I'm not so sure about that. A contact that Bryan Young (of "Big Shiny Robot!") has at Lucasfilm said "We hope fans will wait to see for themselves how they fit into the Saga before making any judgments."

So that seems to suggest a different theory ... Lucas, upset that the big dramatic "NOOO!" at the end of Episode III was universally derided (and not the big, powerful emotional scene he was hoping it would be), so he tries to "win fans over" to "appreciate" that scene by connecting it with one of the most powerful scenes of the saga. That it does, of course, bring down the latter scene is not the point.

George Lucas ... morally bankrupt charlatan, or just creatively bankrupt artist offended by mass criticism?

Then again, it might not be Lucas at all... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BMgegut3UM
;)

>a serial-killing, eco-terrorist Marxist does not become a conservative hero just because he spouts off that he doesn’t trust the federal government to provide quality health care.

... and yet a pro-adultery, pro-selfishness, anti-Christian work like "Atlas Shrugged" is called a conservative "must-see" movie (with a "timeless" message) simply because it supports free enterprise and opposes statism... :rolleyes:

I'm just sayin'...

Did you have to bring *this* dreck up again?!

I thought we'd finally been over the fawning over this evil work around here. The fact that the movie bombed should be a cause for rejoicing, not for articles like these.

"But Rand attacked the welfare state!" So? She not only rejected that, but private charity as well - in fact, she opposed the very *idea* of one man serving another. It still amazes me that people who claim to be Christian put their heart and soul into defending and promoting works such Rand's, works that are fundamentally at odds with the Beatitudes.

"But it's a timeless message for all time!" No, it's not. Do you really think the Tea Party came about because of a massive surge of people reading "Atlas Shrugged," "Anthem" and "The Fountainhead?" No, it's because people were sick of the ineffectiveness and other deleterious effects of the welfare state. (Look at the former Warsaw Pact- why do you think Solidary came about: Catholicism, or Rand?) What would a successful "Atlas Shrugged" movie result in? Best case scenario: people go in, hate it, and it becomes the cinematic equivalent of Rebecca Black's "Friday." Worst case scenario: formerly God-fearing Christians turn to a philosophy that's just as sexually licentious as liberalism, and the nation further declines into depravity and decay.

Of course, for daring to be less than enthusiastically praiseworthy of Rand, I will be castigated as a leftist, an entitled state employee, and a "libtard." I am none of these things, but tribalism has a nasty of habit of infecting people's minds...

OK, so perhaps Cameron isn't the most qualified person to respond to Hawking. Still, that doesn't mean that Hawking is right.

Hawking's speciality is science (physics, to be exact), but in his recent comments he's veered off from physics to philosophy and theology, fields in which he is not trained. For a better response to Hawking than Cameron's here's author Mike Flynn: http://m-francis.livejournal.com/200441.html
And Fr. Barron, who's published a large number of videos on different topics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-yx5WN4efo

P.S. Also, when King Johns yells out "Albany! Albany!," I can almost hear the MST3K/Rifftrax crowd start to should random state capitals and/or NY state city names...

There's only one quibble I have with the clip ... King John's mentioning that he has the Pope's support does give the insinuation that this movie will have a "freedom good, Catholic Church bad" vibe whenever said issue comes up in the story.

That would indeed be ironic, as the historical John seems to have been quite a sacreligious man, and his squabbles with the Church actually got him excommunicated and even forced the pope to put England under interdict. Now, to be fair, John and the Pope had been reconciled by the time of the film's events, but I don't think Innocent III was necessarily endorsing John's tyranny. The potential anti-Catholicism I mentioned could have been avoided with some dialogue like this from the castle side:
(John says he's got the backing of the pope)
Character 1: He *does* have a point there...
Character 2: The Pope's all the way in Italy, right? So forgive him, for he knows not what he did...

Nevertheless, this is the only pitfall I can see from the preview. Other than that, it looks like a film worth seeing!

Nice point, but you lost me on "enhanced interrogation." (Yes, it is wrong and yes, waterboarding is torture - everyone knew it was until George W. Bush's presidency...)

(N.B. I am not a pacifist. I do, however, believe that their is such a thing as ius in bellum as well as ad bellum, and that some of the US' wartime conduct - both now and in earlier conflicts - violates that.)

It seems to me that Nolte, like all too many Christians in America, have automatically assumed that anything and everything that is "right-wing" and/or "American" is necessarily "Christian." It would explain why someone who claims to be a follower of Christ would support such things as torture ("enhanced interrogation"), mass murder (the nukings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), and philosophies that are fundamentally incompatible with the Gospel (such as that of Ayn Rand.)

(Indeed, to try and reconcile Objectivism with Christianity would require mental gymnastics worthy of a pro-abortion Catholic politician.)

>Do you recognize your self-righteous, judgmental, closed mindedness?
Please. Flattery will get you nowhere.

I'm not "diluting" the word. You're narrowing its definition so that it excludes whatever "enhanced interrogation" methods the US is using, and so you can claim "we're not torturing!"

Oh, and waterboarding *is* illegal according to US law: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti...

>my royal Polish butt.
So, would that be of the Jagiello, Vasa, or Sobieski lineage? ;)