h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I think that there's a lot to be said about the theological debate about this gospel but to some extent that's represented in the film... do you think it's material for another entry?

To me, that was the interesting thing about the film - the way it represented that Theological debate. That was the key element along with the mise-en-scene. The story itself was shite, if not non-existant (i say this having not seen its for two years). Without those elements it would have had no narrative, no drive and no interest.

Ok. Um. NONE of this is helpful in regards to my entry. Debate it on the article page! But it's too much about the text and not enough about the film...

I *shall* go and amend that line. Although, the point of quoting the pre-credit parts was to cement the background of the film.

Autist, you should do an entry on the Gospel...!! You know far more about it than I do...*humble*

Actually, that line shall stay as it is. 1945 *is* new in terms of the Catholic Church...as well as the word "new" referring not to the text, but to the time period in which the church had hold of it...it was new to them.

Gaargh. Divert theological debate elsewhere!!!

Humm but the story just has one take on the theological debate, it was very clear that the gospel was true and that the church is wrong. A quick search on the web gives me the arguement that the church seems to be using that the gospel could have been discarded on the inference of god!

Yep. A certain h2g2 fundamentalist Christian uses that argument too...

But this isn't helping!!! This thread needs to be about my article...not about the Gospel

to be honest it took ages to post my last post and by that time I hadn't noticed your posts..

The article it's self seems great to me!

I'm not happy with the last lot of paragraphs actually. Any suggestions in how to improve them?

I suggested that you change that line not to clarify that the gospel was discovered recently, but that it was written in antiquity, (ie not a Book of Mormon / Rev. Moon type thing).

You have a typo "Plent" for plenty.

You could have a few more cast and crew credits. I assumed from your earlier post that the writer Tom Lazarus was using a psuedonym for this film, which would be fitting / logical. But it seems he's been arround for years, starting out writing for Charlies Angels and Columbo, these days it seems he mainly works in porn. The screenplay was co-written with Rick Rammage, who through he sounds like he might also write porn, tends to write films with an ecclesiastical / supernatural bent. Wainwright is an English director, previously noted for his work on Micheal Jackson's HIStory film.

OK Saturine, sorry to be a little bit of a wet blanket, but you're asking for advice and here's mine:

Minimize the opinions (although, frankly I agree with most of them).

You do a really nice job of writing throughout. It's a description of the movie without being a *criticial* review that bestows praise or damnation (sorry 'bout the pun). But in a few spots you tack on some opinions before getting to the point, e.g:

"The visuals of this film are incredible. Wainwright purposely kept all background and scenery colours to earth tones, black and gold, in order to accentuate it's vividity and presence of certain key images;" . . .

If you were to drop the praise ("incredible") we could come to our own opinions based upon your outstanding description. Does that make sense?

Reread your article (especially the beginnings of paras) and look for some of what I mentioned. I think an accurate description is praise enough.

BTW - perhaps some links to h2g2 religion areas as well as other movie areas?

Friar

I disagree.

My biggest problem with this as an entry is that it is mainly just a synopsis. The interesting bits are where you discuss what the film is about and how it is made, rather than recounting the story - something which is best done by watching the film. More highlighting of the issues, subjects and themes of the film would be better.

As far as describing the narrative is concerned you could Open with a single papragraph outlining the premise of the film. Then talk about the themes and the technical stuff and then have a 'spoiler section' toward the end outlining the whole narrative (and of course the alternate endings - which i know want to see).

Made an amendment...I'm going to hold off on elborating too much, because it's meant to be specifically about the FILM, not the director or the scrolls themselves. I wanted to keep it short and sweet...

I am going to change the description of the scrolls at the top to *newly discovered* (if I'm not being thick and it's like that already )...

Keep it coming!!

Isn't one of the major themes of the film the gap between the Church's hierarchy and it's flock, the gap in belief and the gap in respect.

Most believers don't follow the letter of dogma handed down by the Vatican, but a combination of doctrine, self interpretation and most importantly folk belief. Yet the church has no respect for these beliefs, but has a vested interest in not dispelling them (you don't want a new schism, but at the same time you don't want to lose a winning formula. The Church feels it has 'the truth', but doesn't care if the masses follow it of not, as long as the masses are still supporting the church the priesthood can keep the truth for themselves.

So miracles, magic, revelations, possessions, manefestations, epiphanies, stigmata, virgin births, signs, and relics are all part of the churches structure, but they don't want too much of it. But that's what brings the punters in, hence the validation process.

Meanwhile we've got all these women in the Church. Literally in churches, now i don't know if you've read the bible but a woman isn't suposed to speak in church, nor dirty the words of the good book by speaking them, neither is she to speak to a minister but to refer her questions to her husband. If most women got to reading that bit, there'd be a lot less kids in sunday school, flowers in the knave and pennies in the collection bowl.

Yet it's women who keep the church going, and who are the centre of folk religion. It is women who feel so close to the church that they bleed, swoon, recieve messages from the dead or speak in tongues. They are the brides and the footsoldiers of Christ, doing most of the dirty work for least of the glory. While the church wants to keep thier support while not giving them an inch. If Christ came back as a woman, they'd shoot her in the back of the neck before admit it.

There's loads of evidence for this in the film both in the way the different representatives of the church treat and talk about the female characters and their relationship with the quotes scriptures.


Then there's the theme of doctrinal accuracy. The vatacan have been editing the bible for two thousand years, getting 'their' version right. And for most of that time they were the only ones who had control over it, now along comes archaeology and hello we've got gospels written before Christs birth, talking about the same stories the same rituals. We've got contemporanious scriptures turning up that disagree wildly with those written by Paul. (Let's remember, most of the NT is written by one guy, who never met Christ, and was pretty leary about him until it looked like he could make something out of it). I wouldn't be suprised if the Vatacan cellars don't contain the Ur Gospel in some deep dark vault, along with the take away menu and receipt from the feeding of the 5000.

The emotional range in the various priests involved in the translation, and their struggle with their own faith, which is being tested by their own work, is really well shown in this film.

Yeh, again, this isn't an ANALYSIS of the film. You could write an article about such themes and then link it up with this one, but it's not really relevant to what I was attempting to achieve - that is a guide to what the film is about. I don't particularly want to expand on such themes...just want to have one on what the film is about somewhere...that's all! You're making it way too complicated!! And of course, your view is only technically an opinion as well!

Thanks anyway

I'm with Douglas Adams when it comes to religion, so I won't join in the theological debates here. I think this is a pretty good entry about what sounds like a very interesting film. It could, however, still do with quite a bit of attention on the spelling front, and there are some deviations from Edited Guide style that make the early part of the entry a bit confusing.

I'm particularly thinking of the use of italics. Film (and book, and album, and TV show) titles should be in italics. Actors' names and bands' names shouldn't be.

Also, I'm puzzled by this sentence: 'The plot is admittedly complicated, and more than likely turned away many Gabriel Byrne's fans to his other film that was out at the time, End of Days.' Do you mean that seeing 'Stigmata' might have put people off seeing 'End Of Days', or that Byrne fans might have decided to see 'End Of Days' instead of 'Stigmata'?

The latter. I'll play around with the order of the sentence a bit, to make it more legible...

Are there *that* many typo's? Are you sure that you don't mean grammar? I'll go through it in a bit with a fine tooth comb and sort that out. Didn't think it was that severe.

And . Italics. Will do so now before I forget.

Thankyou!!

Made a few tweakings and whatnot. The intro is still a bit dodgy. Would it be breaching copywrite to nick thee blurb from the back of the video?

The entry looks better now.

There's still a typo in the opening quote - 'propect' for 'prospect' - and further down 'atheist' and 'occurrence' are misspelt. The grammar isn't perfect either, but I don't actually think there's anything wrong with the entry now that a sub-editor couldn't easily fix. Well done!

I can't *believe* how awful my grammar is in this article...I'll keep working on it, until a sub comes and picks it up.

*runs off to amend typo's*

You've got quite a few AWOL apostraphies as well

Oh, and I thought you were going to put in a mention of her death scene, from the DVD?