Paradise Lost - 3D action film!
- Thread starter CaptainCanada
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Yeah. Sounds as though they want to make the Christian equivalent of Clash of the Titans, but at least the Olympian paganism allowed for the possibility of a successful revolution in heaven and the emergence a new order of gods. Based on how much fun Clash '09 was, I might go to a Clash 2, but I've got no interest in this. Monotheism is just plain boring that way.
Seriously.
Satan rebels, the Angels fight for a while, and cannons are invented.
Then God says to the loyal angels, "good work boys, hit the showers, you've earned it."
God sends in the Big Gun--Messiah--and the rebel angels are defeated easily.
The End.
Dusty Ayres
Commodore
Oy, these Christians are so full of it, and this sounds like something made by Billy Graham's World Wide Pictures for the Christian fundamentalist set to be shown in the Christian fundamentalist movie theaters. Except it's from a major studio
Huh? Paradise Lost is one of the greatest and most influential works of English literature.Oy, these Christians are so full of it, and this sounds like something made by Billy Graham's World Wide Pictures for the Christian fundamentalist set to be shown in the Christian fundamentalist movie theaters. Except it's from a major studio
As both a Catholic and an English major, one realizes that God is a terrific god, but a horrible dramatic character (at least, as a main one).
Still, well made Christian movies like The Passion of the Christ and the The Chronicles of Narnia tend to do quite well financially.
Fireproof, the one with Kirk Cameron, made back sixty-seven times it's half million dollar production budget. If Alex Proyas can crank out something even close to his I, Robot this should very good.
Fireproof, the one with Kirk Cameron, made back sixty-seven times it's half million dollar production budget. If Alex Proyas can crank out something even close to his I, Robot this should very good.
Oy, these Christians are so full of it, and this sounds like something made by Billy Graham's World Wide Pictures for the Christian fundamentalist set to be shown in the Christian fundamentalist movie theaters. Except it's from a major studio
Paradise Lost. One of the greatest pieces of English Literature there is, and is hardly an evangelical 'Christian' work in the style of Passion or even the 'subtle' allegories of Narnia. It's just a narrative built on imagery taken from the 'fire and brimstone' era of Catholicism.
Even if you take it as being an evangelical film, the story regardless deserves recognition for its literary importance.
And the devil ain't such a great character either. He doesn't like the monarchical dictator-god, fine. What else has got? Nothin'.
Perseus, on the other hand, was on Team Human, to the point where he was reluctant to accept even friendly gods' help. Now that's a dramatic conflict.
I would dispute that, actually. As presented in the poem, Satan is actually quite an interesting and complex character.
The problem is that not much of that interest and complexity is on display in the chapters describing the War in Heaven. It all comes afterward, during the council in Hell, and Satan's subsequent quest to avenge himself on God by engineering the Fall of Man.
Which just underlines the flaws in this movie's concept, as presented in the article. Paradise Lost, as its title indicates, is a poem about the events leading to the Fall. As CaptainCanada said, the War in Heaven is just a flashback--and from the sounds of it, they're trying to make a movie out of this flashback, instead of the poem itself.
^ For which reason, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the movie didn't get made. Either they twist the poem beyond all recognition to make God's forces the underdogs, or... you're overtly encouraged to root for Satan?
As for the character Satan, he may become vaguely interesting once humans come into the picture, but until there's some character around who might actually, y'know, die, it all sounds pretty academic and dull to me. Which is why Troy was so correct, imho, to eliminate the gods altogether.
As for the character Satan, he may become vaguely interesting once humans come into the picture, but until there's some character around who might actually, y'know, die, it all sounds pretty academic and dull to me. Which is why Troy was so correct, imho, to eliminate the gods altogether.
Well, the conflict is not so much between God and Satan, as between Satan and himself.
As I read the poem, Satan is essentially a tragic villain, whose tragic flaw is pride. He simply cannot admit that he has made a terrible mistake, and refuses to submit to divine authority, and ask for forgiveness. He would rather reign in Hell than serve in Heaven; he would rather wage eternal war than accept the fact that he can't win; and he dooms much of humanity to share his own fate out of spite.
His full complexity as a character really comes out in his speech early in Book IV, when he struggles with himself, and actually considers repentance--but is stopped from repenting by (among other things) his own vanity:
At the end of this speech, he resolves this inner conflict, and sets out on his quest for revenge:
The real problem with the poem is not with Satan, but with God. Satan is an evil but recognizable, understandable and even (in some ways) sympathetic character. God, by contrast, is utterly alien: his actions are incomprehensible, and his explanations for his actions are unconvincing. And since God essentially lets Satan win, by bringing about the Fall of Man, there is really not all that much drama to the rest of the story.
For me, at least, the climax of the poem comes in Book IV. If I was adapting the story for stage or screen, I would stop at that point, with Satan descending on Earth. Everyone knows what happens after that.
As I read the poem, Satan is essentially a tragic villain, whose tragic flaw is pride. He simply cannot admit that he has made a terrible mistake, and refuses to submit to divine authority, and ask for forgiveness. He would rather reign in Hell than serve in Heaven; he would rather wage eternal war than accept the fact that he can't win; and he dooms much of humanity to share his own fate out of spite.
His full complexity as a character really comes out in his speech early in Book IV, when he struggles with himself, and actually considers repentance--but is stopped from repenting by (among other things) his own vanity:
At the end of this speech, he resolves this inner conflict, and sets out on his quest for revenge:
The real problem with the poem is not with Satan, but with God. Satan is an evil but recognizable, understandable and even (in some ways) sympathetic character. God, by contrast, is utterly alien: his actions are incomprehensible, and his explanations for his actions are unconvincing. And since God essentially lets Satan win, by bringing about the Fall of Man, there is really not all that much drama to the rest of the story.
For me, at least, the climax of the poem comes in Book IV. If I was adapting the story for stage or screen, I would stop at that point, with Satan descending on Earth. Everyone knows what happens after that.
Well, I'd include the earlier books as well. And probably show the War in Heaven and its origins as flashbacks.
I took a course on Milton as part of my BA, which was basically just reading Paradise Lost chapter-by-chapter and discussing it (it was a summer course; the prof sniffed that in a full regular semester we'd do some of his other works too, though I read those on my own time anyway). He would always talk about "yet another horrible speech from God the Father"; Milton's big mistake, in his view, was making God a character, which invites people to judge His motivations, and since he's so inhuman in His perceptions and dimensions, it's really hard to get Him as Milton intends us to.
I wrote my paper in that course comparing Milton's use of God to Alighieri's in The Divine Comedy; Dante knew it was better to keep him offscreen for most of it (and represented by more human servants) and for his appearance at the end to be vague on specifics.
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