Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the works

[Gaith]

Admiral_Young wrote:

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I'm DISCUSSING your blanket reaction to something that for some reason you dislike without finding out about it for yourself. Here's the wiki summary for the book

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham...Vampire_Hunter

Four paragraphs were enough to confirm all my prejudices. From that summary:

When Lincoln is eleven years old... he vows in his diary to kill as many vampires as he can. A year later he lures the vampire responsible for his mother's death to the family farm and manages to kill it with a homemade stake.

Great. A bloodthirsty child Lincoln.

At the age of sixteen.... Henry sends Lincoln the names and addresses of evil vampires; Abraham dutifully tracks them down and kills them.

Lincoln the lawyer, the man of principle, the exceedingly gentle in all personal dealings, tracking down and killing sentient beings without trial or involvement with law authorities. Lovely.

Lincoln writes in his diary his belief that vampires will continue to exist in America as long as they can easily buy their victims in this manner - to end slavery is to end the scourge of vampires.

<gag>

Lincoln becomes an Abolitionist.

Which he never actually was until military necessity mandated his de facto becoming so.


This is insulting juvenile tripe, plain and simple.

[Admiral_Young]

You have voiced your views on this clearly...you won't be seeing the film or reading the book, fine. I will post my own thoughts after I finish reading...being a fan of alternate universes I was intrigued enough to go and check out the book from the library and so far it's captured my interest enough to continue reading it.

[Praetor_Shinzon]

i don't understand all the hate for this book. its fiction. if anything i would think it would get people interested in history. some kid watches the movie, reads the book and wants to know what the real Lincoln was like. becomes interested in history. i don't think the book in any way diminishes what Lincoln did.

[Gaith]

Praetor_Shinzon wrote:

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i don't think the book in any way diminishes what Lincoln did.

Of course it doesn't. It couldn't if it tried.

Praetor_Shinzon wrote:

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if anything i would think it would get people interested in history. some kid watches the movie, reads the book and wants to know what the real Lincoln was like. becomes interested in history.

Or, just as plausibly, sees the movie and concludes that, since it doesn't have vampire slayings and gross-out humor, actual history is too boring to bother with.

[Praetor_Shinzon]

i find actual history to be far more interesting, but that's just me. i love history and enjoy alternate history books, even absurd and outrageous ones like Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter.

[LitmusDragon]

I heartily endorse anything this absurd coming out of the Hollywood studio system.

The backlash against this film seems a little ridiculous, it's parody folks.

[Admiral_Young]

It's just Gaith that has such a hard line stance against it...

[God Magnus]

Sounds like fun to me. I'd rather see something like this that is outright parody than a movie trying to masquerade as fact but present only half truths. ::

[stj]

Lincoln was an abolitionist, a quite determined one. But he was above all else a lawyer. The Constitution did not permit the abolition of slavery. His commitment to the law demanded that abolition of slavery wait until there was legal authority to do so. That meant ending Southern control of the national government, which meant restricting the expansion of slavery. It was his adamantine commitment to that which led to the Southern revolt.

The author of the book incorporates bits of real historical documents in a coherent fashion. Somebody said a hack is someone who does well what shouldn't be done at all. It's moronic tripe like this that makes that definition seem true.

[Greg Cox]

God Magnus wrote:

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Sounds like fun to me. I'd rather see something like this that is outright parody than a movie trying to masquerade as fact but present only half truths. ::

Yeah, I doubt that anyone is going to think this is a documentary!

Then again, who knows? Maybe some people think MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL is historically accurate ... .

[Gaith]

stj wrote:

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Lincoln's commitment to the law demanded that abolition of slavery wait until there was legal authority to do so.

Which, in practice, would certainly not have been possible in his presidency at least, and very likely his lifetime, without a civil war that forced the southern states to adopt the thirteenth amendment. Ergo, to be a legal abolitionist in any meaningful sense of the word, he would have had to have been eager to prosecute a civil war.


But, as I pointed out earlier, he wasn't:

Abraham Lincoln wrote:

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If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

Unless you believe that he'd have pushed for a war to free the slaves even if the southern states hadn't seceded (and that'd put you in an extreme if not nonexistent minority of historians), I simply can't agree that Lincoln was an abolitionist in all but heart - and that's pretty weak sauce, particularly since he publicly supported, as president, a constitutional amendment to permanently protect slavery in the southern states.

stj wrote:

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Lincoln was an abolitionist, a quite determined one.

Sorry, no.

[stj]

....Seward introduced three resolutions to the Senate committee. One resolution�not included in Lincoln's proposals�offered that "no amendment shall be made to the Constitution, which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish, or interfere within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State." ....

In his inaugural address, Lincoln noted Congressional approval of the Corwin amendment and stated that he "had no objection to its being made express and irrevocable." ....

By tacitly supporting Corwin's amendment, Lincoln hoped to convince the South that he would not move to abolish slavery and, at the minimum, keep the border states of Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina from seceding.

Lincoln's March 16, 1861 letters to the governors did not endorse or oppose the proposed thirteenth amendment.

In the context of secession when the South was demanding total surrender, this tepid simulacrum of support (not even an endorsement!) doesn't count.

Lincoln was a lawyer, and quite capable of reserving to himself the thought that at a later date, the Federal Government would be within its powers to compensate the slave states for voluntary manumission and that such action would not constitute interference with domestic institutions.

He was also a politician. As a politician he correctly believed the slaveholders controlled the federal government and that the key to finishing their control was restriction of the expansion of slavery. The rest could and would follow.

It is absolutely true that Lincoln would have done almost anything to prevent civil war. Except give in on restriction of expansion of slavery, because if the South kept control of the Federal government, then slavery really would be preserved forever. His abolitionism, legalistic though it was, kept him from betraying the program he wass elected on.

[Gaith]

stj wrote:

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this tepid simulacrum of support (not even an endorsement!) doesn't count.

Huh, Wikipedia's language on this seems to be wrong.

So, you're arguing that Lincoln played a pragmatic game of restricting slavery's spread that had the somewhat unexpected and un-sought-for side effect of abolishing slavery as soon as was possible. A very valid argument, but I still don't think that that makes Lincoln a " quite determined" abolitionist, more of a "quite determined anti-slavery-expansionist" who happened to abolish slavery, in large part accidentally.

[Small White Car]

Gaith wrote:

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Make up your own fucking character, or at the very least have the decency to make a surrogate Lincoln, no matter how thinly veiled.

This is what I don't get. You'd be ok with it if it was clearly a fake Lincoln then, right? That's what I'm getting from that statement. (Kind of like 'Life of Brian,' right? That's what you're getting at?)

So, from that, I gather that you're arguing that there are people out there who think a Burton-made, vampire hunting Lincoln is actually the real Lincoln? And that's the problem? (Because if that's not what you're saying then I don't understand the surrogate comment.)

If those people are out there, well, at some point I feel like we shouldn't have to be responsible for certain people.

[Gaith]

Small White Car wrote:

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You'd be ok with it if it was clearly a fake Lincoln then, right?

I'd still find it dumb, but I'd be far, far less insulted, yes.

Small White Car wrote:

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Kind of like 'Life of Brian,' right? That's what you're getting at?

Indeed. (But since we have pretty much nil historically verifiable data about Jesus, I don't mind Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter one hundredth as much.)

Small White Car wrote:

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So, from that, I gather that you're arguing that there are people out there who think a Burton-made, vampire hunting Lincoln is actually the real Lincoln? And that's the problem?

No, I'm saying it's sleazy, and a lousy way to try to make a buck. With respect, I was quite clear:

Gaith wrote:

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worse than juvenile, it's an insult to the Lincoln family's memory, not to mention our national memory

.