ERAGON and THE FOUNTAIN - Film Reviews

Below is an article Of Dragons, Magic, Immortality and Special Effects from my magazine column, QUANTUM CINEMA in M. & Ms. Magazine, March 2007



Two fantasy films are making the rounds of the world’s movie houses this year – Eragon and The Fountain. One is about mythical beasts in a mythical land which looks like medieval Europe. The other is a story of a man and a woman in three different periods – 500 years ago, today and 500 years later. The first is too juvenile in its simplicity; the other is pointless in its complexity.

ERAGON

It has always been my contention that no writer would ever go hungry in America. Anybody who can write a few coherent sentences can go places, especially to Hollywood. If your parents are publishers, you can even have your own book published even if you are just a high school kid. And with luck, your book could be made into a multimillion dollar movie.

Christopher Paolini was “home schooled” and finished high school at 15. When his parents said he should wait a couple more years before attending college, he wrote a story about dragons and dragon riders. When he was 19, his parents, who happen to be publishers, printed his book. A bigger publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, saw the book and re-published it with bigger promotional budget. It was just a matter of time before Hollywood made the kid’s story into a multimillion dollar movie spectacle.

ERAGON is now a big budget movie helmed by first-time director Stefen Fangmeier. The script is presumably like the novel. It is simply, well, juvenile.

If the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail sued Da Vinci Code’s Dan Brown for plagiarism, it is a wonder why the authors of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings did not sue Paolini. They would have a better case than the accusers of Dan Brown.

The story is about a boy named Eragon whose cousin had to leave the village. Eragon meets an old dragon rider. The old warrior Brom tells him of the time of heroic knights patrolling the world and teaches him magic and swordsmanship. Eragon goes on to rescue Princess Arya, a beautiful Elf, from the clutches of Durza the Shade, the henchman of the evil King Galbatorix. Brom, the old dragon rider, gave up his life for Eragon, the new dragon rider.

This sounds like the story of a boy named Luke Skywalker who meets an old Jedi warrior, Obi Wan Kenobi who tells him of the time of heroic knights patrolling the world and teaches him swordsmanship. Luke goes on to rescue Princess Leia from the clutches of the evil Darth Vader, henchman of the Emperor. Obi-Wan, the old Jedi knight, gave up his life for Luke, the new Jedi
On his way to Star Wars, Eragon made a detour through Lord of the Rings picking up Frodo’s cousin Bilbo Baggins, who had to leave the Shire; the beautiful Elven Princess Arwen; the arch evil magician Saruman and his demons, etc.

But both Star Wars and Lord of the Rings did not have Saphira, the last of the dragons.
This mighty female dragon comes with the very sexy voice of Rachel Weisz. She is the female version of Dragonheart’s Draco, the last of the dragons and who has the very macho voice of Sean Connery.

The dragons of Eragon’s Alagaësia are unique. The eggs hatch only when they have found their “rider”. The dragon and the rider have intertwined destinies. They not only communicate with each other telepathically, their very lives are connected. When the rider dies, the dragon dies with him but not vice versa. This dragon needs only a day or so to transform from a baby dragon to a giant one and a few more days to become a fire-breathing full fledged adult dragon.

ACTORS YOUNG AND OLD

Imitating Star Wars’ George Lucas, Fangmeier got an unknown, Ed Speleers, to act as Eragon. Like Mark Hamill (Luke) and Hayden Christensen (Anakin), he doesn’t seem to know the very basics of acting. If Star Wars had Alec Guiness, Peter Cushing et al to support the neophyte actors, Fangmeier got Jeremy Irons, Robert Carlyle and John Malkovitch to support the young actors of Eragon.

Irons and Carlyle, naturally, stole the show from the younger ones. But Malkovitch was a disappointment. He practically never left his throne the whole show.

SPECIAL EFFECTS

Fangmeier’s special effects expertise carried the day for Eragon. Fangmeier was the visual effects director of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. The dragon is quite endearing and the final battle between Eragon and the evil shade Durza was excellently done.
Eragon may not win awards like Lord of the Rings which won several OSCARS including Best Picture and Best Director, but with its special effects, it will win the hearts of many youngsters. There may not be any fire-breathing dragons, swashbuckling swordsmen and fighting princesses anymore, but they will forever live in the minds of young boys and girls.

THE FOUNTAIN

The Fountain is the story of a couple of souls in three incarnations. Tomas is a Spanish conquistador who is chosen by the Spanish queen, Isabela, to look for the biblical Tree of Life somewhere in Mayan territory in Central America. In his present incarnation, Tommy is a medical doctor (oncologist) in the US trying to find a cure for the tumor that is killing his wife, Izzi. In the future, Tom is an astronaut circa 25th century. He lives beside a magical tree in a space bubble and is constantly disturbed by visions of a woman, presumably his wife.

Or, this is a story of Tommy, an oncologist, in search for a cure for his wife Izzi’s illness. Izzi writes a book titled The Fountain about a conquistador chosen by the Spanish queen, Isabela, to look for the biblical Tree of Life somewhere in Mayan territory. Because of the stress of the fear of losing his beloved wife and his untiring efforts to find a cure, Tommy hallucinates and sees himself as an astronaut circa 25th century meditating beside a magical tree (like Gautama Buddha) in a space bubble and is constantly disturbed by visions of his wife.

GREAT ACTING

Hugh Jackman proves once again that he is one of today’s better actors. Whether as a Spanish conquistador or a medical doctor or a yogi spaceman, Hugh Jackman performs with great intensity.

Jackman’s counterpoint is Rachel Weisz, whose melodious voice made Eragon’s dragon quite endearing. While she was merely a voice in Eragon, in The Fountain, she has three characters – the regal Queen Isabela, the sweet and dying Izzi and the ephemeral visitor of the spaceman Tom.

SPECIAL EFFECTS

Computer generated special effects saved the day for Eragon. In The Fountain, it is also the Special Effects that are the film’s saving grace. But instead of ordinary computer graphics, The Fountain used special effects in its photography, creating mystical landscapes and emotion-filled images. Although The Fountain is marketed as a science fiction film, its images are more fantastic than scientific.


VISUAL MEDIUM

Eragon and The Fountain prove that films are more visual than verbal. The average person might throw out the book Eragon for being too simple or the script of The Fountain for being too complicated. But the average person can easily appreciate watching on the big screen a fire-breathing dragon battling a ghostly beast or a 25th century Buddha levitating and meditating beside the Tree of Life inside a space bubble.

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Published in Mr. & Ms. Magazine Supermonthly of the Body, Mind and Spirit, Mar. 2007

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Deconstructing Da Vinci Code during Lent

When I was a kid, all TV programs and movies in the Philippine were all related to the story of Jesus Christ or the Bible. Because of this, I saw The Ten Commandments, The Bible, Ben Hur, Samson and Delilah, David and Bathsheba, The Robe, and films like these more than ten times at least. There was no choice because there was nothing else to see. Besides, when I was a kid, I just wanted to go to the movies with my mother so I could gorge on chocolates and popcorn. We never watched a movie without anything to munch on.

The kids today are so lucky. TV and movie houses are showing regular fare.

For those who want to ponder upon religious thoughts, below is an excerpt from my post in my other blog. It is about the Da Vinci Code and the topicts surrounding it -- Jesus Christ, Mary Magdalene, Judas Iscariot, the Jews, The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson, Dan Brown, etc.:

Deconstructing the Da Vinci Code

by Jamal Ashley Abbas

(Published in the Mr. & Ms. Magazine: Body, Mind & Spirit, July 2006)

Film adaptation of literary works started with no less than the inventors of the film apparatus – the Lumière brothers. The book was the all-time best seller – The Bible. The film was La Vie et Passion de Jésus Christ. In Film Studies, the adaptation of classical literature is usually given more attention than those of contemporary books. Contemporary film adaptations are generally studied for their portrayal of current political culture.

Da Vinci Code, the movie, is an adaptation of a very contemporary novel but the structure of the story rests firmly on the New Testament and the early Christian Gnostic writings.

While the novel/film is ostensibly a thriller beginning with a murder and the consequential cops-and-suspects chase, what are foregrounded are the alleged marriage of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene and the existence of their descendants.

The text of the film calls on so many other texts and subtexts. A proper critical analysis of the film would require so many pages.

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For the full text go to: M-Reality: The Mind/Body/Spirit blog
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PACQUIAO TAKES BOXING CROWN FROM MARQUEZ

Filipino fighter Manny Pacquiao has been dreaming of the super featherweight crown for more than four years. In 2004, even though he floored Juan Manuel Marquez three times in the first round, the fight was declared a draw.

For some reasons, he got to fight the world's best boxers, Marco Antonio Barreira and Erik Morales when these guys just happened to have lost their championship belts.

Last year, several Filipino boxers won world championships yet the Philippines' best boxer was crownless or beltless.

Finally, Marquez, the WBC super featherweight champion decided to finally give Pacquiao a rematch after 4 years.

Not many people gave Marquez a chance. But he came well-prepared. And he almost took the match.


TENTATIVE AND SLOW

Pacquiao was very tentative and quite slow. Perhaps it is the effect of going into the ring so many pounds higher than the weight limit.

The fantastic hand speed of Pacquiao was not seen often. And he seemed to be afraid of mixing it up. It was a very different Pacquiao out there. There didn't seem to be any fire in him. Is he near the end of the road?

Perhaps he was distracted by all the instructions his corner had been shouting the whole duration of the match. It was irritating for me. A fighter could not fight and listen to instructions at the same time.

KNOCKDOWN

A good combination of punches floored Marquez in the third round. Pacquiao followed it up with a flurry of punches. Marquez was in a daze but survived.

In the fourth round, the old Pacquiao would have gone straight and mixed it up with the opponent come what may. But this new Pacquiao was tentative. And so Marquez recovered.

Fortunately, Pacquiao got a second wind in the 10th round and staggered Marquez.


SPLIT DECISION

Pacquiao was lucky to have won a Split Decision. He fought a much better fight in their first match yet he just got a draw there.

I thought the judges would give the match to Marquez because he was the champion. Champions are usually given additional credits or benefit of the doubt. But then, Pacquiao was at least a 2-1 favorite. A lot more people in the gambling town of Las Vegas would be mad had Marquez won.

Pacquiao's handlers seemed to be training him to fight in a higher division by making him fight a lot heavier than he should. They should not have not made the Marquez fight a trial run for Pacquiao's future fights in the higher division. Pacquiao almost lost this fight.

And by the way Pacquiao fought, it seems that it would be better for him to remain in the super featherweight category.


WRONG ADVICE

I now realize that a boxer's coach and / or trainer can actually cause the boxer's defeat. In this case, the advice and training given to Pacaquiao almost cost him the fight.

Pacquiao, like George Foreman and Mike Tyson, is a power puncher. The power puncher's strategy is based on offense. The power puncher must punch his way through the best defense put up by the enemy. His best defense is offense.

If Foreman or Tyson would be told to think of defense first, they would not last long, especially if they would be fighting intelligent boxers.

Marquez is one of the most intelligent boxers today. He knows how to maintain a strategy and change tactics. He is a fast thinker. The way to fight him is to attack him like a bulldozer just like what Pacquiao did in their first match.


COUNTER-PUNCHER

Marquez is one of the best counter-punchers in the business. Incredibly, Pacquiao's handlers wanted him to counter-punch the best counter-puncher around!

From an attacking power-puncher, they wanted Pacquiao to counter-punch a counter-puncher. This is the silliest thing I have ever heard.

EXTRA WEIGHT

Add to this the fact that they made Pacquiao come into the ring ten pounds or so heavier than the weight limit, then it is truly remarkable that Pacquiao was still able to eke out a win.

The extra weight seemed to have made him slow-footed and heavy-handed, especially since he was ordered to counter-punch instead of simply attacking.

At any rate, congratulations to the Pac-Man. In spite of the wrong advice and training he was given, he still managed to win. He has now beaten three of the world's best boxers, pound-for-pound . He is the first Asian to have won 3 world boxing titles.

Whatever reasons his handlers had in giving Pacquiao the wrong training, I hope they now realize their folly. I hope they won't do it again.

Mary Magdalene, Judas and the Da Vinci Code Origins

March 8, 2008 is International Women's Day. On this day, women all over the world not only celebrate the role of women in today's society but also to fight for more women's rights.

Women have been maligned in literature and myth just as much, if not worse than in real life. One such woman was Mary Magdalene, who for some reasons, is thought of as a prostitute by most people today. That belief has absolutely no documentary basis. It is not even in the Bible. The book and the movie, Da Vinci Code, has tried to correct that impression.

Below is an article I wrote a couple of years ago for Mr. & Ms. magazine which concerned Mary Magdalene and the Da Vinci Code.





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Two documentaries are sure to get the ire of the Christian Church -- The National Geographic Channel’s The Gospel of Judas (2006) and Michael Bott’s Origins of the Da Vinci Code (2005).


DA VINCI CODE

The Origins of the Da Vinci Code documentary explains more fully the background of the secret Rosicrucian society Priory of Sion which plays an important role in Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code. Brown’s book has so far sold some 40 million hardcover copies worldwide plus millions more in paperback. The film version is expected to be a top grosser.

Brown’s novel is quite mediocre. Its research is elementary, its artistry is shallow. As a thriller, it is nothing compared to say, Le Carré’s novels like Smiley’s People or Umberto Eco’s In the Name of the Rose.

But it had a sure-fire chance of being a best-seller. Brown merely created a fictional story based on the non-fiction 1982 best-seller The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail. Mixing religion with royalty has always been the obsession of many people in the world. Thus we had god-kings and the concept of the divine right of kings.

The Bible insists that Jesus came from the royal House of David even though he was merely a step-son of Joseph. The Muslim holy book, the Qur’an, traces Jesus’s bloodline through Mary, his mother. Can an adopted son inherit a bloodline?

And now, according to the Da Vinci Code documentary and novel, Mary Magdalene too was of the blood royal. Henry Lincoln, co-author of the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and main on-camera resource person in the documentary, explains that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and so her womb was the Grail which contains Jesus’s blood and which creates the bloodline of their descent.

The documentary also alleged that Jesus and Mary’s bloodline somehow married into France’s Merovingian dynasty which means that their descendants now have Jewish and French royal lineage.

However, instead of delving deeper into the royalty-religion union, the documentary appears to be more like Henry Lincoln’s way of hitching his wagon to the Da Vinci Code novel’s popularity in order to promote his books – the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, the Holy Places (1991) and The Templars’ Secret Island (2000).

Meanwhile, Holy Blood Holy Grail co-authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh unsuccessfully sued Dan Brown for plagiarism or more precisely for “appropriating the architecture” of their book.


MARY MAGDALENE

Like Sophie in Brown’s novel, most people will ask, “Mary Magdalene, the prostitute?”

Any critical thinker would agree with the character Sir Leigh Teabing whose answer to Sophie’s question was, “Magdalene was no such thing. That unfortunate misconception is the legacy of a smear campaign launched by the early Church.”

According to the Concordance of the New American Bible (1970) published by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C.: “Mary Magdalene is frequently identified BUT WITHOUT ANY REASON with the woman who was a sinner in the city and who came to weep at Jesus’ feet during the banquet offered by Simon (Luke 7:36-50).” (emphasis added).

Apparently, Biblical scholars and Church fathers know that Magdalene was not a prostitute but they let their followers believe otherwise.


JUDAS ISCARIOT

If Magdalene is looked down upon, Judas’s fate is even worse – he is vilified and demonized. Judas, considered the most educated of the Apostles, is condemned to eternal damnation by the Church for betraying Jesus. Yet, according to the gospels, Jesus knew of the betrayal. And according to Matthew, he was filled with remorse, gave back the silver and hanged himself (Matt. 27:3-5).

Peter, who denied Christ three times, is now said to be the guardian of the gates of Heaven.

The National Geographic Channel’s documentary The Gospel of Judas announced through world-wide cable television the discovery of the Gospel of Judas.

According to the documentary, the discovery of the gospel is indeed the stuff thriller novels are made of. Discovered by an Arab shepherd in a cave, it was sold in the black market, stolen, reappeared in the black market, brought to Geneva, then brought to the US where it lay disintegrating in a bank vault for more than a decade. It was sold later to an antiquities dealer and finally to the present owner, the Maecenas Foundation in Switzerland.

The documentary proved that the Judas gospel was authentic in the sense that the papyrus (the paper it was written on) was radiocarbon-dated to the 2nd century. This is older than any existing New Testament copy.

And most importantly, the documentary showed that Judas Iscariot as portrayed by the Church may not be the true Judas Iscariot after all.


EARLY CHRISTIANITY

One might well ask, “Where did these gospels come from?” “Why weren’t they in the Bible?” The answer of course lies in history.

According to the New Testament, after Christ’s death, Peter headed the Christian community in Jerusalem. Paul joined the Church in Antioch. Later, he and Barnabas were charged with spreading Jesus’s words in Asia Minor. It did not take long before Barnabas and Paul had a falling out and they went their separate ways.

The Apostles preached mostly to Jews, Paul preached mostly to the Gentiles / pagans.

One hundred or so years after the death of the apostles, there were hundreds of Christian sects. Two main streams of Christianity emerged – the Judaeo Christians and the Pauline Christians.

The Judaeo Christians were also called Unitarians since they believed in One God, with a host of angels and demons and Jesus as the Prophet or Messiah. The Paulinians believed in the Trinity and other teachings propagated by St, Paul, a Roman citizen named Saul who converted to Christianity and became its greatest evangelist and proselytizer.

As mentioned in The Da Vinci Code, Constantine the Great proclaimed Christianity the religion of the Empire. He convened the Council of Nicaea, which finally chose which doctrines, gospels, epistles, acts, etc. were to be considered canons of the Church. The Nicene creed, which became the cornerstone of Christianity, is Paulinian.

Out of the many Christian writings, only the following were considered canonical: the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, the Acts of the Apostles (mainly Paul’s acts), the epistles and letters of Paul (including those thought to be Paul’s) and the Book of Revelation.

All other gospels, epistles, letters, etc. which were not Paulinian were declared heretical and destroyed. Some of the “heretical” documents included the Gospel of Truth, the Letter to Rheginus, Treatise on the Three Natures, Apocalypse of Adam, the Gospel of Matthias, Gospel of Philip, Acts of Peter, Acts of Thomas, the Gospel of Barnabas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene and the Gospel of Judas. All these writings had been presumed lost. They are known to us only through the works of their rivals -- Paul and the Paulinian fathers. For example, people know of the existence of the Gospel of Judas because it was attacked by St. Irenaeus in one of his writings circa 180 AD.

Although Jesus lived well within historical time and in the midst of four civilizations – Egyptian, Jewish, Greek and Roman -- there is a dearth of knowledge on his life. Some people have constructed various conspiracy theories – Vatican, Jewish, etc. – to explain this anomaly.


NEW RENAISSANCE?

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Palestine in 1947-1956 proved the existence of a mystic community of Jews called the Essenes during the period of 2 century BC to 1 century AD. The discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library scrolls in Egypt in 1945 gave the world volumes of documents including the non-canonical Gospels of Philip, Thomas, and Mary Magdalene. And the discovery of the Gospel of Judas in the 1970s has now given us a new portrait of Judas Iscariot.

Discovery of the biblical documents did not mean its immediate announcement to the world. The contents of much of the documents are still unpublished and there is always a shroud of secrecy surrounding these ancient manuscripts. Mass media products like the Da Vinci Code and Gospel of Judas books and film/video documentaries can help insure that the public will know exactly what these biblical writings contain. After all, what happened in the Middle East during that historical era directly affects the beliefs of billions of people belonging to the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition.

After a thousand years of Dark Ages in Europe, the Arabs, who had discovered Aristotle and other ancient Greek writings, re-introduced ancient Greek thought to Western Europeans. It must be noted that after the Fall of Rome, Western Europe was invaded and ruled by barbarians. The re-introduction of Aristotelian thought by the Arabs ushered in the Re-birth or Renaissance of Europe.

In the 20th century, in the 2nd millennium of Christianity, at the end of the Age of Pisces, the world is re-introduced to the ancient Judaeo-Christian writings through the discovery by the Arabs of the ancient scrolls. Will this usher in a Global Renaissance in the Age of Aquarius?