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David McK (3547 KP) rated Frank Herbert's Dune, the Graphic Novel book 3: The Prophet in Books
Apr 6, 2025
My exposure to Dune - despite knowing the basics i.e. Science fiction, Sandworms, Arrakis - really only comes from the 2021 (Dune) and 2024 (Dune: part 2) movies.
Which I'm well aware, due to the nature of the medium, leaves a lot out.
As such, it's interesting reading this (after having read the previous 2 entries in the same graphic novel series) to see how much is familiar, and how much is changed.
Oh, the basics are there right enough (in the movies), but there are several differences to the story: Paul Atriedes sister (only teased in Part 2), here, being the most prominent example.
Not having read the 'original' original, I can't say how much was changed for the move from print to graphic novel medium, but I do believe that the authors/artists/stencillers here did try to stick as close as possible to that story.
I can understand why it was slimmed down for the move to the big screen.
Which I'm well aware, due to the nature of the medium, leaves a lot out.
As such, it's interesting reading this (after having read the previous 2 entries in the same graphic novel series) to see how much is familiar, and how much is changed.
Oh, the basics are there right enough (in the movies), but there are several differences to the story: Paul Atriedes sister (only teased in Part 2), here, being the most prominent example.
Not having read the 'original' original, I can't say how much was changed for the move from print to graphic novel medium, but I do believe that the authors/artists/stencillers here did try to stick as close as possible to that story.
I can understand why it was slimmed down for the move to the big screen.
Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated Arctic (2019) in Movies
Jul 2, 2019
This week has been one of the coldest on record across much of the United States. The “polar vortex” has brought with it sub-zero temps complete with snow and ice. It seems only fitting that Arctic a survival movie co-written and directed by YouTube star Joe Penna would be releasing the very same week. In his first feature film directorial debut Penna brings both the beauty and the dangers of the Arctic (Iceland in this case) to the big screen.
A lone man identified only as Overgård (Mads Mikkelsen) has crashed his cargo plane somewhere in the arctic. We don’t know how long he has been stranded there, but long enough for him to have carved out a giant S.O.S in the snow. He has converted his downed plane into his new home and goes about the same routine every day. He sets his watch alarm to keep his schedule, which involves catching fish through the ice, and setting out in a different direction each day to manually wind his transponder in the hopes that a rescue will finally come.
One day, a day like countless days before it, Overgård’s transponder turns from red to green and in the distance a helicopter appears. His lucky day soon turns into tragedy as the harsh winds of the Arctic toss the helicopter around like a kite in a hurricane, crashing it to the ground. Overgård quickly runs to the crash site only to find that one of the pilots has died in the crash, and the other (Maria Thelma Smáradôttir) is barely conscious and has a gaping wound in her side. In a scene that could almost be described as humorous (if it wasn’t for the dire situation itself), Overgård crafts a sled out of the helicopter’s sliding door to carry the woman back to the safety of his plane, only to find out the next day that inside the helicopter was an actual rescue sled.
Sadly, it isn’t long before the young pilot’s wound begins to fester that Overgård must make a choice. Stay in the little slice of heaven that he has carved up for himself or risk the forces of nature in an effort to save the woman’s life. With a map he recovered from the downed helicopter, Overgård is able to identify an outpost and carefully plots out the journey that will take them there. The journey he plans for will take several days and has numerous obstacles to overcome. Yet, with a heart that clearly is as large as the vastness of the arctic itself, he realizes he has no choice.
Arctic is a movie with very little dialog, other than an occasional comment to himself or an attempt to rouse his unconscious guest. For a movie that says so little it’s the atmosphere that says so much. The film attempts to capture the harsh conditions that Overgård faces along his journey and does it so brilliantly that you can almost feel the icy weight as it bears down. The audience struggles with every wintery step as if they are not only spectators, but active participants in the journey. The scenery is as awe inspiring as it is deadly. The music seamlessly blends into the environment to a point where you are aware it’s there but doesn’t break the immersion.
Arctic could almost be mistaken as a documentary, a film about one mans survival in one of the most inhospitable places on the planet. Its pacing is deliberate, even if it is a bit slow at times. There is little need to add extra flair or danger into the mix, because nature alone provides it in spades. Arctic is not a movie that will appeal to those looking for non-stop action. At its heart it is really a movie about man vs nature, and nature can be a beast all its own. Arctic is certainly a movie for those looking for something a bit different. For those who are looking for a survival movie that doesn’t take place on a deserted isle, then this is right up your alley. Arctic shows that sometimes realism is far more interesting than fiction.
A lone man identified only as Overgård (Mads Mikkelsen) has crashed his cargo plane somewhere in the arctic. We don’t know how long he has been stranded there, but long enough for him to have carved out a giant S.O.S in the snow. He has converted his downed plane into his new home and goes about the same routine every day. He sets his watch alarm to keep his schedule, which involves catching fish through the ice, and setting out in a different direction each day to manually wind his transponder in the hopes that a rescue will finally come.
One day, a day like countless days before it, Overgård’s transponder turns from red to green and in the distance a helicopter appears. His lucky day soon turns into tragedy as the harsh winds of the Arctic toss the helicopter around like a kite in a hurricane, crashing it to the ground. Overgård quickly runs to the crash site only to find that one of the pilots has died in the crash, and the other (Maria Thelma Smáradôttir) is barely conscious and has a gaping wound in her side. In a scene that could almost be described as humorous (if it wasn’t for the dire situation itself), Overgård crafts a sled out of the helicopter’s sliding door to carry the woman back to the safety of his plane, only to find out the next day that inside the helicopter was an actual rescue sled.
Sadly, it isn’t long before the young pilot’s wound begins to fester that Overgård must make a choice. Stay in the little slice of heaven that he has carved up for himself or risk the forces of nature in an effort to save the woman’s life. With a map he recovered from the downed helicopter, Overgård is able to identify an outpost and carefully plots out the journey that will take them there. The journey he plans for will take several days and has numerous obstacles to overcome. Yet, with a heart that clearly is as large as the vastness of the arctic itself, he realizes he has no choice.
Arctic is a movie with very little dialog, other than an occasional comment to himself or an attempt to rouse his unconscious guest. For a movie that says so little it’s the atmosphere that says so much. The film attempts to capture the harsh conditions that Overgård faces along his journey and does it so brilliantly that you can almost feel the icy weight as it bears down. The audience struggles with every wintery step as if they are not only spectators, but active participants in the journey. The scenery is as awe inspiring as it is deadly. The music seamlessly blends into the environment to a point where you are aware it’s there but doesn’t break the immersion.
Arctic could almost be mistaken as a documentary, a film about one mans survival in one of the most inhospitable places on the planet. Its pacing is deliberate, even if it is a bit slow at times. There is little need to add extra flair or danger into the mix, because nature alone provides it in spades. Arctic is not a movie that will appeal to those looking for non-stop action. At its heart it is really a movie about man vs nature, and nature can be a beast all its own. Arctic is certainly a movie for those looking for something a bit different. For those who are looking for a survival movie that doesn’t take place on a deserted isle, then this is right up your alley. Arctic shows that sometimes realism is far more interesting than fiction.
Cody Cook (8 KP) rated Writings Of Thomas Paine Volume 4 (1794 1796); The Age Of Reason in Books
Jun 29, 2018
Thomas Paine was a political theorist who was perhaps best known for his support for the American Revolution in his pamphlet Common Sense. In what might be his second best known work, The Age of Reason, Paine argued in favor of deism and against the Christian religion and its conception of God. By deism it is meant the belief in a creator God who does not violate the laws of nature by communicating through revelation or miracles The book was very successful and widely read partly due to the fact that it was written in a style which appealed to a popular audience and often implemented a sarcastic, derisive tone to make its points.
The book seems to have had three major objectives: the support of deism, the ridicule of what Paine found loathsome in Christian theology, and the demonstration of how poor an example the Bible is as a reflection of God.
In a sense, Paine's arguments against Christian theology and scripture were meant to prop up his deistic philosophy. Paine hoped that in demonizing Christianity while giving evidences for God, he would somehow have made the case for deism. But this is not so. If Christianity is false, but God exists nonetheless, we are not left only with deism. There are an infinite number of possibilities for us to examine regarding the nature of God, and far too many left over once we have eliminated the obviously false ones. In favor of deism Paine has only one argument—his dislike of supernatural revelation, which is to say that deism appeals to his culturally derived preferences. In any case, Paine's thinking on the matter seemed to be thus: if supernatural revelation could be shown to be inadequate and the development of complex theology shown to be an error, one could still salvage a belief in God as Creator, but not as an interloper in human affairs who required mediators.
That being said, in his support of deism, Paine makes some arguments to demonstrate the reasonableness in belief in, if not the logical necessity of the existence of, God which could be equally used by Christians.
For instance, just as the apostle Paul argued in his epistle to the Romans that, "what can be known about God is plain to [even pagans], because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made" (Romans 1:19-20, ESV), so also Paine can say that, "the Creation speaketh an universal language [which points to the existence of God], independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they be."
The key point on which Paine differs from Paul on this issue is in his optimism about man's ability to reason to God without His assisting from the outside. Whereas Paul sees the plainness of God from natural revelation as an argument against the inherent goodness of a species which can read the record of nature and nevertheless rejects its Source's obvious existence, Paine thinks that nature and reason can and do lead us directly to the knowledge of God's existence apart from any gracious overtures or direct revelation.
On the witness of nature, Paine claims, and is quite correct, that, "THE WORD OF GOD IS THE CREATION WE BEHOLD: And it is in this word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God speaketh universally to man." What is not plainly clear, however, is that man is free enough from the noetic effects of sin to reach such an obvious conclusion on his own. Indeed, the attempts of mankind to create a religion which represents the truth have invariably landed them at paganism. By paganism I mean a system of belief based, as Yehezkel Kaufmann and John N. Oswalt have shown, on continuity.iv In polytheism, even the supernatural is not really supernatural, but is perhaps in some way above humans while not being altogether distinct from us. What happens to the gods is merely what happens to human beings and the natural world writ large, which is why the gods are, like us, victims of fate, and why pagan fertility rituals have attempted to influence nature by influencing the gods which represent it in accordance with the deeper magic of the eternal universe we all inhabit.
When mankind has looked at nature without the benefit of supernatural revelation, he has not been consciously aware of a Being outside of nature which is necessarily responsible for it. His reasoning to metaphysics is based entirely on his own naturalistic categories derived from his own experience. According to Moses, it took God revealing Himself to the Hebrews for anyone to understand what Paine thinks anyone can plainly see.
The goal of deism is to hold onto what the western mind, which values extreme independence of thought, views as attractive in theism while casting aside what it finds distasteful. But as C.S. Lewis remarked, Aslan is not a tame lion. If a sovereign God exists, He cannot be limited by your desires of what you'd like Him to be. For this reason, the deism of men like Paine served as a cultural stepping stone toward the atheism of later intellectuals.
For Paine, as for other deists and atheists like him, it is not that Christianity has been subjected to reason and found wanting, but that it has been subjected to his own private and culturally-determined tastes and preferences and has failed to satisfy. This is the flipside of the anti-religious claim that those who believe in a given religion only do so because of their cultural conditioning: the anti-religionist is also conditioned in a similar way. Of course, how one comes to believe a certain thing has no bearing on whether that thing is true in itself, and this is true whether Christianity, atheism, or any other view is correct. But it must be stated that the deist or atheist is not immune from the epistemic difficulties which he so condescendingly heaps on theists.
One of the befuddling ironies of Paine's work is that around the time he was writing about the revealed religions as, “no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit," the French were turning churches into “temples of reason” and murdering thousands at the guillotine (an instrument of execution now most strongly identified with France's godless reign of terror). Paine, who nearly lost his own life during the French Revolution, saw the danger of this atheism and hoped to stay its progress, despite the risk to his own life in attempting to do so.
What is odd is that Paine managed to blame this violent atheism upon the Christian faith! Obfuscated Paine:
"The Idea, always dangerous to Society as it is derogatory to the Almighty, — that priests could forgive sins, — though it seemed to exist no longer, had blunted the feelings of humanity, and callously prepared men for the commission of all crimes. The intolerant spirit of church persecution had transferred itself into politics; the tribunals, stiled Revolutionary, supplied the place of an Inquisition; and the Guillotine of the Stake. I saw many of my most intimate friends destroyed; others daily carried to prison; and I had reason to believe, and had also intimations given me, that the same danger was approaching myself."
That Robespierre's deism finally managed to supplant the revolutionary state's atheism and that peace, love, and understanding did not then spread throughout the land undermines Paine's claims. Paine felt that the revolution in politics, especially as represented in America, would necessarily lead to a revolution in religion, and that this religious revolution would result in wide acceptance of deism. The common link between these two revolutions was the idea that the individual man was sovereign and could determine for himself what was right and wrong based on his autonomous reason. What Paine was too myopic to see was that in France's violence and atheism was found the logical consequence of his individualistic philosophy. In summary, it is not Christianity which is dangerous, but the spirit of autonomy which leads inevitably into authoritarianism by way of human desire.
As should be clear by now, Paine failed to understand that human beings have a strong tendency to set impartial reason aside and to simply evaluate reality based on their desires and psychological states. This is no more obvious than in his own ideas as expressed in The Age of Reason. Like Paine's tendency to designate every book in the Old Testament which he likes as having been written originally by a gentile and translated into Hebrew, so many of his criticisms of Christian theology are far more a reflection upon himself than of revealed Christianity. One has only to look at Paine's description of Jesus Christ as a “virtuous reformer and revolutionist” to marvel that Paine was so poor at introspection so as to not understand that he was describing himself.
There is much more that could be said about this work, but in the interest of being somewhat concise, I'll end my comments here. If you found this analysis to be useful, be sure to check out my profile and look for my work discussing Paine and other anti-Christian writers coming soon.
The book seems to have had three major objectives: the support of deism, the ridicule of what Paine found loathsome in Christian theology, and the demonstration of how poor an example the Bible is as a reflection of God.
In a sense, Paine's arguments against Christian theology and scripture were meant to prop up his deistic philosophy. Paine hoped that in demonizing Christianity while giving evidences for God, he would somehow have made the case for deism. But this is not so. If Christianity is false, but God exists nonetheless, we are not left only with deism. There are an infinite number of possibilities for us to examine regarding the nature of God, and far too many left over once we have eliminated the obviously false ones. In favor of deism Paine has only one argument—his dislike of supernatural revelation, which is to say that deism appeals to his culturally derived preferences. In any case, Paine's thinking on the matter seemed to be thus: if supernatural revelation could be shown to be inadequate and the development of complex theology shown to be an error, one could still salvage a belief in God as Creator, but not as an interloper in human affairs who required mediators.
That being said, in his support of deism, Paine makes some arguments to demonstrate the reasonableness in belief in, if not the logical necessity of the existence of, God which could be equally used by Christians.
For instance, just as the apostle Paul argued in his epistle to the Romans that, "what can be known about God is plain to [even pagans], because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made" (Romans 1:19-20, ESV), so also Paine can say that, "the Creation speaketh an universal language [which points to the existence of God], independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they be."
The key point on which Paine differs from Paul on this issue is in his optimism about man's ability to reason to God without His assisting from the outside. Whereas Paul sees the plainness of God from natural revelation as an argument against the inherent goodness of a species which can read the record of nature and nevertheless rejects its Source's obvious existence, Paine thinks that nature and reason can and do lead us directly to the knowledge of God's existence apart from any gracious overtures or direct revelation.
On the witness of nature, Paine claims, and is quite correct, that, "THE WORD OF GOD IS THE CREATION WE BEHOLD: And it is in this word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God speaketh universally to man." What is not plainly clear, however, is that man is free enough from the noetic effects of sin to reach such an obvious conclusion on his own. Indeed, the attempts of mankind to create a religion which represents the truth have invariably landed them at paganism. By paganism I mean a system of belief based, as Yehezkel Kaufmann and John N. Oswalt have shown, on continuity.iv In polytheism, even the supernatural is not really supernatural, but is perhaps in some way above humans while not being altogether distinct from us. What happens to the gods is merely what happens to human beings and the natural world writ large, which is why the gods are, like us, victims of fate, and why pagan fertility rituals have attempted to influence nature by influencing the gods which represent it in accordance with the deeper magic of the eternal universe we all inhabit.
When mankind has looked at nature without the benefit of supernatural revelation, he has not been consciously aware of a Being outside of nature which is necessarily responsible for it. His reasoning to metaphysics is based entirely on his own naturalistic categories derived from his own experience. According to Moses, it took God revealing Himself to the Hebrews for anyone to understand what Paine thinks anyone can plainly see.
The goal of deism is to hold onto what the western mind, which values extreme independence of thought, views as attractive in theism while casting aside what it finds distasteful. But as C.S. Lewis remarked, Aslan is not a tame lion. If a sovereign God exists, He cannot be limited by your desires of what you'd like Him to be. For this reason, the deism of men like Paine served as a cultural stepping stone toward the atheism of later intellectuals.
For Paine, as for other deists and atheists like him, it is not that Christianity has been subjected to reason and found wanting, but that it has been subjected to his own private and culturally-determined tastes and preferences and has failed to satisfy. This is the flipside of the anti-religious claim that those who believe in a given religion only do so because of their cultural conditioning: the anti-religionist is also conditioned in a similar way. Of course, how one comes to believe a certain thing has no bearing on whether that thing is true in itself, and this is true whether Christianity, atheism, or any other view is correct. But it must be stated that the deist or atheist is not immune from the epistemic difficulties which he so condescendingly heaps on theists.
One of the befuddling ironies of Paine's work is that around the time he was writing about the revealed religions as, “no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit," the French were turning churches into “temples of reason” and murdering thousands at the guillotine (an instrument of execution now most strongly identified with France's godless reign of terror). Paine, who nearly lost his own life during the French Revolution, saw the danger of this atheism and hoped to stay its progress, despite the risk to his own life in attempting to do so.
What is odd is that Paine managed to blame this violent atheism upon the Christian faith! Obfuscated Paine:
"The Idea, always dangerous to Society as it is derogatory to the Almighty, — that priests could forgive sins, — though it seemed to exist no longer, had blunted the feelings of humanity, and callously prepared men for the commission of all crimes. The intolerant spirit of church persecution had transferred itself into politics; the tribunals, stiled Revolutionary, supplied the place of an Inquisition; and the Guillotine of the Stake. I saw many of my most intimate friends destroyed; others daily carried to prison; and I had reason to believe, and had also intimations given me, that the same danger was approaching myself."
That Robespierre's deism finally managed to supplant the revolutionary state's atheism and that peace, love, and understanding did not then spread throughout the land undermines Paine's claims. Paine felt that the revolution in politics, especially as represented in America, would necessarily lead to a revolution in religion, and that this religious revolution would result in wide acceptance of deism. The common link between these two revolutions was the idea that the individual man was sovereign and could determine for himself what was right and wrong based on his autonomous reason. What Paine was too myopic to see was that in France's violence and atheism was found the logical consequence of his individualistic philosophy. In summary, it is not Christianity which is dangerous, but the spirit of autonomy which leads inevitably into authoritarianism by way of human desire.
As should be clear by now, Paine failed to understand that human beings have a strong tendency to set impartial reason aside and to simply evaluate reality based on their desires and psychological states. This is no more obvious than in his own ideas as expressed in The Age of Reason. Like Paine's tendency to designate every book in the Old Testament which he likes as having been written originally by a gentile and translated into Hebrew, so many of his criticisms of Christian theology are far more a reflection upon himself than of revealed Christianity. One has only to look at Paine's description of Jesus Christ as a “virtuous reformer and revolutionist” to marvel that Paine was so poor at introspection so as to not understand that he was describing himself.
There is much more that could be said about this work, but in the interest of being somewhat concise, I'll end my comments here. If you found this analysis to be useful, be sure to check out my profile and look for my work discussing Paine and other anti-Christian writers coming soon.
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Ryan Hill (152 KP) rated Kong: Skull Island (2017) in Movies
Jun 26, 2019
"is that a monkey?"
There are very few things that I respect more than a movie that is unafraid to embrace its own stupidity. Kong: Skull Island has thinly written characters, extreme tonal dissonance, bad dialogue, and a complete and utter disregard for the talents of Oscar-winning actress Brie Larson, but it’s absolutely glorious in its brazen spectacle. Its thin characters and tonal dissonance don’t matter as much because it thoroughly commits to its premise, and it seems like the movie is one ridiculous–but hilarious–visual gag after another. The bad dialogue is all part of the fun. It’s not trying to be something it’s not, and that’s something I appreciate in any movie, especially a nostalgia-laced B-movie blockbuster about a giant ape.
Some might draw connections to the time era explored or the interplay between man and nature, but the movie succeeds at its main goal: entertain the hell out of the audience. Actors like Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson are (pretty) pieces of cardboard in this, but seasoned vets like Samuel L. Jackson and John C. Reilly thoroughly understand what it is they’re being asked to do. They both ham it up big time, with Vogt-Roberts’s visual flourishes adding to their performances in beautiful ways throughout. They both give pitch perfect performances that are 100% appropriate for their roles, and Reilly in particular becomes the heart and soul of the story. As an actor, the best response to a movie like this is to embrace the ridiculous, and Jackson and Reilly certainly do.
However, the ridiculous can sometimes move aside to reveal a visually stunning movie with a large heart. The production design is gorgeous, and the classic shot–a character whose back is turned to us, staring up in awe and fear at Kong–is breathtaking. The movie itself has that type of reaction to its own character, to its own force of nature, looking up in wonder and childish glee as Kong destroys another piece of its surroundings. This is big, bold, and confident filmmaking, precisely because the movie understands what it’s not.
Some might draw connections to the time era explored or the interplay between man and nature, but the movie succeeds at its main goal: entertain the hell out of the audience. Actors like Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson are (pretty) pieces of cardboard in this, but seasoned vets like Samuel L. Jackson and John C. Reilly thoroughly understand what it is they’re being asked to do. They both ham it up big time, with Vogt-Roberts’s visual flourishes adding to their performances in beautiful ways throughout. They both give pitch perfect performances that are 100% appropriate for their roles, and Reilly in particular becomes the heart and soul of the story. As an actor, the best response to a movie like this is to embrace the ridiculous, and Jackson and Reilly certainly do.
However, the ridiculous can sometimes move aside to reveal a visually stunning movie with a large heart. The production design is gorgeous, and the classic shot–a character whose back is turned to us, staring up in awe and fear at Kong–is breathtaking. The movie itself has that type of reaction to its own character, to its own force of nature, looking up in wonder and childish glee as Kong destroys another piece of its surroundings. This is big, bold, and confident filmmaking, precisely because the movie understands what it’s not.
ClareR (5854 KP) Apr 8, 2025
David McK (3547 KP) Apr 13, 2025