The Book of Eli; Pt 1:Before It Begins

“The movie is about personal faith and purpose when all is lost.”
~Co-Director Allen Hughes

Since the beginning of written fiction literature mankind has been expressing concernes about the end of time. Each ancient story is about preserving legacy through battles of great evil and overcoming supernatural deities in hopes to keep our lives meaningful and remembered for all eternity. Modern stories have proven to be no different.

~Watch the Trailor (HD)~

The Book of Eli is a post apocalyptic drama of one man holding the key to the rest of mankind’s survival. Man’s evil has prevailed over their good conscience as the world was spun into chaos. The tag line that is becoming so intriguing from the film is “Some will kill to have it. He will kill to protect it.”

I haven’t seen this movie(release date: January 15, 2010), but from what little I can gather, I don’t know that we will ever know what is actually in Eli’s book. So to stay true to our philosophical approach to films and stories, what does this say about mankind? More specifically, what does this say about our culture today?

Was it not enough to have a

Mad Max? Water World?

28 Days Later? The Postman?

I am Legand? Wall-E?

Have we not used this genre of films to state every political and nonconformist party line and each bohemian manifesto already? What else could possibly be said? As we discussed in our last blog post, “what has been is what will be”.

Whew….glad we got that out of our system. The Elephant in the room has been addressed and we can move on! To answer our philosophical inquiries, we must first watch the movie with our presuppositions aside.

My challenge to you is this:

While the next week passes, and you approach the opening weekend(Jan 15) of The Book of Eli, let us forget that we have been betrayed by apocalyptic movies in the past. Lets forget that they seemed to have had a underlaying theme of persuasion and you felt duped when in the end, it was just another political satire . When you sit down in that theater next to good friends and good popcorn, remember; It’s just a movie. Let the Hughes brothers, who directed the film, take you on a journey. Forget your stance on things for a moment, and try to relate to the characters. Don’t let your overgrown ego get in the way of great story telling. We’ll talk more about the film after I’ve seen it!

Feel free to post comments. as you may see it before I do. But be kind and don’t spoil the movie on my blog. Bash it! Love it! Just don’t spoil it!