No U.S. distributor for Charles Darwin movie because of fear of fundamentalists

[steve_spackman]

It seems the film Creation, (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000124/) a major-production biopic about Charles Darwin starring Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly, won't be seen in the United States because no distributor with the guts to stand up to the religious right in this country can be found (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6173399/Charles-Darwin-film-too-controversial-for-religious-America.html):

Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as "a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder". His "half-baked theory" directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to "atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering", the site stated.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6173399/Charles-Darwin-film-too-controversial-for-religious-America.html (http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/no-us-distributor-charles-darwin-mov)

Pathetic..A small minority of people dictating what the majority can watch..im sure theres a word for that??

[schmenke]

"crooksandliars.com"....? :s

[Mark in Oshawa]

It seems the film Creation, (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000124/) a major-production biopic about Charles Darwin starring Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly, won't be seen in the United States because no distributor with the guts to stand up to the religious right in this country can be found (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6173399/Charles-Darwin-film-too-controversial-for-religious-America.html):

Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as "a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder". His "half-baked theory" directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to "atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering", the site stated.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6173399/Charles-Darwin-film-too-controversial-for-religious-America.html (http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/no-us-distributor-charles-darwin-mov)

Pathetic..A small minority of people dictating what the majority can watch..im sure theres a word for that??

Steve, the minority that would be against the movie didn't dictate nothing, and most of the Hollywood studio and distribution companies have never had a problem ticking off the religious minority (which is less than 10 % of the population really). A movie on the assasination of George Bush got distributed. Mike Moore keeps finding people to peddle his crap movies, so if this one isn't being distributed, there is likely some other reasons. Believe me, no one in Hollywood has lost sleep in the past ticking off the religoius nutjobs. I for one want to see this movie. I may be conservative on some of my politics, but I do think Darwin was/is on to something.

[airshifter]

Gawd Spackman... If you are going to attempt the anti US crap, can't you come up with something better than this? After all we know that nobody in the US would watch such a movie, especially in light of the fact that even the lame conspiracy theory movies and Micheal Moore crap draw crowds! :laugh:

[steve_spackman]

Gawd Spackman... If you are going to attempt the anti US crap

Anti US crap??? This never even crossed my mind thanks very much....

[Mark in Oshawa]

Anti US crap??? This never even crossed my mind thanks very much....

You are taking a shot at the Christian Fundadmentalists, which no one has listened to really before when releasing movies that ticked them off. This one actually has merit, so if they cant find a distributor, it is because they are not trying hard. Personally, I think it is a publicity stunt. They will find a distributor in time, and then make the rounds of the media saying how the Christian right tried to shut them down, when the reality is no effort has been made.

[ShiftingGears]

You are taking a shot at the Christian Fundadmentalists, which no one has listened to really before when releasing movies that ticked them off. This one actually has merit, so if they cant find a distributor, it is because they are not trying hard. Personally, I think it is a publicity stunt. They will find a distributor in time, and then make the rounds of the media saying how the Christian right tried to shut them down, when the reality is no effort has been made.

That is a good point.

[Mark]

Another Darwin thing eh. The BBC recently ran a Darwin season. Loads of programmes, all in all I reckon it must have topped 24 hours worth of TV, all about Darwin.

Nobody stormed BBC television centre in protest.

I won't be going to see the film but only because I've pretty much heard the Darwin story inside out now anyway!

[schmenke]

Sounds like this is an evolving story.







:dozey:

[Cooper_S]

If movies like the The Magdalene Sisters, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, Life of Brian and the Da Vinci Code can be released then this is no different...

[Brown, Jon Brow]

Darwins theory of evolution is flawed by the 'missing link' between humans and apes. This gap in his theory can only be filled by space aliens that bred with apes to create homo sapien slaves. Our slave ancestors were then flown back to the aliens home planet, but a few escaped and humankind was born.

[Alexamateo]

Well, Jon, Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick postulated a theory called Directed Panspermia that said much the same thing except for the thing about alien slaves ;) :) , so you're in good company.




Although paleontologists have, and continue to claim to have, discovered sequences of fossils that do indeed present a picture of gradual change over time, the truth of the matter is that we are still in the dark about the origin of most major groups of organisms. They appear in the fossil record...full-blown and raring to go...

Schwartz, Jeffrey H. - Sudden Origins (NY: John Wiley & Sons, 1999) p. 3




Today evolution is almost universally accepted; even the Pope has given it his blessing. Yet in the quiet halls of academe a shadow of the old battle is still being fought.

Davies, Paul - THE FIFTH MIRACLE, (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1999) p. 264


A couple of quotes to mull over. The fossil record has always been a problem for Darwinist. It's funny, the more I want to believe in evolution, the more I doubt it. Now, I'm not saying it's Biblical creation in 6 days, but something is missing.

[Jag_Warrior]

Darwins theory of evolution is flawed by the 'missing link' between humans and apes. This gap in his theory can only be filled by space aliens that bred with apes to create homo sapien slaves. Our slave ancestors were then flown back to the aliens home planet, but a few escaped and humankind was born.

Dude, they should make that into a movie! Maybe get Jennifer Connelly to play a part. Maybe there could be a pretty, scantily dressed, mute girl somewhere in it - perfect for Jennifer.

Give it some thought. I think you're onto something there!

[Mark in Oshawa]

That is a good point.

Thanks...but just also realize if the Christian right were trying to kill this movie, it would have been all over the media. It isn't.....

[Mark in Oshawa]

Well, Jon, Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick postulated a theory called Directed Panspermia that said much the same thing except for the thing about alien slaves ;) :) , so you're in good company.






A couple of quotes to mull over. The fossil record has always been a problem for Darwinist. It's funny, the more I want to believe in evolution, the more I doubt it. Now, I'm not saying it's Biblical creation in 6 days, but something is missing.

You sound like you might be a fan of something like "Inteligent Design". Of course there is a couple of different ideas on what THAT means.

I figure Darwin had a part of the puzzle figured out, but there is lots more people and science hasn't figured out.

I am a firm believer that there is a "god"or higher entity out there that set all of this in motion. What is more, I believe we will never be sure how it all happened, but I figure the chase in acquiring this knowledge will keep us all busy and figuring out a lot of things useful to us, like the DNA mapping and gene research.

No one can say with 100% certainty whether there is a god, or how all of this started. Darwin's theory is a good one, and this story is worth seeing on film, but I don't think any rational religious person of faith should get that upset. It is FAITH...and you either believe, or you don't. The world didn't end because of the "Da Vinci Code", and I think this will be the same when it hits the theatres. I like Paul Bettany's work so this could be a good movie.

[edv]

Thanks...but just also realize if the Christian right were trying to kill this movie, it would have been all over the media. It isn't.....

Yeah, not a peep on FoxNews, so it can't be all THAT bad. hehe

[Mark in Oshawa]

Yeah, not a peep on FoxNews, so it can't be all THAT bad. hehe

Or on the rest of the media. You know MSNBC would have a FIELD day with religous zealots boycotting another movie.....It HASNT HAPPENED.

[BTCC Fan#1]

A couple of quotes to mull over. The fossil record has always been a problem for Darwinist. It's funny, the more I want to believe in evolution, the more I doubt it. Now, I'm not saying it's Biblical creation in 6 days, but something is missing.

I'd say the main fight in 'the quiet halls of academe' isn't over whether evolution is true, that's accepted as fact. The battle that has been going on for 30 or so years now is over the mechanisms and circumstances involved in the so-called 'Cambrian Explosion', which your first quote appears to refer to. The period of Earth history around 500 Ma when most of the modern animal 'body-plans' appear to arrive on the scene over a startlingly short (Geologically speaking) period of time. Darwin had to suffer the problem of an apparent total lack of fossils below the Cambrian period, but he suggested animals had existed before this time period, and just weren't preserved. Judging by what we find today, this theory appears essentially correct. Complex animals appear to have started to appear 1200 - 600Ma, evolving rapidly possibly because of environmental change, or perhaps a kind of 'arms race' triggered by the first appearance of true predators.

Personally speaking I find this whole area absolutly fascinating. :) The story of Charles Darwin is also pretty interesting, so I'll certainly be going to see this film.

[Mark]

I heard Bill Bryson explain that. In that in order for an animal to become fossilised, an extremely rare course of events needed to take place, namely that it would die suddenly, and in the right place to be under sediments which were being laid down at the time and not be subject to too much erosion etc.

So many animals and plants that existed just didn't inhabit the correct environments to allow fossilisation.

[Mark in Oshawa]

I heard Bill Bryson explain that. In that in order for an animal to become fossilised, an extremely rare course of events needed to take place, namely that it would die suddenly, and in the right place to be under sediments which were being laid down at the time and not be subject to too much erosion etc.

So many animals and plants that existed just didn't inhabit the correct environments to allow fossilisation.

Normally Bill Bryson wouldn't be the man I would look to for science, but reading enough of his books, including his take on science and the like, he is dead on the money on this one....

Bill Bryson is one of the few people who could make a complex scientific theory easy enough for the lay person to grasp...

[F1boat]

It seems the film Creation, (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000124/) a major-production biopic about Charles Darwin starring Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly, won't be seen in the United States because no distributor with the guts to stand up to the religious right in this country can be found (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6173399/Charles-Darwin-film-too-controversial-for-religious-America.html):

Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as "a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder". His "half-baked theory" directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to "atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering", the site stated.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6173399/Charles-Darwin-film-too-controversial-for-religious-America.html (http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/no-us-distributor-charles-darwin-mov)

Pathetic..A small minority of people dictating what the majority can watch..im sure theres a word for that??

Horrible. Horrible. I am appalled and scared from the Religious Right even more. They are one of the greatest evils in these world. Hopefully with time reason will prevail...

[BTCC Fan#1]

I heard Bill Bryson explain that. In that in order for an animal to become fossilised, an extremely rare course of events needed to take place, namely that it would die suddenly, and in the right place to be under sediments which were being laid down at the time and not be subject to too much erosion etc.

So many animals and plants that existed just didn't inhabit the correct environments to allow fossilisation.
Bill Bryson's take on the Cambrian Explosion and evolution of early life is often cited and (rightly!) praised by academics within the field of palaeontology as being extremely well written and informative, especially in that it's a good introduction to the subject for the general public. So much so I have seen his work referenced in scientific literature on the subject, very unusual for a piece of 'popular science'.

[Alexamateo]

You sound like you might be a fan of something like "Inteligent Design". Of course there is a couple of different ideas on what THAT means.

I figure Darwin had a part of the puzzle figured out, but there is lots more people and science hasn't figured out.

I am a firm believer that there is a "god"or higher entity out there that set all of this in motion. What is more, I believe we will never be sure how it all happened, but I figure the chase in acquiring this knowledge will keep us all busy and figuring out a lot of things useful to us, like the DNA mapping and gene research.

No one can say with 100% certainty whether there is a god, or how all of this started. Darwin's theory is a good one, and this story is worth seeing on film, but I don't think any rational religious person of faith should get that upset. It is FAITH...and you either believe, or you don't. The world didn't end because of the "Da Vinci Code", and I think this will be the same when it hits the theatres. I like Paul Bettany's work so this could be a good movie.

I am not a fan of "Intelligent Design", although you are right, it refers to several different things. Darwin was correct of course on micro-evolution, but its macro where he has the problems, and mainly because of lack of fossil evidence. I just wanted to point out that Science and scientists sometimes use the same sorts of rationalizations that religion uses.

"Well of course certain conditions have to be met for fossilization, it's very difficult etc, etc, ..... the missing link fossils just didn't fall under those conditions, etc. etc."

Don't you see what is happening from a sociological standpoint?

Gould and Etheridge, want us to believe in "Punctuated Equlibrium", saying stasis is the main thing of evolution, followed by periods of extreme rapid change. Sounds great, right? except where do we see any evidence of this in fossils?, and when have any rapid mutations resulted in success for any organism? We might as well believe in Goldschmidt's "Hopeful Monster".

Honestly, I see biology trying to hold on to evolution, in the same way the church tried to explain the motions of the stars and planets with their concentric rings, and rings upon rings in an effort to keep the earth in it's place at the center of the universe.

Letting go of an idea is a very difficult thing. It would not surprise me for some new theory arising and basically debunking macro-evolution in the future, and this idea will come from the world of science, not religion.