Thoughts, rare as they are.

[catsidhe]

As I was watching The Second Coming last night. The one with Chris Eccleston as the Son of God.

As I watched, in between dissecting the hideous mess that is Perl::HTML and reading Hat Full of Sky, I found myself thinking "I wonder what they thought of this in the States?"

Then, as the climax happened (one which I did not see coming, by the way, and it was very pleasantly surprising to be surprised by TV), I came to a conclusion. They haven't seen this in the States. This would never be allowed to air.

I stand to be corrected. Indeed, I hope to be corrected, as the denoumont was one that demanded Deep Thinking about God and his place in our lives, even for atheists. But my cynical (and therefore, usually correct) view is that it is precisely the shock and stress of such thought which would have it struck from the air. We can't have religion-riots, now, can we? Outraged fundie evangelicals and Catholics and Baptists finding common cause and burning the Godless PBS to the ground? We can't risk offendng our Sponsors...

The more I think about it, the less likely I think it is that this program could have been shown in the US. Let's not even talk about the likelyhood of it having been made there.

I also think that it would not have been shown on the commercial channels here, and it would have been a farce and a travesty if it had. Such thoughts on the place of God in the universe do not fit well with 'Zoom zoom'.

---

On another tack, I saw an ad on a tram this morning, but the background to the text caused me to misread it slightly.
I read it as 'SPORTSCRÆFT', and it looked somehow more right that way.

Britene igland is egte hund mile lang ond twa brad, ond on þas igland fif geþeode...

Comments

[mikeybidness.livejournal.com]

I missed out about half an hour just after Chris started piling up the Third Testament - when I got back, he was wandering around a deserted city - what happened in between?

I dunno, I don't see myself as a rather religious guy, but the whole 'we're better off without a God' thing at the end was...I dunno, well I felt rubbed the wrong way. Mission accomplished, I guess.

[catsidhe.livejournal.com]

Let's see how my memory is...

The potential Third Testaments are piling up, and there is deep despair about how he's going to read them all. He calls his 'disciples' in; his girlfriend, his mate (the one who drove him to the stadium) and his 'father'. While they are going over the submissions (including novels, badly photoshopped pictures of Christ, and 'kill the faggots, kill the Jews, kill the Niggers' rants), the girlfriend asks what would happen if they don't find the Third Testament. Steve looks into himself, and comes back with 'I see Nothing. No Heaven, no Hell, Armageddon.' The Police Commissioner (who shows the eyes of a demon) takes the tape and has it broadcast. Needless to say, the Son of God declaring Armageddon causes social breakdown. While the world begins to dissassemble itself, demons affect Steve's 'father', and cause him to go mad and attempt to shoot Steve. Steve's mate stands in the way and is killed. Steve's GF wants to go home, but the cop who drives her takes her instead to the fat git's place. She proves that she knows that he is a demon, and he tells her his plan: the demons want her to despair, knowing that Steve would follow her. Then, when Judgment happens, the Son of God must be Judged against, and he ends up ruling Hell. All it would take is one more lost soul... she realises who he means and races to get to her friend's house. Her friend's husband in the Armageddon Panic decided to leave her and go to his mistress, so in despair she mixes sleeping tablets into fruit juice and intends to kill herself and her two children. Steve's GF gets there just in time, but she has an idea. She goes home, calls Steve, and tells him that she knows what the Third Testament is, and can he meet her at home? He replies 'of course,' and slips out of the police station and walks to her.

The rest you know.

[mikeybidness.livejournal.com]

This would totally have aired on PBS, I'm surprised it hasn't already!

[scribblette.livejournal.com]

It's British. It has to be. Besides, the son of God is playing the new Doctor Who, and that's being made in Britain. The whole thing sounded British. Therefore it was.

Really, though, the ending wasn't that unexpected I felt. The further the movie went along, and considering the budget obvious so far, I kinda figured the options for winding it up were limited. Either give it a totally pathetic ending where they don't tell you what happens, or, well, something along the lines of what did happen.

Still, it's the best ending to such a film I've seen about :)

[mikeybidness.livejournal.com]

I'm not denying it was British! I'm just sayin', PBS snaps things like that up.

[scribblette.livejournal.com]

True that. I don't think ALL tv in the US is controlled by the religious right. Besides, it's pro-christianity, the whole son-of-god thing. It's nowhere near a problem as some might think.

Hrm. My gripe with was really about how stupid the whole idea is in the end.

First of, oh, so God dies if he kills himself in human form then. He has to die through some external means like poison apparently.

Second off he can do great deeds like change night into day for no good reason other than show his power, but he has difficulty doing ANYTHING else to help humanity.

Third, only getting 70 odd years if lucky and having huge portions of humanity who could have done good or otherwise enjoyed life will now actually DIE horrible deaths when they die and be consigned to nothing, huh? What about the hundreds of thousands of people who died simply because they refused to blaspheme against their own personal beliefs? What about anyone who was already in heaven? What about the prophets before Jesus? What, everyone in the afterlife was suddenly consigned to nothingness?

Being able to explore all of creation for half of eternity in the afterlife sounds like a lot more fun than dying at birth. Or being rotted away by leprosy. Or having one's family tortured and killed by some sadistic fuck. Et al.

Also makes the whole Son of God thing rather weird - because apparently he IS God, not the SON of God. This whole trinity thing in Christianity is totally screwed.

Anyway, it was still fun to watch and better than most shows along such lines I've seen.

[kitling.livejournal.com]

i sat in the lounge room playing warcrack on my laptop with this show running in the background, even not paying attention it still disturbed me.