Inform Lord Vader.
March 20, 2008 by Jeffrey Overstreet
I found this over at Ross Douthat’s blog, where he titled it “SkyNet, Stage One.”
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March 20, 2008 by Jeffrey Overstreet
I found this over at Ross Douthat’s blog, where he titled it “SkyNet, Stage One.”
Posted in Technology | 5 Comments
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- delighted and honored to learn that Auralia's Colors is nominated for two Christy awards!
- recommending "The Visitor," an inspiring, funny, and powerful new film by Thomas McCarthy, writer-director of The Station Agent
- working full-time as a writer/editor at Seattle Pacific University.
- finishing revisions for Cyndere's Midnight and preparing for the proofreading round.
- bedazzled by new albums by Portishead, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Lizz Wright, Allison Moorer, and Sam Phillips.
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Welcome to Jeffrey Overstreet's blog. Here we discuss news, reviews, and perspectives on movies, music, literature, faith, and plenty more. You'll also find news and updates regarding Jeffrey's books:
and the upcoming sequel in The Auralia Thread,
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- MySpace.
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Wow. What an honor. Thank you, Christy Award judges!
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Greg Wright reviews Expelled: No Intellgence Allowed. And contrary to the chorus of ecstatic Christian leaders, Wright is willing to point out that the film has flaws as serious as any rabble-rousing Michael Moore movie.
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What's your favorite closing moment of a feature film?
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From now on, that's "The Pulitzer-Prize-Winning Bob Dylan."
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Who should direct the adaptation of Orson Scott Card's classic sci-fi adventure novel?
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When Seattle Public Schools *required* students to attend a visit by the Dalai Lama, and *required* them to wear lotus flower t-shirts, was that a show of diversity and tolerance? Read this letter of protest.
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McSweeney's offers up an alternate script for Spider-Man 2, written by the celebrated author Michael Chabon
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Fairy tales and fantasy stories... what good are they? A celebration of the stories of Madeleine L'Engle, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and George MacDonald.
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What do you want the screenwriters to get right?
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Here's my review of my favorite film so far in 2008.
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The folks at Image journal can.
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First, my friend Brett McCracken posted this review of "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." Then, this post broke all records at this blog, with 10,000 readers in 24 hours. Looking Closer reader Stuart Blessman sent me an email about what he witnessed at a screening of Expelled, and suddenly an army of offended athiests showed up here to burn Blessman at the stake, or at least to call for his expulsion from his university. What a ride. One might almost conclude that they responded with "moral outrage," which would suggest they've discovered a foundation for absolute right and wrong, by which they judged Blessman "unrighteous." Fascinating. And then, one of Blessman's professors defended him. Because it's a free country, apparently, and we're free to discuss ideas in a public forum. The drama continues.
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What Ted Baehr, Tom Snyder, and Movieguide really want.
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It's time for the Oscars to revise their selection process, and avoid any more worldwide embarrassment.
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Monks, rats, mass murderers, sex dolls, an "oil man", and a guy who's unable to move anything but his left eye. What do they have in common? They're in some of Jeffrey's favorite films of the year!
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In the second-most widely read post in the history of this blog, Jeffrey answers questions that he's been asked about "The Golden Compass," the author, the movie adaptation, and the controversy.
Will this movie make kids want to "kill God"? Find out here.
Plus, listen to The Kindlings Muse, a program hosted by Dick Staub, and hear a conversation about author Philip Pullman and his series of children's books that he wrote to "undermine Christian faith." Free download here!
And now, here's my review, and two more non-hysterical, condemnation-free reviews of the film by Christian movie reviewers:
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- Please speak up! This blog exists to encourage conversation. I've learned a lot here, even (and especially) from those who know how to (respectfully) disagree.
- I reserve the right to approve or delete any comments, so I can keep the "dialogue" on-topic and civil. This is not an "anything goes" site.
- Please keep comments fairly brief. No manifestos. No essays. Feel free to include links to your own sites, where you can ramble on as much as you like.
- If a back-and-forth debate gets on my nerves, I'll delete it. My nerves get enough trouble as it is. Take the debates into email, please.
And you're invited to an upcoming reading. Watch AuraliasColors.com and Auralia's Blog for details.
Order Auralia's Colors from: Amazon.com.
Visit Auralia here.

- *Starred Review* in Publisher's Weekly
"Inspirational. Sometimes all of us forget that love for movies, that internal spark inside us that movies lit, and [Overstreet's] book is going to remind many of us about it."- Darren Aronofsky, director of Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain
Order Through a Screen Darkly from: Amazon.com
or from Jeffrey himself (an autographed, personalized copy).
- The Kindlings Discuss the Top Films of 2007: Into Great Silence. There Will Be Blood. The Devil Came On Horseback. Assassination of Jesse James. Hot Fuzz. Juno. Gone Baby Gone. Feast of Love. Deep Water.
- December 2007 - Christmas Edition: Atonement. Enchanted. Juno. No End in Sight. The Namesake. Deep Water. Millions. Scrooge. Joyeux Noel.
- November 2007: Baby Gone, Michael Clayton, Dan in Real Life, Amazing Grace, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, The Devil Came on Horseback, Vanaja, Longford, and No Country for Old Men.
- October 2007: Into the Wild, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Stardust, Away From Her, Lives of Others, Zodiac, Outsourced, For the Bible Tells Me So and Into Great Silence.
- September 2007: Ratatouille, Bourne, Simpsons, more.
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No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?
– Anne Dillard
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You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters.
- Saint Bernard
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As soon as beauty is sought not from religion and love, but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker.
– Annie Dillard
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The Christian writer does not decide what would be good for the world and proceed to deliver it. Like a very doubtful Jacob, he confronts what stands in his path and wonders if he will come out of the struggle at all.
– Flannery O’Connor
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Our response to life is different if we have been taught only a definition of faith than if we have trembled with Abraham as he held a knife over Isaac.
– Flannery O’Connor
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Certainly some revolt against our exaggerated materialism is long overdue. They seem to know a good many of the right things to run away from, but to lack any necessary discipline. They call themselves holy but holiness costs and so far as I can see they pay nothing. It's true that grace is the free gift of God but in order to put yourself in the way of being receptive to it you have to practice self-denial. As long as the beat people abandon themselves to all sensation satisfactions, on principle, you can't take them for anything but false mystics. A good look at St. John of the Cross makes them all look sick.
- Flannery O'Connor
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"And like all true believers, I am truly skeptical of all that I have said."
- Over the Rhine, "The World Can Wait"
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"The point of an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
- G.K. Chesterton
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"If they won't write the kind of books we want to read, we shall have to write them ourselves; but it is very laborious."
- C.S. Lewis to J.R.R. Tolkien
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"A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us."
- Franz Kafka
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"The truth must dazzle gradually."
- Emily Dickinson
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"There is no such thing as an artist: there is only the world, lit or unlit as the light allows. When the candle is burning, who looks at the wick? When the candle is out, who needs it? But the world without light is wasteland and chaos, and a life without sacrifice is abomination."
- Annie Dillard, "Holy the Firm"
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“If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
- C.S. Lewis
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"When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."
- C.S. Lewis
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"When we understand the outside of things, we think we have them. Yet the Lord puts his things in subdefined, suggestive shapes, yielding no satisfactory meaning to the mere intellect, but unfolding themselves to the conscience and heart."
- George Macdonald
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“I want to give the audience a hint of a scene. No more than that. Give them too much and they won’t contribute anything themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working with you. That’s what gives the theater meaning: when it becomes a social act.”
- Orson Welles
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"If you write for God, you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men, you may make some money, and you may give someone a little joy, and you may make a noise in the world — for a little while. If you write only for yourself, you can read what you yourself have written, and after ten minutes, you will be so disgusted you will wish that you were dead."
- Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
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That is just plain CREEPY….
Skynet seems drunk.
Seriously that is scary cool.
Great.. All it needs is a gun attached and the military has another superweapon…
That is eerie and awesome at the same time.
Woah. Eerie and awesome indeed.
But does it have to look/sound like a giant fly? I think I need a bigger fly swatter…