Lessons From a Crappy Movie

So I just watched the 2008 movie Jumper. I honestly only watched it to see Hayden Christensen's acting skills in a movie other than a Star Wars one. And with that, I was suitably impressed. Dude can act, y'all. But the movie itself (and I knew this from the start) is kind of crappy.

Don't get me wrong, the premise is great and has tons of potential, a man who has teleporting powers and is hunted by an organization that wants to kill all teleporters. But the movie had several mistakes along the way that turned what could have been a great movie into a lackluster one.

The biggest problem was that the writers didn't trust their viewers to understand the backstory without voiceover. The first couple of scenes are filled with voiceover from the main character, David (Hayden Christensen). Voiceover in movies is always risky because it's the epitome of telling instead of showing. And us writers know that's a big no-no in most cases.

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The thing I noticed, though, was that the movie didn't even need the voiceover. All the things in the voiceover were shared through the scenes. The emotional beats were strong on their own and would have impacted the viewer much more than they did with the voiceover. The voiceover cheapened the emotional beats that could have made the beginning of the movie strong.

The second problem that doomed the movie was David himself. Hayden Christensen played him very well, no doubt, but the writers gave their protagonist no redeemable qualities and no reason for the viewers to root for him. David was an objectively bad person. He robs banks to fund his lavish lifestyle of hopping around the world with his teleporting ability vacationing all the time. Nevertheless, he could have been a sympathetic character viewers rooted for with just one simple action.

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A common term for making antiheros likeable is "petting the pooch." If in the beginning of his kind of crappy lifestyle, David had pet a pooch, then that could have solved the likeability problem. This didn't need to be literally petting a dog, though. In fact, the movie had the perfect opportunity to have David pet the pooch. After the beginning set-up scenes, David is zipping around his apartment filled with pictures of his travels, generally having a good time and living for himself. He turns on the TV and watches a brief news clip of people stranded in a flood. The reporter even says that there's no way to get those people out. David takes this clip in, and what does he do?

He hops up, gathers a bag, and travels to London to pick up a hot date. He then travels to Fiji, which was just hit by a big storm, so he can catch some large waves.

Jeez. Talk about insensitive.

If, instead, David had used his buildup of supplies and money to help the stranded people and then gone on his vacation, that would have presented an interesting dichotomy, where he is using his gift compassionately, yet also doing terrible things with it and living a pretty selfish life. This simple change could have given viewers a reason to root for David.

One more simple change could have brought this movie up from lame and forgettable to memorable. This is the acceptance of moral nuance and introduction of a character arc. David, a selfish Jumper, is chased by a fanatical organization that wants to kill him simply for possessing his abilities. The movie uses this plot to emphasize the message "Murder bad, David good." However, there were seeds of complexity that could have enhanced the movie if capitalized on. For instance, the main bad guy (he was played by Samuel L. Jackson, so he was too Samuel L. Jackson for his name to register) tells David that all of the Jumpers, even if they start out good, always end up using their abilities for selfish ends, which in his mind justifies murdering them all. This claim actually is a fairly valid one, coming from the classic Invisible Ring scenario, which posits that any normal man, given an invisible ring, would become completely immoral and selfish, taking whatever he wanted because he has the power to do so.

David protests that he's different, but this conversation, which should have come earlier in the movie, could have been the impetus of his character arc (which was practically nonexistent in the movie). David is different, in that he didn't have a slow slide to selfishness but started out that way. A slow realization of his selfish behavior, and that he actually does fit the reasons Samuel L. Jackson wanted to kill him, could have slowly transformed him from the selfish man living for himself to the man you got a glimpse of in the pet the pooch moment we didn't have. In the end, without the character arc, David ends up in pretty much the same place he started out in, as does the bad guy, except for the fact that David has a girlfriend now.

Hayden Christensen is a good actor, but the writers for this movie really dropped the ball.

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It's All Greek to Me

   When I was little, my mom read D'aulaires' Book of Greek Myths to me and I was intrigued by all the crazy stories of Greek gods. I got a little older and read more in-depth stories of the Greek myths (two in a row that said the exact same things and I have never let my mom forget it). A couple years after that, I read the Percy Jackson series, and in high school I read The Odyssey and Oedipus Rex. I can explain the story of Atlas and Prometheus and identify Aphrodite in Renaissance paintings.

   I have noticed that many Christians are afraid of letting their children be exposed to views opposite of their own, telling their children not to read the part in history books about Greek myths, banning movies that mention such things as evolution or magic, shielding their kids from anything that might make them doubt Christ for their entire childhood. This has never been my experience. I listened to The Wizard of Oz on four cassette tapes over and over again when I was small, even though my mom didn't believe in good witches. All I got was a warning, "There's no such thing as a good witch," and I was free to memorize The Wizard of Oz and the preview chapter of Pinocchio to my heart's content. I've studied evolutionary theory from a Christian perspective and I read On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (I might be a little bit obsessed with the full title). I've read the Communist Manifesto (Karl Marx had issues, man) and several different books explaining the prevailing worldviews in the world today. I watched Star Wars at age eight and Lord of the Rings several years after. I read The Hunger Games at twelve. 

   My parents were open to letting me be exposed to the world (at appropriate ages, of course) and discussing views that differed from ours. In no way did this hinder my connection to God, but instead it strengthened my convictions. I was not hidden from the attacks Christianity has come under and was able to learn the counterarguments to these attacks. I know evolutionary theory probably better than most who believe in it, and so understand the weaknesses inherent in the model. I can recognize communism in the world, and I didn't become a Communist by learning about the worldview. I was allowed to question everything because in that way I received answers and grew in knowledge and understanding of my faith and the world I live in.

   In many ways, I can't help but see how such a restrictive, protective lifestyle actually hinders the Christian walk rather than helping it. When one is told what to think and not how to think, that leaves the person vulnerable to any person with an authoritative stance on a subject. A faith cannot truly become personal until it is tested, and a child raised in a Christian home is crippled by not exercising his brain and solidifying his faith until he grows up and is thrown into the real world as an adult. As Thomas Jefferson once said, "Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear."

   Not only does the absence of exposure to differing worldviews hinder faith, it makes it almost impossible for a Christian to relate to those in the world, understand them, and reach out to them. This world has been built by those who did not follow God, and if one does not understand their beliefs, one cannot understand our world either. For example, let's go back to my good ol' Greek myths. Sure, they were the center of pagan worship of false gods. Yes, they seem kind of silly to us today. But the Greek myths have permeated Western culture far more than any of us quite realize today. At the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor in Walt Disney World, Mike Wazowski tells a joke about Roz and how ugly she is: "The face that launched a thousand lunches." It's a silly thing about Roz being so ugly that she makes people throw up, but the joke is also a twist of the classic "face that launched a thousand ships." This phrase references Helen of Troy, who was kidnapped by Paris because Aphrodite promised him the most beautiful woman in the world, and the Greeks went to war with Troy because of it, launching a fleet of a thousand ships across the sea to fight for Helen's honor.

   Missing out on this joke because of a weak understanding of Greek mythology doesn't truly hinder anyone in much. But this is just one example of how much Greek mythology has affected the world we live in. "Achilles heel". "Between a rock and a hard place." "Trojan horse." "Mentor." "The Midas touch." "Opening Pandora's box." "Narcissists." Many of the Renaissance paintings done by Christian men, such as Raphael, Michaelangelo, and Botticelli. That hideous statue of George Washington hidden somewhere in Washington DC that posed him like Zeus. Without an understanding of Greek beliefs, we can't understand why the Renaissance paintings so frequently featured naked people. Even in Acts, the Greek and Roman gods are mentioned. In one town, Paul was labeled Mercury because he spoke to the people and the man accompanying him was called Jupiter. In Ephesus, he was not very welcomed because he was cutting in on the merchants' sale of Diana (Artemis) statues to those who came to visit the temple in the city. Without an understanding of Greek mythology, we miss out on the context of so many things that have come to be in this world. 

   If Greek mythology is so integral to understanding the world, how much more is understanding modern belief systems important? So many times I have heard Christians insult those who believe differently than they do from an attitude of superiority when they don't truly understand why they believe differently. Without understanding of those differing beliefs, you cannot have compassion for those who believe them or have a real conversation with them. And without compassion, you will turn people away from Christianity rather than bring them in. If you do not deign to understand what those who are different than you believe or participate in cultural landmarks such as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, how will you ever be able to understand those who live in the world and befriend them? If you cannot befriend them, how will you reach them with the truth? And how can you ever make a difference in the direction the culture is going if you won't participate in or understand where the culture is now?

   I can't say I understand the move to keep your children from everything you disagree with. To be frank, it's all Greek to me.