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Dear Thursday: The Book of Eli

book-of-eli-AFM-poster-fullSorry, I’m still in the process of finishing this week’s book. I’ll post my review of it tomorrow. Meanwhile, a few people have asked me what I thought of The Book of Eli, which I saw last Saturday, so I’ll just say a few things about that film here. I don’t think I have any real spoilers in here, but my thoughts do revolve around something that you find out in the first half-hour, so if you want to go in completely pure like I did, STOP READING NOW.

While watching the movie I went back and forth with myself about whether I was actually liking it It occurs to me that I might be sick of Hollywood assuming that everything will fall apart and lawlessness will rule supreme in the event of any catastrophe. In short, I’m weary of movies assuming the absolute worst about humanity.

I also found it impossible to believe that there was enough government to burn every single Bible but one, but not enough to prevent lawlessness. I just really found the concept of the religion dying without the Bible hard to swallow. Let me tell you, if we ever do suffer through an apocolyptic war, the FIRST thing that will bounce back is religion — even if that’s what caused the war in the first place.

One last gripe, I’m not a big proselytizer (and by “not big,” I mean I don’t at all), but if I had the last Bible in America, please be sure that I would be gathering up the flocks and spreading the good word. The main character of Eli won’t even let a curious character touch his Bible. And that really upset me on a religious level. I guess my whole beef with this movie was the idea that the word is something that needs to be protected from as opposed to shared with society.

I don’t like to cop to being optimistic, but I guess I am, b/c even under the worse of circumstances, I think people would come together and help each other, even if all the bibles were burned. I really, really do. But maybe that’s just me.