God's Not Dead: A Light in Darkness | A PURE FLIX PRODUCTION | March 30, 2018 | The highly anticipated sequel that we've been waiting for

[dudalb]

So if anybody criticized your religion, that amounts to persecution.....

 

This kind of stuff make me  proud to be an agnostic...

[SLAM!]

5 hours ago, dudalb said:

So if anybody criticized your religion, that amounts to persecution.....

 

This kind of stuff make me  proud to be an agnostic...

 

I believe that criticism is much different than persecution. Criticism is when people are going against the belief. Persecution is when the believers of the belief are personally attacked, an act that could range from name-calling to physical harm.

 

6 hours ago, Dexter of Suburbia said:

It is still always personal perspective.  People in Syria may not believe they are being persecuted. I know stories of people that have had traumatic past that they do not feel like they were being persecuted. Something that maybe viewed as small not being persecuted could be persecuted to them.    

 

I am of the belief that persecution is still persecution whether or not the born again believer sees it as such. I believe that peesecution is an action to be performed, not a concept to be grasped. If a thief stole something from me in a way that left me confused as to whether or not he was a thief, he is still a thief nonetheless. At least, that's what I think.

[Kvikk Lunsj]

16 hours ago, slambros said:

 

 

 

I am of the belief that persecution is still persecution whether or not the born again believer sees it as such. I believe that peesecution is an action to be performed, not a concept to be grasped. If a thief stole something from me in a way that left me confused as

act that could range from name-calling to physical harm.to whether or not he was a thief, he is still a thief nonetheless. At least, that's what I think.

3

fair enough it depends on how you look at it

[langer]

Why are all these christians Direct-To-DVD movies being released in theaters?

 

Hopefully this can gross less than Samson.  Sub 5M$ DOM incoming

[SLAM!]

1 hour ago, langer said:

Why are all these christians Direct-To-DVD movies being released in theaters?

 

Hopefully this can gross less than Samson.  Sub 5M$ DOM incoming

 

 

I think with faith-based films that may have been direct-to-DVD material are benefitting from box office no matter what exactly the box office is. Their budgets are undoubtedly low and they don't advertise much. Though of course, I also disagree with the notion that every faith-based film belongs away from the theatrical release spectrum. Even a faith-based that seems small at first glance, such as All Saints or Fireproof, can feel epic in a theater.

 

I don't think I would ever directly wish for a film to fail. Especially a film where filmmakers are putting in effort. Hayao Miyazaki once said of his son's film Tales of Earthsea (which is considered the worst Ghibli film), "It was made honestly, so it was good." I wholeheartedly believe that the people behind these films are giving it their all even if they are failing, even if they are blatant hacks. Though I understand that you could argue the film is not made honestly if the filmmakers are hacks. And I do agree with that notion. But they do believe that, and I do believe, that God is using their lack of talent for good, and that the coherency of their films is at least a result of that.  I believe that God thinks of those filmmakers who follow Him the same way Hayao Miyazaki thought of his son's film. This is why I don't want to wish for films to fail: the effort behind it.

 

But I will not root for something like The Emoji Movie to fail; no effort was put into such a product.

Edited March 4, 2018 by slambros

[aabattery]

8 minutes ago, slambros said:

 

But I'll root for something like The Emoji Movie to fail; no effort was put into such a product.

 

That's not true 

[SLAM!]

4 minutes ago, aabattery said:

 

That's not true 

 

That's correct; the truth is that I will not root for The Emoji Movie; I had a typo there...

 

(I mean, yeah, the effort level of The Emoji Movie wasn't 0%, but it was egregiously low for an animated feature).

[SWDF]

I think it's ok to want hateful movies, made by people with a persecution complex, to fail.

[SLAM!]

40 minutes ago, SWDF said:

I think it's ok to want hateful movies, made by people with a persecution complex, to fail.

 

I personally don't believe that the films are hateful...

[langer]

13 minutes ago, slambros said:

 

I personally don't believe that the films are hateful...

They are not hateful,  just intellectually lazy, like the concepts they are trying to promote.  

[SLAM!]

4 minutes ago, langer said:

They are not hateful,  just intellectually lazy, like the concepts they are trying to promote.  

 

Now, I do agree that the filmmakers and the ways they chose to use their themes are intellectually lazy. Faith-based filmmakers should have higher standarfs just as any filmmaker should.

Edited March 4, 2018 by slambros

[Boxofficerules]

I hear this is eyeing Black Panthers opening weekend records!

[SLAM!]

I saw a video essay and read a blog about Christian cinema and I've come to see exactly what is meant when the films are said to be hateful.

 

In the example of God's Not Dead, the omniscient narrator that is the camera is made to portray an overwhelming majority of the atheist characters as villainous. Whether the film is trying to say that 'all atheists are bad people' is something else entirely, but the way atheists are depicted and the way certain crowds react to those characters is telling: while Christians are supposed to hate the actions but not the person, the filmmakers, whether intentionally or not, are making their atheist characters too hateable to bare.

 

I think that comes down to poor, lazy writing. I think that comes down to the treatment of film production as a business rather than an art form. And I don't like that.

 

Hopefully the filmmakers have reexamined what they believe and learned from their mistakes; so far, the trailer is made to seem promising. But if they haven't, we're unfortunately headed towards a disappointing threequel thay is more of the same. Because at the end of the day, the execution of these films needs to be better. Much, much better.

Edited March 8, 2018 by slambros

[Seth Irskens]

Here's Our Movie Review of this Powerful Movie. Hope ya like it!

 

Edited March 30, 2018 by Seth Irskens