad guy wanted to have it to controle everybody. so it could almost be taken that the book could be used for either good purposes or for bad.

or at least thats what i got out of it.

[kelltrill]

i liked it.

i also found it insteresting that it ended up getting used for the good of humanity, but the bad guy wanted to have it to controle everybody. so it could almost be taken that the book could be used for either good purposes or for bad.

or at least thats what i got out of it.

[spoiler:2zy4xp86]I also got the ambiguous approach from it, but I still think it ended on the note that religion is a bad idea and will lead to another apocalypse, especially since they  reprinted a whole stack of Bible again, implying that the whole cycle is just going to continue.[/spoiler:2zy4xp86]

[xSilverPhinx]

[spoiler:371ra5lc]I think its main point is that the bible and religion (and any ideology in general) can be corrupted and used to serve "evil" purposes. That's what the bad guy wanted to do, use it to control the masses, but he was unable to read the spiritual message the bible contained (the braille was a metaphor I think)[/spoiler:371ra5lc]

[theTwiz]

I agree with most of the comments thus far, but wanted to add that:

[spoiler:1iucoo3j]The movie ends with him reciting the words to someone else who was transcribing them.  This means that the writer had no idea if he was actually reading it verbatim or if he was slipping things in/omitting certain parts.  I don't think the movie implied that he actually did this, but it certainly left open the possibility that it easily could have happened.  To me this suggested that this could have easily happened previously, and that the accuracy - and therefore content -  of the teachings in the book are dependent solely on those who control the book's safekeeping and reproduction.

In fewer words: we have no idea how many times the bible has been rewritten or how much of the content is still accurate to the original writings.

In even fewer words: Joseph Smith :D[/spoiler:1iucoo3j]

[karadan]

It was a Hollywood film. I didn't read into it too much.

I must say, though, it had some incredible sequences. I've not seen an action shot like the one with the cannibal couple before. The way the camera panned was really very well done. It left me wondering how many takes they tried before getting it right and how much of it was stitched together with CG.