Photograph by Alan Silfen/Sony Pictures via Everett Collection
Will Smith (right) co-stars with his son Jaden in ‘After Earth’
Entertainment
From ‘Battlefield Earth’ to ‘After Earth’: Why Do Scientology-Themed Films Flop?
Men in Black, Independence Day, I Am Legend: Almost every single Will Smith summer blockbuster has debuted at No. 1 at the box office. Until now. Over the weekend, Will and son Jaden Smith’s sci-fi film After Earth pulled in a paltry $27 million, putting it in a league with epic flops Land of the Lost and John Carter. Even Now You See Me earned more money last weekend; that movie is about teleporting magicians who rob a bank.
Yes, After Earth got terrible reviews, but that doesn’t always guarantee a bomb. (See: Armageddon, which opened at No. 1 in 1998 and has since raked in $500 million worldwide, even though Roger Ebert said it was one of the worst films he’d seen.) The problem may well be traced to the flood of Scientology-laced themes and messages that populate the film—which don’t seem to translate into box-office dollars.
In the movie, a father and son crash-land on the earth 1,000 years after a catastrophe forced humans off the planet, and the two have to overcome their negative emotions. “Danger is very real. But fear is a choice,” Smith tells his son in the trailer, echoing lessons found in the Scientology text Dianetics. Also, certain images in the film—volcanoes, the design of the characters’ uniforms—appear to distinctly reference the religion, as Reddit has helpfully pointed out.
Scientology, of course, was born out of science fiction. In the 1970s, founder L. Ron Hubbard wrote a screenplay called Revolt in the Stars about an evil dictator named Xenu, who sends people to earth and tries to kill them. (Xenu would later become a central component of the church’s teachings.) After Hubbard failed to get the movie made, he went on to write would later became the novel Battlefield Earth, which inspired John Travolta’s 2000 box-office flop of the same name. The film was so bad that Nathan Rabin wrote, in his A.V. Club review: “Outside of marching on Washington in Nazi uniforms … it’s hard to think of a worse way to recruit [Scientology] converts than to subject them to this surreal atrocity.”
Given the church’s roots, it’s a wonder Scientologists can’t seem to make a better sci-fi film. Audiences love a good dystopian future (Logan’s Run, Blade Runner, The Matrix), especially if it involves Will Smith. But After Earth appears to be nothing but a big-budget fantasy story full of bland characters and CGI animals directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Audiences have already seen that. It’s called The Last Airbender.
FATHER, SON AND UNHOLY SPIRIT?
Exclusive: Drew Zahn reviews Will Smith film, 'After Earth'
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At its heart, the new, Will Smith movie “After Earth” is a story about a father and son’s estrangement and subsequent reconciliation.Or is it?
Reports from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and even a review by a former Scientologist for The Hollywood Reporter all suggest the film may have another agenda altogether that most audiences will miss … unless, of course, you’re an L. Ron Hubbard devotee.
On it’s surface, the science fiction movie is a frequently exciting, but yet unsatisfying film about a time in the future when mankind has left Earth to settle on another planet where humans must nonetheless battle a horrifying alien species that can literally smell our fear.
The only solution to the new planet’s dilemma is “ghosting,” the trained ability of some soldiers to squash all fear, thus eliminating the giveaway scent.
The whole movie seems built around one, key speech, delivered by the nearly emotionless (and symbolically named) Cypher Raige (roughly quoted here): “Fear is not real. The only place fear can exist in our thoughts of the future. We are afraid of something in the future which may not even exist in the present. That is insanity. Don’t mistake me: Danger is very real, but fear is a choice.”
The premise is insightful, helpful. The movie even seems to parallel one of my favorite Scripture verses: “For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7).
Furthermore, the relationship between the father and son after they crash on old Earth draws some parallels to the children of God relying on their heavenly Father; and the advice Raige gives his son every time the boy grows panicked is spot on: “Take a knee.”
Yet for all the parallels and insights a person could draw from the film, a dark cloud hangs over it.
From the control of emotion, to “grounding yourself in the present” to even the big volcano at the film’s climax, the former Scientologist with The Hollywood Reporter warns much of the dialogue, message and imagery of the film seems “plucked directly from the L. Ron Hubbard playbook” – in other words, a propaganda vehicle for the pseudo-religion of Scientology.
Perhaps this is not surprising. Will Smith, though not openly a member of the Scientology cult, has often praised it and has contributed over $1 million to a school founded upon its teachings. And Scientology has wormed its way into film before, with the science fiction disaster “Battlefield Earth,” starring yet another Scientologist, John Travolta.
I don’t think the Scientology flavor of the film is obvious enough to turn off the unsuspecting viewer … yet does that not perhaps makes it even more a cautionary tale?
If a film can subtly plant the ideas, values and images of a false religion in your mind – without you even recognizing its work – is that worth the few minutes of entertainment it gives you?
In this case, however, even the entertainment value is hardly stellar. The film spends way too much time in front of the green screen, the directing is often clumsy (oh, how far M. Night Shyamalan has fallen) and the film’s most charismatic actor (Will Smith) is handcuffed as the coldly stoic Cypher Raige.
After a very slow start, it does often become exhilarating, and Smith does a fine job with what he’s given, but too much of the movie is just being carried by special effects and adrenaline, and not enough by fine filmmaking.
In the end, “After Earth” is little more than average movie fare with a potentially dangerous message – not a combination I would recommend.
Content advisory:
- “After Earth,” rated PG-13, contains only 2 minor profanities and no obscenities.
- The film is also very light on sexuality, with only a passionate kiss between husband and wife and a father mistaking his daughter’s comment about her boyfriend for a sexual innuendo.
- The violence in the film, however, is quite a bit more intense, as Raige’s son must trek 100 kilometers across a planet, as the film explains, “where all life has evolved to kill humans.” Confrontations with ferocious wildlife often turns violent, while meanwhile an evil alien slaughters (often with bloody results) humans and animals alike. There is a fair amount of gore, including a scene where a man conducts a very bloody surgery on himself. In the end, the boy faces a kill-or-be-killed battle, with a consequently violent end.
- As mentioned above, and as noted by several news sources, the film is frequented with future humanity’s psychological, philosophical worldview, which is remarkably similar to Scientology. No other religious or occult content is overtly depicted.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/06/father-son-and-unholy-spirit/#30l8L5jIHgXxDqQy.99
Sony Pictures
Critics have noted the similarities between Will and Jaden Smith's new movie, After Earth, and books by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.
Film
The pressure is on Will Smith.
His new film, After Earth, has crashed in the US, breaking his box office winning streak.
The sci-fi epic, which sees Smith and his son, Jaden, stranded on Earth thousands of years in the future, made an underwhelming $US27 million on its opening weekend.
It limped into third place behind Fast and the Furious 6 and the heist movie Now You See Me.
After Earth, which Smith co-wrote and produced, was supposed to be a sure-fire hit - a boy's own adventure that drew heavily on the jaw-dropping jungle scenes of Avatar.
Considering Smith's star power, and the fact every blockbuster he's starred in the last 20 years has debuted at number one, the result will be making Hollywood sweat.
After Earth's producers will be hoping it performs better over seas, but that may be hard ask in light of the pounding it has taken from the critics.
The majority have dubbed it a "bomb" and a "catastrophe".
More troublesome for Smith are the claims that After Earth is a $US130 million ad for Scientology.
Many critics have noticed that the film trades heavily on imagery and concepts associated with the controversial religion, particularly the tagline: Danger is very real. But fear is a choice.
The New York Times' Manohla Dargis wrote: "Casual students of Scientology may find their ears pricking up at those maxims because fear and its overcoming receive a lot of play in Dianetics, a foundational text by the creator of Scientology, the pulp science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard."
Joe Morgenstern, from the Wall Street Journal, accused the film of being one long mind-numbing sermon. "The sermon echoes a central theme of Scientology. Is that the production's subtext, or are there reasons yet to be uncovered why humour and humanity have been essentially banished; why everyone looks pained; why the very notion of entertainment has been banished in favour of grinding didacticism, and why Mr Smith, who has been such a brilliant entertainer over the years and decades, looks as if he has undergone a radical charismaectomy?"
The Hollywood Reporter even got a former Scientologist review the film. Marc Headley, who wrote about his experiences in the book Blown For Good: Behind the Iron Curtain of Scientology, said: "The movie's climax takes place on a volcano that could have been ripped right off the cover of Dianetics, the look is so similar. In Scientology, the volcano is a common thread through many different teachings. This image was used not only on the cover of Dianetics, but has also been used in many of Scientology's TV ads over the years."
Matt Patches, writing on the entertainment website Vulture, noted in excruciating detail all the nods the film makes to Scientology. It's an eye-opener of a read. Patches concludes that the film's main villain isn't a murderous alien or any one of the hostile creatures that inhabit the abandoned Earth: it's "emotion".
He claims that Smith's father character spends the entire movie "auditing" his son.
This is the kind of press - not the bad reviews - that can turn a once-invincible movie star into box office poison.
John Travolta has been a dud ever since he made his love letter to Scientology, Battlefield Earth.
Tom Cruise, arguably Scientology's biggest mouthpiece, is dismissed by many as a kook. His couch-jumping antics in 2005 followed by his publicised attack on anti-depressives and psychiatry - viewed by Scientologists as the work of the devil - landed him in movie star jail. His split from Katie Holmes last year led to claims he had planned to indoctrinate his daughter into a cult.
Smith has been evasive when it comes to answering questions about his links to Scientology. Although he says he is simply a "student of world religion", his links to Scientology are undeniable. He has donated large sums to several Scientology organisations and together with his wife opened a private school founded on the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard.
Most movie-goers are unaware of this; to them, Smith is a charming, good-looking, highly entertaining performer, who cracks wise in films and does impromptu renditions of the theme song to the Fresh Prince.
But his odd theories about life have seeped out over the past week.
He came off extremely kooky in an interview he did with Jaden in New York Magazine.
In it, they started espousing some very bizarre theories about patterns and multi-dimensional mathematics.
Smith: "I'm a student of patterns. At heart, I'm a physicist. I look at everything in my life as trying to find the single equation, the theory of everything."
....
Jaden: "I think that there is that special equation for everything, but I don't think our mathematics have evolved enough for us to even-I think there's, like, a whole new mathematics that we'd have to learn to get that equation.
Smith: "I agree with that."
Jaden: "It's beyond mathematical. It's, like, multidimensional mathematical, if you can sort of understand what I'm saying."
One person who will be relatively relieved is After Earth's director, M. Night Shyamalan.
Like Smith, Shyamalan was once box office gold. After The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs, he was seen as the next Steven Spielberg but his last few films - The Happening and The Last Airbender - have all been financial and critical duds.
His name has been largely absent from After Earth's marketing materials, which gives him a get-out-of-jail card.
- © Fairfax NZ News
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