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Did Gary Whitta write After Earth as Scientology propaganda?
- Thread starter onlyindreams
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Jackben
bitch I'm taking calls.
Anyone seriously considering that Gary wrote the film as Scientology propaganda needs a reality check. That's what the 'spoilers: no' is about. Whether or not you consider After Earth a good film is an enitrely different matter that is absolutely subjective.
The end.
The end.
OrangeGrayBlue
Member
You're entirely right, but I can understand someone believing in a religion because they were indoctrinated with the teachings practically since birth. That's not the case with Will Smith/Tom Cruise/John Travolta and scientology. I just wish I knew what their alterior motive was for playing along with what they must surely realize is complete silliness.
onlyindreams
Banned
To #TeamGaryIsntAScientologist: Why would Will Smith hire Gary Whitta of all people to write his scientology movie? Wouldn't he want someone "in the know"?
jim-jam bongs
Member
Yeah... I doubt that the title change was Whitta White-Knighting. The justification for the film being pro-Scientology is flimsy at best. Frankly, it just sounds like he and Shama-llama-ding-dongs previous modus-operandi; make something trite and thematically derivative with a few clumsy twists, then pray that the audience is too drunk to notice.
jediyoshi
Member
Definitely stick with the ambiguous gifs, puts a nice ease on the English language.
jim-jam bongs
Member
Harken Raiser
Banned
Some of the comments on Reddit say that the poster copied and pasted the post from a forum called Luelinks. I've never heard of it, but apparently its an invite only forum that you can't even browse without an account... is it GafGold?
Also, scripts go through a bunch of hands before the film gets shot, so even if there were Scientology references, odds are that Gary Whitta didn't put them there.
Also, scripts go through a bunch of hands before the film gets shot, so even if there were Scientology references, odds are that Gary Whitta didn't put them there.
onlyindreams
Banned
Vulture is talking about it too http://www.vulture.com/2013/05/after-earth-will-smith-love-letter-to-scientology.html
This story was literally Will Smith's idea. It's not a spec script.
Getting a Christian and Agnostic? to write your Scientology film? Bleh. If there are themes that Smith wanted because of Scientology and those themes are also generally universal then who cares? It's like being pissed off when a film that promotes charity is written by Christian or Humanist or some shit.
Harken Raiser
Banned
My bad, L. Ron Hubbard outsmarts me again!
Reading these articles, it just sounds like a sci-fi movie. and as the articles point out, Hubbard's work reads like sci-fi. so Smith ripped some ideas from his religion that he felt added up to a movie. I'm trying to find the underhanded stuff that I'm supposed to be outraged about, but it's just not happening this time, internet.
Succinct Verbosity
Member
I posted this in the wrong thread, so I'll repost this here.
Sort of off topic, but wasn't the original Battlestar Galactica pushing Mormon references into its show that survived into the reboot (such as Kobol/Kolob). Did that bother anyone?
Outside of this movie being bad -or potentially bad- I don't see why it'd be hard for people to separate entertainment from any ideological motivations. I suppose it depends how deep you want to delve and, sure, it is interesting... But it's not really offensive.
Sort of off topic, but wasn't the original Battlestar Galactica pushing Mormon references into its show that survived into the reboot (such as Kobol/Kolob). Did that bother anyone?
Outside of this movie being bad -or potentially bad- I don't see why it'd be hard for people to separate entertainment from any ideological motivations. I suppose it depends how deep you want to delve and, sure, it is interesting... But it's not really offensive.
That's a better argument than the reddit one. It doesn't sound like propaganda. Will Smith just came up with a story inspired by his religion. I doubt Whitta has much to do with that.
Who's outraged? Seems like people are just finding another part of a terrible movie to dislike.
The uniform comparison is also pretty silly. Looks more like those scientology guys are just wearing a slightly modified version of normal navy officier uniforms. Impossible to say from which one the movie got its inspiration from.
Of course. Aliens are also a pretty big theme in Scientology!
bearythebear
Member
Shit like this is why I love the internet.
Warm Machine
Member
I thought After Earth was initially based off a few panel Penny Arcade comic?
I find it disturbing that people tear into AE and Book of Eli possibly in an effort to hurt the writer who they know frequents the forum and who they think will likely read the comment.
I find it disturbing that people tear into AE and Book of Eli possibly in an effort to hurt the writer who they know frequents the forum and who they think will likely read the comment.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
At the very least, at least Shyamalan has stopped stroking his ego since the title doesn't have his name. Could've been "MNS's After Earth"
I see the word "propaganda" in the thread title, but now i see the thread title was changed to mock the situation. *shrug*
CartridgeBlower
Member
That has nothing to do with him and everything to do with proper marketing.
Also why the title change? Are people not allowed to speculate on subtext in a movie anymore? Yikes...
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Shyamalan isn't marketable anymore?
That's a different movie. Don't think work on it has started.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
I think that is another project Gary was working on.
So then it is Scientology propaganda after all?
CartridgeBlower
Member
Will Smith gets a 'Story By' credit in the film. Have no idea why so many posters in this thread are so against the idea that Smith could have slipped some of his beliefs into the film.
I like Gary Whitt the gaf user, he's a great poster and an asset to the forum, but that really shouldn't be reason to squelch criticism of movies he worked on.
I also believe it's 100% unnecessary, I seriously doubt a screenwriter can survive in Hollywood without learning to cope with negative reviews, even from people a bit more influential than ZeldaFan69.
oh man, it did look pretty arse from the trailers, but I wasn't expecting it to be this bad
Smith to abandon his son on a highway very soon
Warm Machine
Member
It is one thing to criticize. It is another to resort to hyperbole in an effort to hurt the feelings of another who has had the opportunity of penning a movie.
I have no problem saying Book of Eli wasn't a great movie. I have no problem saying that certain characterizations and reactions were off given character actions. However it wasn't a steaming pile of shit. The twist alone was handled really well.
No clue about AE yet because I haven't seen it. But even Shyamalans worst has great moments and shots in it so I find it hard to believe that the film is completely without merit. May even be the case that what is good in it has nothing to do with Gary at all and instead has to do with technical competency.
MrCunningham
Member
Chet Rippo
Member
I didn't even know this was a movie until now.
Warm Machine
Member
I think his when he has more resources at hand he over develops his films. He was best when he was writing and shooting with low scope minimalism in mind.
I had heard from an animator who worked on Signs that Shyamalan doesn't have a good idea of what he wants when it comes to effects and that they make him uncomfortable to use. Don't know how true that is.
Doubt it. The Last Airbender was an adaptation and he still fucked it over, and it's not like he was anything but a director for hire for this one either.
He's just lost it, I think.
RobotMafia
Banned
Were you expecting a great movie M.Night? You can't blame Gary for it either as the final product was probably barely his script.
Harry Potter
Banned
Spoilers: no
M. Night has made more good (arguably great) movies than Whitta has. Failure is an orphan and all that, but let's not let any of the players off the hook just yet. Sounds like this was quite the collective failure (and I'd place most of the blame on Smith, if for no other reason than his desire to get this made).
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
That's mean
RobotMafia
Banned
goddamn, has it really been 11 years since Signs? Time flies.
okay, you're right.
I maintain that this sounds like it's got Smith's fingerprints all over it. I mean, for starters, it's a movie completely built around propelling his son to superstardom (while requiring him to do as little actual acting as possible). So, really, what's a few veiled scientology references on the side? Not like screenwriters have much power anyways.
HomerSimpson-Man
Member
Well M. Night seemed to lost his mind years ago. I cannot believe the same guy who directed The 6th Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs directed The Happening and The Last Airbender. You would swear it done by 2 different people.
I mentioned it in another thread, in at his once weakest with The Village and Lady in the Water, there was still competent directoring and well done cinematography due to Christopher Doyles work in Lady in the Water, but his last 2 films, it like he lost all concept of directing; even things like basic construct of on screen conversation framing is a mess, it's all poorly staged, edited, framed....it's really weird. It's a really legitimate question, what happened to the guy?
CornBurrito
Member
I think we would be allowed to argue about religious subtext in the movie. But asking if someone intentionally wrote religious propaganda seems a bit more than arguing subtext.
It is weird that he would write religious propaganda with different religions as the base each time. Is it propaganda in that case?
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