Eh. It was too predictable. I saw the ending coming a mile away.
I mean, as soon as I saw Jesus on the screen, I turned to my friend, and said, “He’s gonna die.”
I tell ya, though. The movie was SO good, someone should have written a book about it.
Why unfitting? Jesus death is referred to as his passion, because he passionately endured it for the sake of our salvation.
I think the point is missed that this isn’t just about Jesus the man getting beat up and killed, but about Jesus the God willingly giving his life for us.
Perhaps you should try to understand the Catholic view on salvific suffering. Gibson is not a sadist, but someone who views suffering as necessary for redemption and glory.
Anti-semitic? I missed something. Yes I liked the movie I just wonder if it would have been as successful if Mel Gibson had nothing to do with the film.
I never understood the Jewish protests against the film because it simply followed the biblical account and didn’t go out of it’s way to make Jews look bad.
I was hoping the DVD had Alternative Endings. Or at least an outtakes reel.
Here was my reaction after I saw it (as an atheist)
I just saw the movie and I have to come clean. This movie stirred much stronger emotions in me than I though possible. I can honestly say I feel sorry for Jesus.
BUT… not in the way you’d expect. I feel anger at this God for putting that poor guy through that. The scourging, the beatings, the whipping, the nailing, and the scourging (I have to mention it twice). It was horrible. Of course I remember the Christian doctrine: it was a sacrifice for us, and it was actually our sins that put them there. To which I strongly disagree with.
We are talking about the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent Lord of all creation here. In all his infinite power and wisdom, WHY did he decide the ONLY way to solve the sin issue was to torture and slaughter Jesus in front of his own mother?
“Making God Almighty act like a passionate man, that killed his son when he could not revenge himself in any other way. The idea I had that God was too good to do such an action, and also too almighty to be under any necessity of doing it” - Thomas Paine
It would be like my dad telling me these guys are going to kill your brothers unless I give them $10 and let them torture you. I’d be like, no Dad, you have more. Give them a $1000 and we can negotiate the beating.
As an atheist, I see it all as just a story, and, if anything, I am more relieved. I figured I’d walk away feeling “Oh well, as God, Jesus knew he had it coming, it would only last a few hours, he would be back up in no time, etc”. But I’m quite shocked at how I reacted emotionally. Even if I were to one day believe again in a higher power, Yahweh would be the last one my list.
“Considering the picture that is drawn for us of the Supreme Being, the most righteous soul must be tempted to wish that he did not exist.” - Denis Diderot
Personally, I left this film feeling used. It felt overwhelmingly manipulative to me - playing up the torture specifically to make the audience feel bad. Almost as if to say “See? See what he did for you? Why don’t you appreciate it more?”
I saw nothing anti-Semitic in the parts that I actually watched. I will admit that I fast-forwarded the torture scenes, which means that I wound up watching about 20-30 minutes of film, if even that much. Good thing it was a free rental. No way was I going to pay to see it in a theatre and then just have to walk out during all the unwatchable sequences.
So I guess you might say I watched a Portion of the Passion.
What was the table joke? There was a joke in this movie??
That’s because you haven’t considered the possibilities! I mean, there’s the Mary Mag thing (remember The Last Temptation of Christ?), there’s Thomas the “Beloved Disciple” (wink-wink, nudge-nudge, knowhatImean, saynomore! 
), and of course, there’s “Suffer the little children to come unto me!” 
[Jesus lies back on nearest couch, crooks finger at crowd of assembled children, sticks out and waggles tongue, turns pitcher of wine on end table into Kool-Aid]
[BrainGlutton goes to Hell just for thinking the above thoughts]
A conversation I had recently with a fellow non-Christian heathen:
Me: I saw Passion of the Christ on DVD last night.
Her: Why?
Me: Are you kidding? To watch Jesus Christ get beaten, scourged, humiliated, tortured and murdered! It was great!
Her: Oh yeah. There is that.
In a flashback, Carpenter Jesus builds a small table the size and shape of a modern desk, and talks about how everyone in the future will be using them to eat off of. Mary remarks that it’s too damn tall, how is anyone supposed to sit at it? Will they eat standing up? It was sort of a Monty Python moment.
And the punchline: “Eh, it’ll never catch on.”
This is an old joke used in movies or TV shows set in the past, or in flashbacks. For instance:
In Happy Days: “Dad, you’re wrong. He’s not washed up. George Blanda has 2 or 3 good years left.”
In Do Over: “The kid’s crazy. He wants me to invest in some company called Intel. Computers are just a fad! I put all my money in Betamax machines.”
Mel should have left out the Satan character. Superfluous and/or creepy in most scenes–did we really need “him” hanging out at the flagellation scene to remind us that Christ was being afflicted with the sins of the world? And the Satan-baby was just creepy. Someone suggested to me that it was supposed to be the Anti-Christ, but I thought it was unnecessary. And the last scene of him screaming in hell at the moment of Christ’s death was really silly and almost made me laugh out loud.
Slo-mo special effects were cheesy, cheesy, cheesy. Especially bad when used for Christ’s (multiple–more than the traditional 3) falling sequences while carrying the cross.
Herod as a drag queen. No comments.
The raven picking out the bad thief’s eye was also silly.
However, I didn’t mind the flashback scenes, and in fact found them the strongest points of the film–a nice way of underlining the significance of particular scenes (like FriarTed, I admit I got choked up to see Mary’s reaction to Christ’s fall on the way to Calvary juxtaposed with her memory of him falling down as a child–probably the highlight of the whole film for me). The table flashback was a little corny, but I thought it was kind of cute–even though I still think that the best depiction of Christ’s carpentry efforts was performed by Kids in the Hall.
Of course, a lot of the film plays out as a traditional Passion play, and I really liked it on that level. As a historical account of Christ’s life or times, it’s almost worthless, but I didn’t consider that to be the main point of the film.
I did find it curious, though, that so many evangelicals embraced the film. It seemed to convey such a thoroughly old-school Catholic perspective, particularly with the focus on Christ’s bloody, bodily suffering (as well as with apocryphal characters like Veronica)–not the most likely candidate, I would think, for ecumenicalism.
From the theater when I saw the movie:
“Hey, look! It’s Batboy!”
Of course, it did. The scene in which Satan appears among the Jews taunting Jesus was derived a nun’s vision that the Jews were demon-possessed and evil. Ditto for the scene in which the Temple is destroyed after Jesus dies. The gospels say only that the Temple veil was torn, but the destruction of the Temple symbolizes the victory over evil Jewry.
I didn’t get antisemitism at all from that movie. I got that the power structure of the temple was corrupt, but not Jews.
It’s the only movie I regret seeing. And I’ve seen some bad movies.
Not that PotC was bad - it was a beautiful film, with excellent music, solid performances all around, and adequate to good cinematography. But, as Stan said, it’s a snuff film. It’s horrific.
It’s unfortunate that Mel missed such an opportunity - he could have chosen to establish more of the message of Jesus’s life, his teaching, and how he lived. And he chose not to. Instead, Gibson reinforced the view of Christianity as being a religion that’s focused on death. And that’s too bad.
I saw this on PayPerView just a couple of days ago, and although the story was based on the Bible (I so wanted to say novel, but I can’t quite bring myself to), it had an incredible LACK of plot. All that it was about was Jesus’ torture and suffering. And back in the day when I believed I fell under the Christian banner, I understood its importance. Even now, I see where it’s a strong, emotional evocation to everyone. However, that alone doesn’t make the Christ passionate. It seemed almost gleeful in its depiction of violence. Like we were watching another Lethal Weapon sequel (but worse), rather than a loving statement of the Son of God who took away our sin and gave greatest meaning to the most important commandment of all.
I just felt there was tons more to share in addition to the focus that Mel chose and by not doing so, alienated a lot of people who might otherwise have benefited spiritually from having seen it.
Oh, and I agree whole-heartedly with the attempts to paint certain situations with an evil tint (IE: the crow, Satan, etc.). It was bad enough on its own merits, no need to elaborate. And perhaps I took away the wrong thing, but I agree that I felt sympathetic towards Pontius. If that narration was anywhere near accurate (and I’m no longer really up on my studies here), that man busted his butt to prevent Jesus’ demise. It’s like destiny had him, as well as Judas, roped in. Peter too, with the whole “thrice denial before the cock crows” idea. So if that is an example of free will, I’d love to see what pre-ordination is typically deemed by those who do not believe in the concept. :eek:
there was a big discussion–well, probably more than one–about this several months ago on these boards; I have also been wondering how anybody involved in Jesus’s death was completely culpable since they were all doing exactly what they were supposed (fated?) to do and what he expected them to do.