Posted on 05/28/2006 11:30:50 PM PDT by dangus
The way I see it, Dan Brown should be very happy for Fandango, which allowed millions of theater-goers to see "The Da Vinci Code" before reading the reviews. Normally, movies don't crash, losing 57% of their audience in the second weekend. Especially not when the 2nd weekend is a holiday weekend and the first weekend was not. But normally people who see movies this stupid have already invested in their Jar-Jar Binks Happy Meal Action Figure. Go figure that the Happy Meal featuring a dead, naked museum curator with a pentagram scratched in his back didn't sell to well. (OK, I recycled that joke concept, but Da Vinci Code readers aren't known for having good memories.)
Come on, folks; the problem isn't Ron Howard or Tom Hanks. The problem is that you could read the entire 450-page book faster than you can watch the movie. I mean, I'm not saying that Brown is a devil-spawned, historically ignorant hack who simply makes stupid people feel smarter. But only because I'm alone at my keyboard and my cat kinda looks at me funny when I talk to her as if I expect her to know English.
I know, calling 60 million people "stupid" is no way to win friends and influence people, but by now I've used enough three-syllable words that I've lost most of them. My big issue is that the raves this story got proves how anti-Christian the nation's book reviewers are. Come on, this is the sort of book movie viewers should *warn* us about: "Caution: Put down this book and go smoke some pot. It will kill fewer brain cells and make you more capable of coherent conversation."
OK, Dan Brown fans. You don't have to respond saying, "it's only fiction." We all have heard that. First of all, Dan Brown has been all over all the talk shows insisting that the backstory is all true. But there's also something really nasty about making such horrific accusations of genocide against people in a backstory.
You see, backstories about historical peoples and characters usually are generally true. If they are preposterous, book critics will point it out, and knowledgeable readers' suspension of disbelief will be shattered, and they'll go tell their friends how stupid the book was. But Dan Brown's readers, apparently, aren't used to historical fiction, unless it's got that guy from the "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" commercials on the front cover. Brown puts horrific slander in people's brain as little details, and the next time they hear those tid-bits, they say, "oh, yeah, I think I heard about that."
Some critics have pointed out how bad Brown's history is as if it were a product of his ignorance. This is not the case. Brown is quite well aware, I'm sure, that "Da Vinci" is not a name, as many critics have pointed out it isn't, but rather an origin. Please understand; he's trying to attract an audience which last read a book about Leonardo that was subtitled, "Heroes on a Halfshell."
As much as I'm picking on his audience for being nitwits, it actually is a simple truth that novels, since they contain far more information than a movie, can spend much more effort convincing people that something preposterous is actually believable. Many books I've read, particularly science fiction, have the more incredible portions of them toned down to maintain credibility. For instance, in the novel, "2010," we learned about plant life on Io by reading about how a Russian spacecraft was virtually devoured by a mobile plant; the novel could explain why Io might have mobile plants. In the movie, the crew thought they might have seen readings indicating a trace of photosythetic material.
There simply is no toning down the ridiculousness of Brown's story, because it's all necessary for the plot line. In the movie, it all seems so insipid that viewers apparently have been warning friends not to see it (as evidenced by its crash at the box office), if they are willing to admit to having shelled out $9 to see it in the first place.
King Kong did terrible at the box office considering what it took to make it. PJ made a ton on DVD just in its first day in release.
I really didn't mean to get anyone upset about this. I just thought that Dan Brown's slant on Church history was interesting. It "fits my agenda" so to speak. I can't remember enough of my "catachism" to say for sure that it was the Catholics that preserved the teachings in the Bible. I feel, though, that you are probably right. My viewpoint is mostly about the "doctrines" that came about hundreds of years after the Word of God was written down.
Can't link it for you. I'm using WebTV.
Thanks.
BTTT
Sledge is series!
I need a shower with a cheese moose.
Pagans purveying poison can make money and have pleasure. It just doesn't last very long...
BTTT
It has to do with who most of the hollyweirders are working for - the "original liar."
Excellence In Posting
Yes Sir, I am aware of that. Regardless, considering that revelation has never been given to the marital status of the Savior does not negate the possibility; divine or not. We know that there are 18 years of the Savior's life which has never been revealed. I see no problem in excepting the fact that He is divine and could have still been married. Or more pointed, that He engage in sexual activity. To me, sex is as sacred as the marriage covenant itself and as such should never be spoken of outside the marital relationship.
Frankly, I could care less about Dan Brown's belief system. My comments are more geared toward considering the possibility that the Savior had a wife and was human just as we are human as well as divine.
What is divinity in the first place? Is it not a state by which one transcends above the human element of his existence through obedience to the principles which constitutes divinity? Was not Christ perfectly obedient to His Father, and our Father? Yet was he not still subject to all human conditions by which He overcame by virtue of his obedience to the Father and, therefore, qualifying Him and only Him to make the great Atonement on our behalf that we might be forgiven of our wrongs upon conditions of repentence? And if by some measure we too, can tap into our divine heritage through obedience to the principles of the Gospel, can we not be divine as well, through Christ of course?
Most Christians fail to understand the nature and subsequent effect of the Atonement and how it applies to the workings of justice and mercy. One aspect they fail to grasp is the fact that the Atonement does not absolve us of what we CAN do to work out our salvation. The Atonement covers those things we cannot do for ourselves and those things we failed in trying to do. All other things are subject to our own responsibility by virtue of being a free, independent agent, self-sustaining, self-reliant, and self-governing. These are the very principles by which the Gospel teaches and from which divinity is achieved.
You are saying he was simply another human being and not a God-man and you say the lack of evidence is evidence that Christianity is false.
You see why this debate has nowhere to go, right?
No Sir. That is not what I said at all. Read it again. Jesus was a man. The only difference is that he was conceived by and Sired by God the Father, which makes Him divine. But Jesus taught that "divinity" is achieved through obedience and faith to the principles that constitute it. In other words, follow Him and we become like Him: Divine
B- The ideas come from false gospels like the Gnostics and the so-called Gospel of Judas. Those ideas and 'books' and their content strike at the very precepts and foundations of Christianity.
If they are right (chuckles) - then Christianity is a giant fraud
Oh yes, thanks for posting the link. I was going to put it up as a thread, but was just too lazy. Anthony Lane writes a darn good pan. His review of "revenge of the sith" is one for the ages. Too bad they take them down after a while, I'd love to read that one again.
"He works for Opus Dei, the Catholic organization so intensely secretive that its American headquarters are tucked away in a seventeen-story building on Lexington Avenue."
Best line in the piece!
What's a crack up to me about this stuff is I had a friend with a college degrees trying to tell me that the story was basically real. LOL
"I saw the movie but did not read the bood. I can see where this would be an interesting book given it is about ancient things, exotic places and earth shaking themes."
You'd think so, would'nt you? But Brown cannot write his way out of a paper bag, trust me, the movie was more exciting and had far more detail than his book - and his characters had far more life breathed into them by the sheer happenstance that living people played them - in the book his characters are devoid of anything resembling humanity, they may as well be cardboard standups.
I was flat out disgusted by how little reverence he has for ancient things, exotic places and earth shaking themes - they are mere plot devices for him, and he shows little if any passion or interest in describing them, or properly researching their backgrounds and importance and including that data in teh book. As an artist and art history devotee, I'd say Dan Brown slept his way through art history (if he took it), because he has no skill at all describing the masterpieces that his book revolves upon. What could have been a fascinating book full of details and information and lush detail is instead a trite read-at-the-beach throwaway, on the level of Joan Collins. For instance, part of the book is set in the Louvre...but you get no sense of what the Louvre is, it's character, it's importance, it's history. It's just a set for the story, and he treats it as such. At least in the movie you can admire the architecture.
Besides ripping off the original work of the authors of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" (nonsensical conspiracy theory, read only if exteremely bored), there's the matter of how much he got wrong, and the fetid ideas pushed forward. Meh. A true hack, Brown is...and a dangerous one, because he's perfectly willing to push the lies and distortions and fairy tales forward to get more fame and fortune.
I look at authors like Mark Helprin, in his masterpieces like "A Winter's Tale", where in one paragraph he can take your breath away, and it angers me that hacks like Brown make any money at all, or get any recognition. It's some comfort that Helprin's books will be read generations from now (they're THAT good), and that Brown's book will be forgotten.
Do yourself a favor, and read Emberto Ecco's "Foucault's Pendulum", and see how a master treats the topic. This book will floor you in it's richness of depth, scope of research (Ecco gets his history right...), and when you're done taking in the wonder of how good the book is, find out English isn't his first language. (He's Italian). This sis the book you want, if you seek ancient things, exotic places, and earth shaking themes - and a lot of passion in the writing about it. Ecco's passages of the museum that figure in Pendulum alone make Brown look like a first grader scribbling on lined paper with a blunt crayon.
Then do yourself another favor, and get "A Winter's Tale", by Mark Helprin. Prepare to be floored. Helprin can communicate more with one paragraph than Dan Brown ever will with 200 books. Then try his others, like "Soldier of the Great War".
I just hate when hack writers get attention like Brown does, so this is my contribution to dispell the attention his hack book and movie are getting.
As for your questions, they don't matter to authors like Dan Brown, he did'nt think that far, and there is no answer for you in his book. He merely demands you accept his ideas at face value, as illogical or stupid as they may be.
His "prequel" to Da Vinci Code was just as badly written and poorly thought out, unfortunately I read it on vacation before Da Vinci came out, and was disgusted at how the book never delivered ( I cannot leave a book once started, so I had to finish it), and his "revelation" at the end was laughable. I have full faith the book he's working on about Mason's will be the same laughable dreck, and will borrow heavily from other works. Sadly, it will sell.
In one instance the evolution-or-nothing faction argues with all the fervor of a lawyer who is forced to create a defense through innuendo and unsubtle cuts and the other guy's intelligence...
In this instance, "Brown versus (someone's particular) God", the Holy Roman truth squad has determined Brown to be something called forth from a pentagram just for their entertainment - and innuendo.
GET A LIFE!
It's a pretty good book, too lurid in places; but readable.
There is nothing - NOTHING - in the 'Code that has not been kicked around for a century or so.
The movie will make money.
Few people, if any at all, will change their minds about faith, prophets, or the Savior because of it.
All your noise and fury only HELP sell the book and the movie (The same chorus was just incredibly successful at ruining the Harry Potter numbers - yeah,right!).
This flick is not propaganda, it is not dogma, it is a novel and a thriller...it's a Saturday afternoon with popcorn.
I predict that absolutely NO ONE will be beheaded or even stoned as a result of the Da Vinci Code... or the revelation that there may be doubters out there.
Free will and all that stuff, remember?
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