80 days before - My Opinion of Angels & Demons (the movie) YES, SPOILERS!

Okay, time to organize my thoughts. Yesterday, we all went to see Angels & Demons, the movie. And like my sister, I had to take some time to figure out how I felt about it.

First of all, if we look at the movie on its own merit--that is, if we look at the movie without any sort of comparison to the book--it was excellent. It was very well done overall and, had I not read the book, I would probably have very little bad to say about it. Actually, even having read the book, I have very little bad to say about it. I thought they captured the spirit of the novel very well, which is really what I look for in a movie based on a book. I understand that when a book is made into a movie, changes have to be made. Things that work well on paper don't work as well on the big screen. Books can be as long as they need to be, whereas movies need to be around two hours in order to suit the attention span of the movie-going audience. (As it was, this move lasted two-and-a-half hours. I know . . . I had to pee the whole time.) So things have to be cut, streamlined, simplified . . . and sometimes the story can completely change. I'm usually able to look at the book and the movie as two separate entities, so as long as the essential spirit of the novel is there, I'm not bothered by the changes.

That being said, the spirit of suspense was done very well in the movie. (Suspense is something movies do very well.) And one of the major themes of the book--the battle between science and religion--was also done well.

However . . .

In looking at the changes that WERE made, I notice that they follow a somewhat disturbing pattern.

If you've been following my book reviews on YouTube, then you know that one of the things I like about the novel is that Dan Brown is able to present both sides of this contentious debate between science and religion without allying himself with either side. He presents both sides objectively and equally, in both good and bad light, and the conclusion he comes to at the end is that science and religion are, in fact, not contradictory, and that the world needs both.

The movie comes to the same conclusion in the end . . . but it doesn't present the two sides quite as objectively. I began to notice that many of the changes made have the result of erring on the side of the religious side of the debate. Consider some of these changes . . .

SPOILER ALERT!!! If you've not read the book or watched the movie, and don't wish to have the story spoiled for you, don't read past this point!

-The elimination of Max Kohler, Director of CERN, who in the book is pretty much the poster boy for the scientific side of the debate. He is in a very outspoken advocate of science over religion, and sounds quite anti-Catholic at times. It is he who finally exposes the camerlengo and dies for it. His character is completely eliminated from the movie, and it is the religious commander of the Swiss Guard who exposes the camerlengo.

-The surviving Cardinal. In the book, all four of the kidnapped Cardinals are killed, which is why there is even a question of the camerlengo becoming Pope. In the movie, however, the last Cardinal is saved by Langdon, and eventually becomes Pope, so the "Illuminati" doesn't have a completely victory in that area.

-The Assassin's character is completely different in the movie. In the novel, the Assassin thinks he's working for the Illuminati, is very anti-church, enjoys killing, and has a bizarre sex/death fetish that leads him to kidnap Vittoria with the intent of raping and killing her when the ordeal is over. In the movie, the assassin is a religious man who believes he is doing the work of God and only kills when it is necessary or when he is ordered to.

-The fact that the murdered physicist at the beginning is also a priest is barely touched upon in the movie. It's mentioned briefly at the end as an explanation for what led the camerlengo to eventually do what he did. But in the novel, the fact that he is a priest AND a physicist is learned at the very beginning AND is made into a much bigger deal. As a result, the religious implications of the collider and the creation of anti-matter are never fully explained, and the anti-matter is mostly only described as a destructive power, making the scientists of CERN look merely reckless and naive. Only brief mention is made of any benefits of this project.

-In the novel, what eventually led the camerlengo to act was the revelation that the Pope had fathered a child. It is eventually revealed that he did this through in vetro fertilization--through science--and that the camerlengo was, in fact, the child in question, which is what led the camerlengo to set himself on fire on the roof of St. Peter's Basilica. In the movie, this entire story line is dropped. (Which, incidentally, kind of eliminates both the reason for the camerlengo's initial actions and his suicide, making him just look like a crazy person, and thereby writing off any religious explanation for his actions.)

And let's not forget the endings. The movie ends with the newly elected Pope appearing to the crowd in St. Peter's Square. The book ends with sexual innuendo.

So it seems to me that the deciding factor of many (though not all) of the changes was an attempt to tame the movie for religious audiences. Because Hollywood doesn't care so much if a bunch of scientists get up in arms, but if the Catholic church gets up in arms . . . that's a problem.

I'll admit that I'm a little disturbed that we feel the need to do this, but on the other hand, I recognize that movie makers spend a lot more money on their product than book writers do, and therefore have a bigger need to make sure the product is marketable. What disturbs me is not so much that Hollywood does this . . . but that because of many narrow-minded religious groups ready to pounce on anything that seems even the least little bit blasphemous, that Hollywood NEEDS to do this . . . that we need to placate them in order to get any kind of word out.

Which, when you think about it, was kind of the point of the book.

Question: What do you think of Angels & Demons? (Either the book or the movie.)

-Matt