Biblical movies

[Evil Matt]

After "Phantom Menace" came out, it seemed to me that Lucas turned Darth Vader into a "perverted Christ" figure.  He was immaculately conceived ("He has no father," Anakin's mom tells Qui-Gon, in one of the laziest pieces of screenwriting ever.  I don't appreciate the series' decision to force-feed literary themes down my throat, nor do I appreciate the way they took the easy way out on introducing Vader's father), he grew up poor, in the desert, no less.  Eventually he dies and is resurrected (in a sense...Luke sees him standing around with the ghosts of Obi-Wan and Yoda at the end of "Jedi") mirroring Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension to heaven.  The only thing Vader was missing was a group of twelve guys following him around preaching about the force.

[Blair]

Oh my god, ya'll.  I just can't get enough of those freakout  '70s movies on the Church Channel. "Image of the Beast," "A Thief In the Night," and "A Distant Thunder." The crux of these movies is if you are left behind and don't want to take "the mark" --- you have to have your head chopped off!

[dean]

i really really really think very little of george lucas.  i love a lot of his work and i like a fair few of his films, but the direction he has taken with the new batch of star wars s**ts me beyond belief.

my main problem: R2D2 never had rocket packs, so why do we need to see it in attack of the clones? oh that's right, so we can see all the bloody special effects they did on the film.

it's just a money making merchandising machine and nothing else, story is almost non existant [no new real information has really been given]

sigh... i'll shut up now, i've vented my anger for today!

[yaddo42]

I love watching the TBN bunch promoting their movies like "The Omega Code" and "Megiddo".

They made such a big deal out of the first film breaking into the top 10 movie grosses  (#7) its opening week, harping on it even though its box office take dropped greatly from the second week on. The first one made money because it was so cheap ($5 mil, IIRC) and they had little to no advertsing outside of promos on their own channel. They never mentioned the box office take or performance of "Megiddo", so I'm guessing it did poorly compared since it cost a lot more (about $10 to $12 mil).

Also how proudly they listed the cast members like they were bigger stars than they were. Casper Van Dien? The Crown Prince of bad straight to video crap. Michael York? A once medium level star in the 1970s with a respectable career now best known for the Austin Powers flicks. Catherine Oxenberg? A minor aging starlet most famous for being the daughter of the Queen of Yugoslavia and being married to producer Robert Evans only long enough to have it annulled.

I love that they threw the name Udo Kier around when he was in "Megiddo", but never seemed to interview him or mention his other film credits. I guess films like "German Chainsaw Massacre" would be hard to explain to the TBN audience.