Posted on 05/31/2013 10:34:22 AM PDT by RummyChick
Will Smith has never spoken openly of his connections to the Church of Scientology, but they are well documented. Whether or not Smith is a devout member or simply curious about this Hollywood faith, he has visible ties to the group. In 2007, he donated $122,500 to several Scientology rehabilitation organizations. Two years later, he and wife Jada Pinkett Smith opened California's New Village Leadership Academy, a private school founded on the teachings of Scientology creator L. Ron Hubbard. Yet to this day, when asked about his own involvement, Smith suggests close friend Tom Cruise introduced him to the practices of Scientology, but that he's not a member. He's simply a "student of world religion."
The clearest evidence of Smith's investment in Scientology might be his newest blockbuster film — this weekend’s After Earth. Based on a story by Smith (and a script by Gary Whitta and director M. Night Shyamalan), the film is a father-son adventure that teams the superstar with his wunderkind offspring Jaden. Together, they traverse the dangerous landscapes of a creature-ridden future Earth. Surprisingly, what's been advertised as an Avatar remix plays out more like Battlefield Earth, another film that hews to the tropes of a science-fiction epic — just like Hubbard's doctrines for Scientology. Here’s how the film parallels the faith’s teachings:
The Movie's Villain Is Emotion "Danger Is Real. Fear Is a Choice," reads the tagline on the After Earth posters. Its vast cosmology aside, at its core, Scientology is about setting doubts and conflict aside in order to value the self. That's the main hurdle for Jaden's character Kitai Raige, who finds himself failing to measure up to his commander father, Cypher. The film is set 1,000 years after humans have departed an ecologically devastated Earth. Mankind is asserting itself as an intergalactic military presence on the outskirts of the universe. There is only one problem: Their new planet, Nova Prime, hosts a vicious alien race that feeds on fear. Luckily they have Cypher — he's known as a "ghost," a human who can suppress his emotions and the accompanying pheromones that allow the aliens to sniff people out.
In Scientology terms, Cypher is a properly cleansed "thetan," the Church's version of a soul. He's calm and collected, empowered without having to demonstrate that power. As Cypher puts it in the film, "fear is imaginary," and if a person is able to see past that illusion, they can be maximally effective. Kitai is the opposite of his father. In Church terms, he is a misguided thetan — full of rage, haunted by memories, and terrified when out of his comfort zone. He has a desire to be a hero, but it’s not instinctual. His choices are guided by what he thinks are his father's demands. Hubbard's writing has indicated that Scientology's goal is to rehabilitate a thetan's control over MEST (matter, energy, space, and time). Kitai’s journey over the course of the film is that pursuit. He must regain control over the physical world through management of his fear.
Will "Audits" Jaden Over the Course of the Movie One of the most powerful moments in 2012's The Master is when Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman) "processes" Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix). An interrogation meant to peel back the layers of the emotionally damaged sailor, it's a riff on Scientology's practice of auditing. The Church believes people are stricken by engrams, mental images akin to memories that cause pain and confusion. Members of Scientology are audited to rid themselves of these emotional blockades by talking through them while using an E-meter (a device that tracks electrical resistance) to measure precisely where the engrams live.
The bulk of After Earth is essentially that scene from The Master on a blockbuster scale. Following a crash landing on Earth, circumstances require Cypher to remain at a control panel while his son battles his way through the wild. Kitai can barely take a step outdoors without flashing back to a moment when he witnessed someone's death back home. Thankfully, Cypher is able to audit him from afar. Coached by his Dad, Kitai finds inner peace, the knowledge that he's stronger, faster, and more capable than anything Earth throws at him. Cypher even has a futuristic version of an E-meter at his disposal — Kitai's "Smart Fabric" suit delivers up-to-date health stats to his auditor. Heart rate is going up? Kitai must be lying or afraid or unable to cope with his pesky engrams.
Level Up After Earth is essentially a map of Scientological development. It's a man-vs.-nature story because Scientology suggests that all of life is just that. Before Kitai is set on his journey of personal discovery, he trains to be a Ranger (like his father) in the fashion of Scientology students. Smith's New Village Leadership Academy is said to employ the techniques of "Study Tech," a Hubbard concept that focuses on climbing the ladder. Kitai's biggest woe is that he can't reach the next level of military school. That's par for the course in Scientology, where learning is described as a gradient, "a gradual approach to something, taken step by step, so that, finally, quite complicated and difficult activities or concepts can be achieved with relative ease." It’s one of the parts of Scientology that many have focused on — the idea of having to pay for classes in order to advance upwards through the religion’s levels. Some critics have compared After Earth's structure as being like that of a video game, Kitai going from level to level. That's really Study Tech.
It's only when he reaches Earth and is audited by his father that the trainee looks inward and aligns himself with the priorities of Scientology. For the Church, life is subdivided into eight "urges of survival," known as dynamics. The first dynamic prioritizes survival of the individual over everything else. In the film, Kitai confronts harsh elements and outruns hoards of animals all to save his father, but he's only able to succeed because of self-actualization. Typically, a hero might pick up skills and adapt to an alien environment. Not in After Earth, where Kitai separates himself from everything he knows in life and invests in his potential invincibility. He quests on, trusting his own abilities even when there hasn't been an established reason to trust them.
Anti-Psychiatry Aliens? With After Earth's Scientology roots in mind, every element starts to ring familiar in the context of the religion. The threatening alien, turned murderous by the scent of emotion, is a literalization of the organization's hard stance against psychiatric medicine. From the very beginning, Hubbard was critical of psychiatry, calling it an evasive practice that sidelined spiritual thinking. In his paper "Crime and Psychiatry," he claims that psychiatrists "advertise man as a push-button stimulus-response robot" and use inhumane practices to elicit response. That's the role of After Earth's blind, carnivorous beast, who hungers for fear while simultaneously provoking it.
Without being too obvious, Smith has delivered an incredibly mainstream platform for the Church's ideology. After Earth’s subtext makes every beat feel like a nod to the lessons of L. Ron Hubbard. Fleeing Earth to another planet only to return to home mirrors the idea of thetan resurrection. The ship Cypher and Kitai take on their mission isn't that far off from the Douglas DC-8–esque ship that took Xenu's kidnapped souls to earth. And the prominently advertised volcano that functions as a backdrop to a large After Earth set piece? Just look at the cover to Hubbard's book that started it all —Dianetics.
I am in your camp.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a27IdajHUU
It was much better than Avatar and what After Earth will be.
Who says Video Games aren't art?
Well at least it made money...
That is what it is all about isn't it?
Yes she was.
I nominate Girl With The Gold Boots or possibly Angel’s Revenge.
Outside of the ties to Scientology, it actually sounds like an interesting plot.
However, I have never fully recovered from Jaden’s performance in the “Karate Kid” remake.
Girl with the Gold Boots was bad, but it was no Manos.
At least Angel’s Revenge had Jack Palance in it!
That’s the thing isn’t it? Something that makes a good movie premise makes a terrible principle to dedicate your life and faith to.
I loved Caddyshack for example, but wouldn’t subscribe to a religion that was dedicated to killing gophers or a member/guest golf tournament.
I’d go with “Be the Ball” for the basis of a Caddyshack religion, according to the Gospel of Ty.
Gotta beat “Ishtar” for that title...
I’m just tired of Will Smith making Hollywood put his son in every movie. He was OK in the Karate Kid remake, but it’s gotten old very quickly. Now we’re at the point where they’re a matching pair so his kid gets more exposure... “tonight on Conan, Will Smith & Jaden Smith!!” Geesh Will, let your son do something on his own merits and not daddy’s name.
Quite right. I also thought Judge Smails was quite a spiritual man.
“I’ve sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber. Didn’t want to do it. I felt I owed it to them. “
The 1960s was a transitional period and not as good a time for American films as was the ‘50s or ‘70s.
P.S. ‘...River Kwai’ was 1957.
And made one think about how “shine your love’.
Huge Mass Effect fan here! The first game was my favorite, followed by second and third in order. While some of the first games mechanics were clunky, it captured my sense of exploration and wonder.
However The Atmosphere in Mass Effect 1 was, beyond amazing!
Just the Music, the Dialog, even the Back Button Sound was just incredible!
Now Mass Effect 2 was gritter and lacked that "New Car/Game" feeling, but that wasn't what it was trying to do.
I like 1 & 2 equally.
Now as for Mass Effect 3.......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpKiPyNynU8
It would have been better if the game was completely terrible.
But it is not. It has some of the best moments in the whole series.
The Reaper war felt Huge. Even if we didn't get to see alot of it.
Sadly, because of that EPIC WARZ thing they went for, even more the RPG got lost and it felt.....smaller in other ways.
Then of Course the Ending.
But we won't talk about that.
The Problem with M.E. 3 was that it was released as a completely Vanilla Game, I.E. the absolute Basics.
You Want More? 10$ PLEASE!
I own me3, but couldn’t import/recreate my fem Sheps face to a satisfying degree, which took me out of the game. I will probably play it this summer with all the dlc in the order that sounds right to me. Based on the crappy ending(imho),I will stop playing at the point when you take the elevator to meet that little space brat.
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