Phillip Pullman taking the Star Trek V way out

Myrmidon

Come on, Phil. You, I, and the perceptive members of your fanbase all know that it's the Abrahamic God. Don't try to pretend it isn't, you're already pissing off the Southern Baptist crowd,

glennmagusharvey

Pullman?  Isn't he the guy who invented a railroad car?

inkblot

^ George Pullman, who invented the railroad sleeping car.

This guy wrote His Dark Materials, famous for the way it explodes on contact with a Narnia book.

BaronGrackle

I understand the literal complaint but not the metaphor. What is "the Star Trek V" way out? I assume it has something to do with denying that your work is being critical of a real-life event or belief system?

Iaculus

I think that Star Trek V introduced a being who was clearly supposed to be God, and then the creators pussied out and said that any connections to real-life religious figures were purely coincidental.

Myrmidon

"Oh, it's not God, it's a powerful angel pretending to be God and blah blah blah critique of authoritarianism and Christian/Jewish/Muslims shoudn't be offended!"

Seriously, not fooling anyone.

MoeDantes

Yeah, when the first fucking book has a whole chapter in which the main character's father points out how the evil organization's beliefs are based on Catholic teachings and even paraphrases the Bible (and even says he's paraphrasing the Bible), you can't claim its not a comment or critique of religion.

Sadly I've known 'tards who actually DO argue that the books aren't actually about religion and that all statements to the contrary are just "being influenced by knowledge of Pullman's beliefs," even though all you have to do is read Chapter 23 of The Golden Compass to blast that to pieces. Sheer Determined Retardation at its finest, folks.

CommandoDude

What?

Did you actually WATCH Star Trek V?

I just watched Star Trek V.

Whoever or whatever that was, it was clearly not god. Rather, some kind of...antagonistic and incredibly powerful being stranded, trapped, or locked behind that barrier.

Myrmidon

Producer Harve
Bennett was exhausted by his work on the previous three Star Trek
films and wanted to move on, feeling that he was not part of the "Star Trek"
family and that he had been mistreated by Nimoy.^[19][20] When
Shatner tried to convince Bennett to reconsider the producer insisted on a
meeting at his home. After several hours of discussion Bennett agreed to
return.^[1][19]
Bennett disagreed with several elements of Shatner's story, feeling that because
no one could assuredly answer the question of God's existence, the ending of the
film would never be satisfying. Bennett also told Shatner that the film had the
feeling of a "tone poem" rather than an adventure story.^[21]
The studio agreed with Bennett, reasoning that the subject matter could be too
weighty or offensive to theatergoers.^[22][23]

Shatner and Bennett began reworking the story. Concerned that knowing the
renegade Sybok's motivation from the beginning of the story was anticlimactic,
the team moved the revelation to later in the story. Shatner said that Bennett
also suggested turning the God entity into an "evil alien pretending to be God
for his own gain". 

CommandoDude

Your point?

It doesn't matter what the story in prepoduction is. The story in the theaters is what was told.

Myrmidon

And the story as told was completely fucking horrible in both cases.

GLORIOUSLeader

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETT!

CommandoDude

Baaaaawwwww. The story didn't follow the original script!

Frankly. I think that would've been a lot better then trying to dump some kind of mystic mumbo jumbo trying to 'explain god' or some crap like that.

Myrmidon

CommandoDude

I loved that line.