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I've never worked out the exact conspiracy, but I'm sure someone has a theory why the lead of Speed is "Annie" and Anakin's called "Ani" by his friends . . . I'm sure there's some weird, Lucas- de Bont cross-over . . . |
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.
>> There is nothing - NOTHING - in the 'Code that has not been kicked around for a century or so. <<
Your ignorance is astounding.
Nuh, I decided you'll certainly never learn anything from the previous response so here goes:
>> This whole spate of "told'ya-so" self congratulatory bile (and/or hypocrisy) reminds me most of the evo/crevo debates that also adorn (and/or disfigure) FR. <<
See, what's funny is that to any passerby you've just displayed more bile than anything in the whole thread. The thread has humor, sarcasm, and even some gratuitous put-downs, but you're the one who introduced raw, seething contempt without a trace of wit, with words like "bile," "disfigure," "hypcocrisy," "the Holy Roman Truth Squad," etc. All of which, of course, also, make you the perfect hypocrite. It's like the MAD comic of the guy screaming, " G**-D***IT, I ****ING **** ALL THIS ****ING CURSING!"
The other fantastic irony is that you say it is just a book, and that the stuff in it has been kicked around for a century. It plain and simply hasn't. So, although you intend to establish that no-one's going to believe anything they read, you demonstrate that you've accepted precisely Hanks' character's premise.
You know how in those gross-out horror movies, there's always that character that goes to check out whatever it was that landed with the meteor, just to prove how silly everyone, and then comes back reporting that there's nothing out there, and gosh, everyone is so stupid for being so upset... and, of course, the camera pans to show everyone's horrified faces... then the camera, from its new angle, spins back to show the guy? And his face is like half eaten off, or rotting away, or has some horrible creature slithering across it?
When you say something so nihilistic/agnostic and contemptuous of others' belief system as "Brown versus (someone's particular) God" that's what it's like. Your attitude is the perfect demonstration of what others don't want society to become like. And your contempt, hypocrisy, ironic self-righteousness, and bile, demonstrate precisely why people don't want to society to become like that.
I really shouldn't freep when I can't sleep, but two other points:
Normally, I don't resort to put-downs of my readers, but previous threads demonstrated that even FR is full of people who will just jump to Brown's defense, even though he makes war on everything they hold dear, and scream, "it's just fiction." ... even though Brown says it's not, and even though the column has already addressed that point. There's usually not the slightest hint they've even read the article. From the other side, it seems like there's this army of 1970s-era computers scanning the internet to say the same things on every thread.
Since, obviously, such posters aren't even beginning to read the drier, higher-minded critiques, a little curmudgeonly humor makes the point fairly well. Like a virus, however, the non-thinkers just mutated, finding a supposed "hole" in the column to attack. "But it had a HUGE opening weekend!" they scream, as if box-office take has to be an indication of not sucking.
It's a little stupifying to know people around here will attack a post based on the first *four* words of the title alone, without even reading the rest of the title. For crying out loud, I compared it to "Star Wars Episode I"! But some people got stuck on "crashes" without making it to the word, "after." It's like people read the article like this: "The Dave--- Duh, Da Vink... vink? Vinci! DaVinci code crashes... What?! that's it! I'm posting!"
I mocked the DaVincibots for not being able to make it to the third paragraph. Apparently, many couldn't even make it through the to the fifth word of the title!
Fabulous, it is still there!
And I gotta give the NYer credit, I don't know how they assign the reviews, but Lane's gotten a couple of fat little bubbles to burst.
I do not give any real credence to the "Gnostic" gospels. But, you might consider the possibility that what we have as the Bible today is incomplete; or at least only part of which God has intended to reveal to us. I posted this last night in another thread.
Even the canonized scripture conveys that other scriptures were lost.
Book of the Covenant - Exodus 24:7
Book of the Wars of the Lord - Numbers 21:14
Book of Jasher - Joshua 10:13
Book of the Acts of Solomon - 1 Kings 11:41
Book of Nathan and Gad - 1 Chronicles 29:29
Prophecy of Ahijah and Visions of iddo - 2 Chronicles 9:29
Book of Shemaiah - 2 Chronicles 12:15
Book of Jehu - 2 Chronicles 20:34
Acts of Uzziah - 2 Chronicles 26:22
Sayings of the Seers - 2 Chronicles33;19
An earlier Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians - 1 Corinthians 5:9
Another Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians - Ephesians 3:3
An Epistle of Paul from Loadicea - Colossians 4:16
Former Epistle of Jude - Jude 3
Prophecies of Enoch - Jude 14
I would just like to comment that this subject, if given to reason alone, without the aid of revelation, suggests that the "Word" of God cannot be confined to the pages of a book; canonized or not. I submit that the "word" is Jesus Christ. And anything that proceeds forth from His mouth and transcribed is scripture.
To believe and even teach that the Holy Bible is the "word of God" only is an insult to the intelligence of God and defies all reason. To presume that a man can fool so many Christians into thinking that the "word" is limited and confined to the pages of a book is contrary to their own doctrine that God is eternal in nature. [Who is so arrogant as to think they can restrict God from revealing His will beyond what the Holy Bible says?]
It should also be noted that there are some mistakes in translation even in the Holy Bible. Once this truth is realized, then one can more freely seek out many other wonderful truths as it pertains to the Plan of Salvation.
For the sceptics, here are a couple of examples of mistranslations in the Bible:
Acts 9:7 as compared to Acts 22:9 Notice the switch in how the men that traveled with Saul/Paul observed his vision.
2 Kings 8:26 as compared to 2 Chronicles 22:2 Notice that the age of Ahaziah when he began to reign is contradictory.
I think these mistakes would be difficult to explain away even by the most astute of scriptorians. And given these mistakes, then it stands to reason that we can question the accuracy of the entire canon without necessarily discounting the inspiriation that comes from understanding the principles of faith and obedience to God.
I know one thing: It is imperative that all of us keep an open mind to things that are being revealed to the children of God in this last dispensation. If we totally rely as proof positive everything that has been handed down to us through the generations of time, especially if those things defy simple logic and reason, and confuses those things which are meant for us to clearly understand, then we will find ourselves to be "most men made miserable."
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ANAKIN: Don't you see, we don't have to run away anymore. I have brought peace to the Republic. I am more powerful than the Chancellor. I can overthrow him, and together you and I can rule the galaxy. Make things the way we want them to be.
PADME: I don't believe what I'm hearing . . . Obi-Wan was right. You've changed.
ANAKIN: I don't want to hear any more about Obi-Wan. The Jedi turned against me. Don't you turn against me.
PADME: I don't know you anymore. Anakin, you're breaking my heart. I'll never stop loving you, but you are going down a path I can't follow.
ANAKIN: Because of Obi-Wan?
PADME: Because of what you've done . . . what you plan to do. Stop, stop now. Come back! I love you.
ANAKIN: (seeing Obi-Wan) Liar!
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"The ideas in the DaVinci Code cannot be true because..."
What ideas, specifically, are you speaking of? I think Dan Brown may have some ulterior motive for his writings, but that does not negate that some of what he says may be the truth. There is a saying:
"Truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it."
It is independent of you and me and it is up to us to seek it out. Once found, then it is our responsibility to incorporate it into our minds and hearts and act upon it. Even the Devil will tell 999 truths and 1 lie to tell a whole lie. That is what strikes me of Mr. Brown. But, there may be some truth in there that should certainly be tested with the tools that God has given us to discern truth from falsehood.
I know that pride and arrogance will never get us anywhere. I have already learned the hard way on that one.
Unfortunately this peiece of crap called a movie is a very big hit overseas, much more than in America. It beat X3 overseas this weekend. Which tells me there is still hope for America yet.
Heroes on a Halfshell -- Turtle Power!
friggin' hilarious!
Er, no. Typical falloffs are in the 30%-40% range. Anything about 50% falloff is a pretty good sign of a dog suffering the effects of bad word-of-mouth.
When you have to resort to the tired old statistical trick of citing the latest figure in nominal (i.e. non-inflation-adjusted) dollars as a "record", it's time to give up.
And, with all that to work with, Dan Brown produced a result that brings to mind Truman Capote's sneer, "That's not writing; it's typing!"
Using actual receipts is a "tired old statistical trick?"
I hate that name, Anakin. Sounds like a name for a two year old.
|
I've never worked out the exact conspiracy, but I'm sure someone has a theory why the lead of Speed is "Annie" and Anakin's called "Ani" by his friends . . . I'm sure there's some weird, Lucas- de Bont cross-over . . . |
We're keeping a very small prophet, a prophet
Who brings us unbounded returns:
...
He has answers oracular,
Bogies spectacular,
Tetrapods tragical,
Mirrors so magical,
Facts astronomical,
Solemn or comical,
And, if you want it, he
Makes a reduction on taking a quantity!
Ouch. One of the best Duh Vinci duhstroyers I've seen yet.
I'm sure that there is a reference there that I'm not getting to explain why you are using the style of the H.M.S. Pinafore... but I have to say it's very clever, even if I'm the butt of the joke.
Worse still, he was called "Annie." We wanted to see Luke Skywalker and we got "Li'l Orphan Annie turns Evil." Hrrumph!
worse names:
Representing conquering: Darth Invader
Representing treachery: Darth Insidious
Represneting succombing to the Pleasures of the Flesh:Pat me, I'm a dollar
Representing a washed-up has-been (until he found Luke, anyway): Obey One Can of Beer
Or another has been: Quick on Gin
I don't want to know what this means: Hand Solo
Replacing going Solo with a hot babe: Princess Lay Her
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