Da Vinci Code on film

[Flexor the Mighty!]

So are you determined to get this thread closed to silence discussion of it? Please go away.

 

[Mistwell]

So am I.



False. Dan Brown in his own words:

cut interview​

That, my friend, is NOT in the book, OR the movie. It's an interview. And if we are including author interiviews as necessary stuff to be able to comment on a movie, there isn't a thread left in this entire forum.

Interviews with people involved in projects are pretty much useless. If Joss Weadon did an iterview saying Buffy was real...we would laugh about it, but it wouldn't ever come up as "we cannot comment on Buffy without commenting on what was said in the interview". The interview is extraneous stuff. You can read it, or not. You can comment on it in a separate thread about that interview. But it's not part of the book, or the movie. There is nothing core there at all.

So, then, we're dealing with a movie that at its core

See, there you go. You are calling a single excerpt from an interview with the author of a book that a movie is based on as the core of the movie. That doesn't make sense to me. Does it make sense to you? If I quoted an excerpt from Lucas in an interview commenting on A New Hope saying Luke represented to him the elephant-god diety Ganesh from Hinduism when he wrote the character, would you feel the excerpt was the core of the movie rather than, say, THE MOVIE BEING THE CORE OF THE MOVIE?

is a deliberate insult to slightly more than 1 billion in the world. Of course, those of you who see no problems in anti-Semitism as a form of entertain don't see this as a problem, while those of us who beg to differ are summarily dismissed by self-appointed moderators huffing with self-righteous indignation.

Nobody said "no problems with anti-semitism as a form of entetainment". I said I'd like to see a movie about the protocols of zion, and even suggested the graphic novel as a great template for it. It's an interesting subject that would make for an interesting movie. Will Eisner wrote a great graphic novel on the subject. I hope someone picks it up to do a movie.

But back to the movie. First, it's deliberately offensive and based on the claims of seriously deluded man who claims to believe his own fiction (or, more precisely, fiction he plagiarized from others).

No, it is not. The movie is in no way deliberately offensive. If you feel it is, show me a quote from Ron Howard saying he is attempting to deliberately be offensive to anyone. Nor is it based on claims of the author...it's instead based on the fiction book this author wrote and not his interview.

Second, it's just not a very good movie.

Did you see it?

In almost every case, the acting is wooden. The plot is a muddled mess, which isn't surprising considering the poor quality of the source material. The storyline is overlong and pedantic. It strives less to be entertainment than it does to be documentary.

Fair enough. Your view is different than mine, but I accept that some people agree with you on the acting and plot. Can you suggest a way you would have done this movie with a better flow to the plot?​

 

[Taelorn76]

So am I.
When appearing on “The Today Show,” host Matt Lauer asked him, “How much of this is based on reality in terms of things that actually occurred?” Dan Brown responded: “Absolutely all of it. Obviously, there are - Robert Langdon is fictional, but all of the art, architecture, secret rituals, secret societies, all of that is historical fact.”

You answered your own complaint

 

[Mistwell]

So are you determined to get this thread closed to silence discussion of it? Please go away.

I am worried that is the intent...to effectively boycott this thread by having it closed. I hope that is not the intent.

To Mods: I would be happy to erase or edit any post I've made in this thread if that is what it will take to allow the thread to continue.

 

[Mistwell]

Now, what does the movie claim? It claims the Catholic Church is run by liars and murderers and that Opus Dei is an assassin-employing cult. These falsehoods are predicated upon a structure that deliberately distorts history.

Sorry, I missed this comment earlier.

The movie does not claim the Catholic Church is run by liars and murderers. In fact, the movie specifically says that the liars and murderers are doing this without the permission of the Church in any way shape or form and if they are ever discovered the Church will excommunicate them. I do not see how someone could get the sense that the bad people are operating with the sanction of the Church, when they go to such great lengths to make sure you know it's the opposite.

They also specifically show you how Opus Dei does not know any of this is going on. It's all done in secret by a few people in Opus Dei. It's never represented as being the view of Opus Dei as an organization or even many members. It's show that a few people in that organization are secretly doing this, and taking great pains to make sure it is secret.

Is it that you didn't see those parts of the movie where they talk about how the church is not sanctioning any of this, or that you saw those parts and still thought it was portraying it differently, or what?

 

[paradox42]

So am I.

No, you really aren't. You're consistently bringing discussion back around to Dan Brown, despite the fact that this is Ron Howard's work- as others have said. I must concur with those others that you are clearly being trollish, most likely in an attempt to get the thread closed. What your motives for getting the thread closed are, I won't speculate openly.

But back to the movie. First, it's deliberately offensive

How so? Did you actually see the movie? I saw nothing offensive to the Catholic Church in it. It had one bad Bishop, who turned a deluded fanatical monk into an assassin essentially as a sort of crusade. The rest of the Church, hells, even the top hierarchy including the Pope, had nothing to do with it.

It also had nothing offensive to Opus Dei in it- it mentioned that some "extreme" members practice painful rituals to bring them closer to the Divine (which is true), and mentioned accusations brought by outsiders that it's like a "cult," which are also true and existed well before this book or movie. And on top of that, it also features a member who, when he finally realizes what his corrupt Bishop has been doing, does the right thing and turns him over to the Law. I thought he represented the "average" Opus Dei member, not the insane monk or the bad Bishop, and if so it is actually highly complimentary to the group rather than offensive.

...and based on the claims of seriously deluded man who claims to believe his own fiction (or, more precisely, fiction he plagiarized from others). Second, it's just not a very good movie. In almost every case, the acting is wooden. The plot is a muddled mess, which isn't surprising considering the poor quality of the source material. The storyline is overlong and pedantic. It strives less to be entertainment than it does to be documentary.

To repeat my earlier review: By all means, boycott this movie. You'll sleep better at home.

Fair enough. You've given your review. Now let those of us who had no desire to boycott the film discuss it and lurk in peace, and accept that you won't be able to control our moviegoing impulses.

 

[mmu1]

I agree. A previous thread on this topic devolved into this same arguement. Keep your personal beliefs to yourself people. If you can't babysit your own mouth, then a moderator will end up doing it for you and surely will close this. Try harder to be more respectful of the rest of us out here. We don't all share your "beliefs" and would appreciate your not sharing yours here.

If you can't do this, don't come here anymore please.

I tried to be polite in the last thread this happened in and it got me nowhere. Have your philosophical arguements elsewhere, but stop or leave, that's the only request I'm making now.

1. You made no contribution to either this thread or the previous one except to pop in long after it began to lecture people on how they should behave.

2. You (along with other people) chose not to comply with the moderator requests in the previous thread, directly contributing to its closure.

3. You're making inflammatory off-topic posts again. (or being outright insulting, depending on whether putting the word "belief" in quotes was an intentional thing, in the context of your post, or just bad syntax)

In other words, you're really not helping.

 

[Hijinks]

I'd like to say that, in my opinion, saying that a novel is "based on fact" is NOT saying that every single thing said in that novel is a fact.

“How much of this is based on reality in terms of things that actually occurred?” Dan Brown responded: “Absolutely all of it. Obviously, there are - Robert Langdon is fictional, but all of the art, architecture, secret rituals, secret societies, all of that is historical fact.”

Ok so, Matt Lauer asks him, "Is this book based on reality?" (i.e. fact), and Dan Brown says "yes." He took some historical facts and expounded on them. Whether he added unrealities to those factual bases is irrelevant - the book is, as he says based on fact.

He says: "all of the art, architeture, secret rituals, secret societies ... is historical fact." Does anyone dispute that those things exist now or existed then? I don't think anyone does dispute that these things exist(ed). So they ARE facts. If he based things in a novel on those facts, then I fully believe what he says above.

To be BASED on fact does not mean a book is 100% true. I see no lie in his words above.

 

[Mark Chance]

Face it. This is a horrible movie based on an even worse book. Although, I suppose, this is one of those very rare instances where the movie is better than the book. Even still, the entire pile of schlock is so ridiculous as to be completely laughable. That is if it weren't so mind-numbingly dull. Heck, the movie can't even get its own title right. No one with any sense calls Leonardo "Da Vinci". Da Vinci isn't his last name; it's where he's from. What's next? The Secret Life of Stratford-Upon-Avon?

Mistwell claims the movie isn't deliberately insulting, and that to prove otherwise one must quote Ron Howard being deliberately insulting. Okay. Fine. It's not deliberately insulting. Ron Howard was completely clueless that anyone would find the work patently offensive.

The movie claims the Catholic Church is run by liars and murderers, Howard's attempts to nuance with the presence of sympathetic elements this notwithstanding. It also unequivocally states that the central doctrines of the Catholic Church are the fabrication of cabal of women-hating bishops in cahoots with Constantine. This isn't insulting, both to general civility as well as the intelligence? Of course it is.

How would I have improved the movie? I'd have not filmed it. I'd have made a serious push to the film rights for a good conspiracy theory book, such as Foucault's Pendulum, instead.

 

[Darthjaye]

1. You made no contribution to either this thread or the previous one except to pop in long after it began to lecture people on how they should behave.

2. You (along with other people) chose not to comply with the moderator requests in the previous thread, directly contributing to its closure.

3. You're making inflammatory off-topic posts again. (or being outright insulting, depending on whether putting the word "belief" in quotes was an intentional thing, in the context of your post, or just bad syntax)

In other words, you're really not helping.

I find this complete ignorance on your part that you feel that if someone doesn't post in every thread that they don't read and enjoy or dislike what they see. The fact that your telling me I can't say something makes your commentary even more offensive. Your assuming that because I chose not to name a faith or jump into the arguement but be peripheral, is nothing more than absurd as are any of your nitpicking arguements thus far. You read what you want in things and then jump to horribly wrong conclusions. You definately need to work on reality a bit there. Your comments in fact started problems in the aforementioned thread and you can't seem to stop. Your the kind of person who will take anything and try to inflame a larger arguement for it's sake alone. My last comment in the previous posting about stopping......that is something you should definately consider.