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- [00:02]
A
Guess what day it is. It's French Friday. It's French Friday, so grab your fries and say hooray. David French is here to play on French Friday. It's French fry day.
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B
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Skypod, brought to you by Holy Post Media. I am joined today by David French for a Special Nerd Fest 2026 French Friday. Hi, David Sky.
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A
I love our Nerd fests. This is prime French Friday stuff right here.
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B
I know.
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A
This is the good stuff.
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B
It is the good stuff. And we were supposed to record this yesterday. We had a huge storm roll through the city. You had amazing pictures of the storm from your apartment in the city. I didn't have such a great view because we lost power out here. There's a tree down in my yard. I still don't have power at home. But we had to move this recording from yesterday to today. So thank you for your flexibility. So for those who are not initiated in the Nerdfest, at least once a year we do an episode where we just talk about popular culture stuff, movies, TV shows that we're watching. Usually stuff that. I don't know how Nancy feels about these shows. My wife is not a big fan of superhero movies or some of the comic book nonsense that I sometimes will watch. But I'm glad that I have a kindred spirit with you here and we can geek out about this stuff. We have to begin with the Odyssey.
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A
Yeah.
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B
It is the biggest movie event of the year. I had New Testament scholar Nijay Gupta on last week to talk about the Odyssey, but we talked about it not so much the film, but Homer's Odyssey and what it actually reveals about religion in the ancient world and contrasting it with the New Testament.
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A
Fascinating stuff. Fascinating stuff.
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B
Really fascinating. You and I are not going to get deeply theological about this. We are nerd out a little bit
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A
more, are we not? What?
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B
Well, it's all theology, theological, I suppose. You wrote a piece, a column in the Times about the Odyssey and basically made the argument. And I want you to unpack this for our audience. That it was the most lowercase C conservative movie in a long time.
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A
In a long time. Yes.
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B
Make your case.
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A
Okay, I'm going to make the case because. And let's just begin with some of the early promotional posters. So one of the early promotional posters has these severed head of Athena, the statue of an Athena idol, severed head laying on the ground, and just the words defy the gods. So. And then we began to see this, this sort of marketing throughout in the build up. Defy the gods. And you know, when you're watching it, you think, oh, this is going to be interesting. This is Odysseus just sort of charting his own path, going his own way. And we're going to watch that all unfold. And, and let me put it this way. I was going to see this movie no matter what. They could have had a tagline that says, the Odyssey, this movie will suck. And I would go, I'm still going
- [02:55]
B
to this movie as long as Christopher Nolan was.
- [02:58]
A
As long as Christopher Nolan is directing it. Exactly. And so, but I was so interested by that. Defy the gods. Defy the Gods. It was a declaration. So then I watched the movie and yes, there was a lot of defying the gods, a lot of it. And very specifically filtered through this specific concept called, that they refer to as Zeus's law, which was sort of a version of the Golden Rule and sort of a version of a more ancient rule that was very directed towards hospitality, that you, you entertain a stranger because you might be entertaining gods, small G gods unawares. But it really, in the, in the Nolan version of it, kept kind of morphing and growing into something akin to, adjacent to. In the same neighborhood as the Golden Rule. And you just see serial violation of it after serial violation after serial violation with absolutely catastrophic consequences. Just catastrophic. And so people are defying the gods left and right. And by defying the gods, I don't mean the literal Olympian gods because their existence in the movie is really left open. You know, Odysseus has this vision of Athena, but is it really his conscience speaking to him? Is it actually an Athena figure? You know, it's left very agnostic, but the consequences are not. The consequences are horrific. And you even see Odysseus lamenting the conduct of the Trojan War and the use of the Trojan Horse, which was his strategic idea. And the movie flashes to the. The looting, the pillaging. There's strong implication of rape in the destruction of Troy in the Trojan War. And what the actual movie seems to be saying is defy the gods question mark and not defy the gods exhortation. Defy. Are you sure about this? Is this what you want to do? And as I put it in my piece, you could watch this unfold and you could imagine a natural law theorist just kind of nodding along. Yeah, there are moral laws in the universe, like there are physical laws in the universe. And if you violate the moral laws, if you violate these universal binding obligations on humanity, there will be not. There may be, but there will be consequences. And that's how I sort of began. My piece is sort of. Do you think moral laws exist in the sense that their violation carries a consequence in the same way that a violation of a physical law carries a consequence? And I think the best way to describe my reaction to the movie was imagine you go to a movie and the tagline says defy gravity. And you go expecting to see people flying and soaring and all of this stuff. Instead you just see a bunch of people tumbling to their deaths. Because if you defy gravity, you can't actually defy gravity none. You know, we. We can temporarily do it through whatever, but gravity is gravity. And this was. Don't think it was defy the gods. Think of it as defy the moral law and watch what happens. And so in that sense, I felt like a very traditional small C conservative movie.
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B
Yeah, it felt, I guess you could use karmic language, but to put it in biblical language, you're going to reap what you sow, right? That there are consequences to our decisions. And to put it in even non spiritual, non biblical, very contemporary, even political language is there are consequences to breaking norms. And a lot of people have talked about how the Trump administration, and it's not just the Trump administration because the Democrats are quickly following his lead, that you need to defy the norms we've inherited in public life, in political life, in rhetoric, in government, all these things. We need to defy these norms in order to win. Okay, maybe it works in the short term, just like the Trojan horse worked in the short term to win the war. But there are ongoing costs to pay for breaking those well established norms. And I think some of that message. I agree entirely with your interpretation of the movie, but I think on some people I've talked to about the movie, that messaging was lost partly because the movie ends with Odysseus sticking it to all the suitors that were at his home and seeming to have this victorious return. And it clouds. But the people are forgetting right before all that he has this moment of confession, which almost feels like he's in a confession booth to the point where there's even a screen between him and Penelope where he is sharing his guilty conscience. It is a confessional. And they're overlooking that for the spectacular scene that comes after it of Odysseus slaying all of the suitors. And they're like, oh, look, he's still on top. But then he goes off into exile, basically in penance for what he has done.
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A
Exactly.
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B
So it's there if you want to see it.
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A
Yeah, exactly. I think a lot of people focus on the fact that he's reunited with Penelope and he's sort of sailing off into the sunset happily, and he leaves his son, you know, on the throne. Happy ending. But he's not king.
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B
Right?
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A
He's not king anymore. So he comes, he pays his pen, he confesses, he sort of pays his penance. But then he's also an instrument of justice for the violation of the divine law by the suitors. So the suitor. This is a very. This is not a Christian movie. I did not say it as a capital C Christian movie. I said it's more small C, conservative. So he walks in and he becomes the instrument of sort of divine vengeance at the grotesque violation of the divine law engaged in by the suitors because
- [08:52]
B
they're violating the same law that Odysseus violated. He has paid the price of the gods. That's what the whole movie's been about. Now it's their turn to have to face the consequences of their violation of that same law.
- [09:03]
A
Exactly. And so then, to me, it's very interesting that just as Odysseus often happens in real life, where you reconcile your. You reconcile yourself to your sin, you confess your sin, that doesn't mean necessarily that the rest of your life is this bleak, empty wilderness. You can go on and do other. You know, in. In our Christian world, by God's grace, by God's incredible mercy and grace, you can go on and have joy and live a life. But the consequences of what you do still matter. And I thought it was very. There are the. And I thought it was very interesting that it is a consequence. This sounds weird to say, of course, like as if I'm breaking news at 11. There's a consequence to not being king. When you're king, you know, the stepping down from the throne is not something that a lot of kings just did. You know, I messed up. I'm going to step down from the throne. Not the normal response, not the normal royal response. So I think that's a big, bigger deal than people realize. Was that ending? Yes, he's with Penelope, but that was after 10 years of consequences, repentance, a degree of penance, and still paying penance by not being on the throne of his own kingdom, as he was entitled by right to be.
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B
Yeah. There's a parallel here to the subplot of Agamemnon in the story where we discover he's sort of the high king that leads the whole war against Troy. But we find out that in Order to get faith, favorable winds on his journey to get the gods on his side. He sacrifices his daughter and he goes off to war. He wins the war. He comes home triumphant. But his wife, so angry and distraught over the fact that he killed their daughter, turns around and murders him. So there's a consequence for him. He sacrifices or he does what's necessary to win the war, just as Odysseus did what was necessary to win the war with the Trojan horse, but then faces the consequences of that. Agamemnon faces that and it costs him his life. And there's a sense that Odysseus realizes, all right, I'm coming home now, but there's still consequence I have to pay. I would rather self exile than face the ending that Agamemnon faced.
- [11:26]
A
And what's so interesting about the Agamemnon ending in the movies, this is the Nolan retelling. This is not the original Homer Odyssey. Okay.
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B
Right.
- [11:37]
A
So the actual ending for Agamemnon was altered in a way that really reflects the divine law and the effect of consequences for its violation. And so the. It is very interesting to me that once you see this pattern in the movie, it's very difficult to unsee it. And.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And time and time again, you will see a choice made for expedience and ends justify the means choice. But there's always a price to be paid. You know, even at the very end where he's talking about how he's asking people who are going to Hades to tell his men, like to try to reconcile Odysseus with the men that he was not able to bury. Again, a violation of the law. Right. That he still felt a consequence. He still felt that there is something left undone. And so the whole movie to me was just a really fascinating exploration and sort of the costs and consequence of pride and willfulness. And just beautifully, I thought that confession and I hadn't even thought of the screen between him and Penelope until you said it. But it makes it an even more sort of beautiful image. And moment is that moment of confession is actually one of the most powerful and unexpected parts of the entire film.
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B
Yeah. You mentioned how Nolan changed some of the details around Agamemnon's story. And this came up when I was talking to Nijay Gupta last week because he had just recently reread the Odyssey and was comparing it to the film version. And he brought up the point that this theme of the law of Zeus and hospitality and all this dominates the movie. He kind of chuckled because he said, you know, there's nothing in the original Homer version where the gods are upset with Odysseus over the Trojan horse. They think the Trojan horse was brilliant. They think it was great. And even the law of Zeus, this hospitality towards strangers in Greek mythology or in Greek custom that only extended to other Greeks, you wouldn't show that kind of hospitality to Trojans or to anyone else. So it's clear that Nolan took details of the story and adjusted them a little bit from Homer's original in order to make a contemporary point. And I think the film is better as a result, and I'm grateful he did it. But it also brings up, I've heard a couple of commentators note that thematically this movie is in a strange way a direct sequel to Oppenheimer. Because there you have. Robert Oppenheimer is an Odysseus type character who does what's necessary to win World War II. He helps create the atomic bomb and this incredibly powerful world altering weapon that defies all of the prior understanding of the laws of war. And yet he does it because it was necessary, but carries a guilty conscience the rest of his life of did I do the right thing? What do we do now? Have I unleashed chaos on the world because of this new creation of mine? And that's Nolan's last movie. And then you transition to the Odyssey. And here's a man who does what's necessary to win a war and. And then faces the consequences of his guilty conscience of breaking these norms. And what do we do? And how do you put this genie back in the bottle? How do you close Pandora's box when you've unleashed these forces in the world that you didn't intend to? What do you do with that? So Nolan is playing around with these same themes in.
- [15:10]
A
He does in the whole Batman trilogy too.
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B
Exactly, yeah.
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A
Chaos.
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B
The Joker character is all about chaos. And Heath Ledger talks about it openly
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A
and Ra's Al Ghul is about the ends justify the means for Batman Begins. You know, once, you know, once Gotham has reached sort of the culmination of its sin, it needs to be purged. And you know, Batman stands against this sort of ends justify the means. And it. But at the same time, as we go through the trilogy, the moral, the fraught moral complexity of the entire Batman character, right, is. Is explored as well. So this is a theme like this theme of accountability. The ends justify the means, the. The great burden of power. All of these things are, you know, replete throughout the. The Nolan, you know, without. Throughout Nolan's work.
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B
It's fascinating okay, let's talk about some of the political responses to this movie because I've been intrigued by this. I mean, you've mentioned that it's. It's a small C conservative movie because it talks about the consequences of breaking norms and moral law and all that. I encountered one guy online, Kevin Bass, I think is his name. He argues that Nolan is using this film to promote pro immigration themes because it's all about hospitality to strangers and the consequences of not welcoming, which I thought was kind of weird. I was waiting for some MAGA supporting voice to come. Go. Well, no, no, no, no, no. The immigrants are like the Trojan horse. Like, they're coming in here covertly to undermine American society from the inside out. And they're the. So I'm just curious, what kind of responses are you encountering out there from either side of the political aisle on how this movie is supposed to be interpreted?
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A
Well, I have seen. On the left, I've seen very little about the Odyssey, sort of either in defense or more sort of taking it on its own terms. But there is the. A translator of the Odyssey who has been very mad at Nolan about it. Haven't really followed her critiques all that much. To me, it's quite obvious that Nolan changed the story. That's what people do. I mean. But on the right, it's. There has been, especially in the online. Right. This vested interest in trying to destroy the movie, essentially trying to create a go woke, go broke kind of dynamic. And just as the modern Ride often is, it's all based on identity. It's what I've seen is almost all based on identity. It's interesting. I thought of that in real time as I was watching the movie, that this emphasis on hospitality and then also on diversity. In other words, the crew is not. Does not all look Greek. Right. The crew is different ethnicities and sort of this idea that you could have Greek and be different ethnicities. This sort of also kind of a very modern or contemporary. It's a mythology.
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B
It's like taking a fairy tale and making the characters different ethnicities. Who cares? It's not reenacting actual history, right?
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A
Exactly. It's not actual history we're talking about, but the main issue was identity. It was. There's a trans actor. It was Helen of Troy as a black actor. You know, this kind of. It was all identity. And you know what it reminded me of? I remember seeing criticism of the Walking Dead years ago when it was very, very, very popular because it had gay characters in it. And. And yet the Walking Dead was. The Walking Dead was in many ways like the Second Amendment enthusiast dream story. You know, it was like the. This is why you own guns, because the zombie apocalypse could be upon us. And I can remember writing about some of the criticism and saying, you know, look, you can paint the Battleship New Jersey in rainbow colors and it's still the Battleship New Jersey. You know, like that. If you have a story that is, that is fundamentally oriented towards self reliance and, and, you know, and the Walking Dead, like the right to keep and bear arms, etc. The inclusion of some characters that you may have some qualms with, it doesn't change the underlying narrative thrust and arc of the whole story. It's the same thing with, with, with this. It's, you know, the, the. The inclusion of people from different backgrounds and identities into the story doesn't change the story. The story is still the story. Did having black and Hispanic actors in Hamilton change the story of the American founding? No. I do think it made a lot more people see themselves in it. A lot more people could see themselves in the American founding and how it was for them because of the black and Hispanic actors in Hamilton, but it doesn't change the story.
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B
That's the part I never quite understood about this issue that they raised before the movie even came out about the casting of some of these actors. Because the fact that Helen of Troy is depicted by an African actor didn't in any way impact the character of Helen of Troy. Likewise the fact that I forget the character's name who's played by Sinon.
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A
Sinon?
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B
Yeah. Elliot Page, who's a trans actor, like the character in the story is not trans.
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A
No.
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B
So the fact that an actor is African or South Asian or Latino or trans or whatever, none of those had any factor, didn't change the story, as you put it anyway, nor does it change the character. So I don't get what the Fury was about. There's rumors going around that Netflix is doing a new Narnia series. And I don't know if this is true or not, but there's a rumor around that Aslan is going to be played by Meryl Streep. Right? And you go, okay, making Aslan a male character into a female character, that could change the character in a fundamental way. But having a character played who some people thought looked more European actually look African, it doesn't change the character or their arc or that's not a quality that is essential to the character. So who cares? I don't know.
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A
We're talking about A fictional person anyway.
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B
Exactly. It's a little bit like the black hobbit thing and the Rings of Power, right? The African American elf or whatever people were freaking out about in Middle Earth in a fictional setting. I just don't get it. Except I get the fact that this is clickbait for people to get them stirred up, to get attention. But at the end of the day, it's a nothing burger.
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A
But it's also, I think it's even worse than clickbait's guy because I do think that parts of the right are now fully consumed with identity politics to such an extent that they do think having a black actor changes the story. Or having a trans actor who's playing a man in the story really for like five minutes. Right. I mean, you know, so you have a trans actor playing a man in the story. That, that changes the story because the story is the identity. And, and that's sort of, in many ways the heart of that's what racism looks like, is that if you're going to say, okay, the really salient factor for you to do the reverse of the Martin Luther King formulation is the color of your skin more so than the content of your character. Or, you know, in the case of a beautiful actress here, the beauty of your, you know, because she's the face that launched a thousand chips, you know, rather than the beauty of the person, it's the color of the skin. Then you really are looking at the way in which a lot of racial and identity based politics have warped to the right to such an extent that I do think it's not just clickbait. I think these people are legitimately thinking that the actual manifestation of, quote, whatever they want to call conservatism or whatever they want to call this belief system, that the actual manifestation requires certain identities. And in so doing, they are the flip side of the super hyper woke people, you know, like the kind of person. There was a recent book excerpt in the Free Press about somebody, a philanthropist, who said, don't apply for a, you know, don't apply for a grant unless you're a woman of color. Right. In that circumstance, the identity becomes the single most important thing and everything else flows from that. And that's what we have to realize in parts of the right, that identity is for them. If they got in a lie detector test, like if they took a polygraph, they would pass that. They are genuinely angry about the identity of the actors.
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B
Right. There's a horseshoe.
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A
That's scary.
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B
There's a horseshoe theory thing going on Here, where the far right is mirroring the far left. Okay, last thing on the Odyssey. Do you think the enormous commercial success of this film will affect the impulse on the far right to attempt another Go Woke Go broke campaign against whatever other films or TV shows are coming along? Did they fail so completely with the Odyssey that maybe they realize it's kind of dumb? Maybe we shouldn't do this again.
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A
No, I don't think it'll work. No, no, they will.
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B
Be right back.
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A
We're talking about the whole business model of an awful lot of people, as well as their. A core worldview. Like, so if you combine two things at once, like a. A genuine. Which I think is a vicious and malignant worldview with a business model, that's your perfect storm right there. Because somebody's feeling like they're doing well by their version of doing good and they're wedded to it. So, you know, we've had other situations where Go woke go broke hasn't, like, has not panned out at all, and they're completely undeterred. And then also you have to include the fact that, you know, when Elon Musk himself is diving into this, he is not necessarily somebody who's shown an enormous capacity for self reflection. Although, you know, he has said that he's gotten too carried away in politics before. But, you know, not seeing a lot of self doubt, self reflection, humility out of this guy. And he's one of the lead instigators of the whole thing.
- [25:42]
B
Okay, let's pivot to some other nerdy things. Just a potpourri of other stuff. I haven't. I'm kind of over the superhero genre. I did not go see Supergirl, which got panned all over the place.
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A
I didn't either. I'm gonna watch it, but I didn't go see it.
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B
I think the new Spider man movie comes out this week, if I'm not mistaken. I might see it if someone drags me there, but I'm not gonna stand in line to go see it, that's for sure. The trailer for the Avengers, Doomsday or whatever that one is called. I mean, we have so completely jumped the shark on the MCU here when you are having to play the nostalgia card already by bringing back Captain America, bringing back Tony Stark, bringing back like, it's just. Are we done? David, I know you're a fan of these movies in the genre, but are you burned out on them as much as I am?
- [26:37]
A
I'm not going to go and say burned out sky. I will Say less enthusiastic. And here's the problem. And I'm going to have a lot of empathy right now for the architects of the mcu, because think about this, think about with Endgame, I think it's what, the second highest grossing movie in human history, over 2 billion.
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B
The entire MCU up to that point is a massive achievement. And I don't hold that again, that's amazing what they've accomplished with that.
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A
But since then. So Avengers Endgame happens, and what do you have? Sky, you have the perfect ending of a multi billion dollar profit machine, and then you're Disney. This is arguably your most valuable entertainment property, aside from, I mean, probably even more valuable right now than Star wars because they kind of diminished. Star Wars.
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B
Yep.
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A
I mean, I'm sure it's not as profitable as their ships or their crew, their. Their parks. Their parks or whatever, but. But it's incredibly valuable property that they've just created the perfect ending for an incredible story arc. And what do you do? And what do you do? And what do you do, especially with. As part of that ending, Some of the most popular characters in film history are killed. Okay, well, the worst thing you can do, sky, and we have banged on this drum before, is create a freaking multiverse.
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B
Time travel, multiverse. All that drives me nuts.
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A
So what you end up doing is because you want to keep having Loki. And why wouldn't you? Because he's a phenomenal character. Because you want Robert Downey Jr. And why wouldn't you? Because he's incredible. Right. And all of these things. So you've lost, I mean, Captain America. You lost freaking Captain America. So what do you do all of a sudden? Well, we've got a multiverse. We've got time travel. We can. No, but no death is permanent. No. You know, and so. And what you do is you just lower the stakes of everything. And so this sort of idea that, you know, in this fictional MCU, Thanos is scary. Well, Thanos is scary in Earth 5783. But what about Earth 5782 and Earth 5781? And, you know, and all of this. And so I feel like they had a really difficult dilemma and just made a lot of bad choices that were understandable because they centered around some of the most popular stars in film history.
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B
There was nothing unpredictable about this, obviously. I understand this is a business and they have to make money and they have to keep the engines going of these brands that they've purchased, whether it's Star wars or the mcu. Whatever. But it feels almost like they need to take a lesson from agriculture and just let the field lay fallow for a while and let it rest and then bring it back or start it anew or plant a new crop, develop a different thing. And there's something about success that is always. There's a derivative nature to it that when you're successful in one thing, you just keep doing it, or other people copy it. We've seen Warner Brothers trying to copy MCU for multiple attempts now at rebooting Superman and Batman and all these other characters, but I just. I feel like the culture is burned out, saturated. Pick your metaphor on superheroes. And it's just let the whole genre rest for a good decade and then bring it back and start new. Maybe even bring back some of those characters, recast it with. I don't know. I'm not here to tell them what to do. Except don't do what you're doing because it ain't working.
- [30:32]
A
Yeah. I would even say what happens if you just do a hard stop, as you were saying? And then a hard stop for. Let's do a long time. 10 years. A 10 year hard stop. And then you just restart with a new generation of actors. New. So you're not, oh, is Loki still around? And to the extent that you bring any of these people back, you do so in a way that's credible and relevant to the story. But, you know, what's interesting to me is in theory, in a way, that's what Star wars did, and it would have worked. So remember how after Revenge of the Sith, you go through years and then sky? I don't know if I've ever been more excited by a trailer in my life. So the two trailers that to this day, I can instantly transport myself back. It's the first trailer for Philip Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. I was like, oh, my goodness, this looks glorious. And I've been waiting for this my whole life.
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B
And it actually paid off.
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A
Yes. And it paid off so spectacularly. And the trailer for Force Awakens, I agree. Which was so good.
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B
I don't know how many times I replayed that trailer.
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A
Oh. From the music to the visual, I mean, it was everything I wanted. And so they had us in the palm of their hands at this point.
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B
Can I interrupt for a second, too? Because I. We're both old enough to have experienced the original trilogy when it came out. And I don't know if you sometimes question your judgment of movies, but when the prequel trilogy came out, I hated it with a white hot passion. I thought they were terrible. You violated my childhood with these. And a lot of other fans were upset with them. So then when the Force Awakens trailer comes out, the franchise is now owned by Disney. They bring in J.J. abrams and you go, oh, it's redemption. Here we go. This is what we've been waiting for. And we're gonna get the original cast back. As in, you know, there was so much buildup and so much excitement because we were looking to recapture the vibe of the original trilogy, which we hadn't seen since 1983. I mean, it was enormous buildup. And then you come away going, they just remade A New Hope with a different Death Star and a different Darth Vader. But I was like, okay, they're just getting warmed up. It'll be better. And then you get the Last Jedi. And I was so upset, so disappointed.
- [33:01]
A
I was all in on the sequel trilogy. I enjoyed Force Awakens even though it was derivative of A New Hope. Enjoyed the heck out. I enjoyed every second of it. I love the Kylo Ren character. I like the Rey character. I liked seeing the old guys back. And then I thought the Last Jedi was one of the most magnificent movies I'd seen. And with the exception of Princess Leia being pulled back, discovering Force powers and pulling. That was. This is how that should have ended. Sky, when. So remember that incredible scene with the hyperspace jump through the massive Star Destroyer? Kylo Ren turns on Snope Snape, whatever, cuts down the guard, and he, like, extends his hand to Rey. Think of this guy. Rey takes his hand. They look at the fleeing rebel fleet. Cut to black closing credits. You don't know if Rey has joined Ren or if Ren has joined Reynolds. It's very similar to the end of Empire Strikes Back, where the bad guys seem to have won. There's all this confusion. Instead, he goes all Dr. Evil. So of course she's going to reject that. And then we go back to this midi chlorians nonsense, and we have the final stand of Luke Skywalker as an apparition. That was just a human rights violation to watch it in the theaters. Like, what are you doing to me? And then you have Rise of Skywalker, which is. I enjoyed it in the moment, but let me just say, the cavalry charge on top of this Star Destroyer took me so far out of the story, it was hard to get.
- [34:47]
B
You're triggering me. You are triggering me. I can't do this. So I have a. My wife knows this. Few people know this when I'm really excited about a movie and then come out of it terribly disappointed. The way I deal with my disappointment, the way I exercise my demons and all this is I sit down, I usually will stay up all night with my computer, and I will rewrite the movie I love.
- [35:15]
A
I want to read these scripts, guys. I want to read these scripts.
- [35:17]
B
They're not scripts. They're treatments. Right. They're broad treatments of what? I did this with the prequels. I rewrote the prequels as I would want them to go. And for the Rise of Skywalker, I actually wrote a treatment. I put a lot of it on Twitter. Back in the day, I rewrote a treatment of what. Because I really did not like the Last Jedi. But I thought, okay, this is the cards we've been dealt. So then I tried to figure out, how do you take the Force Awakens and the Last Jedi and actually create a finale, a third movie to this trilogy that wraps it all up in a cohesive, coherent way? I did that with my treatment. But, my gosh, did they not do that with bringing back Palpatine and all this other nonsense? Like, ugh, it's clear they didn't have a plan. But to back all this up to what we were originally talking about, it was very evident, and a lot's come out since then, that Disney did not create a cohesive plan for the sequel trilogy, and they were just flying by the seat of their pants, and they got different directors and writers. They didn't cooperate with each other, and it's a mess. And they have blown the equity in a property they spent $4 billion on.
- [36:25]
A
Right, right.
- [36:26]
B
And the MCU did the opposite, where they had a plan, a master plan for how all these films are going to work together. And it climaxed at Endgame, and it was glorious and wonderful and brilliant, and it's obvious they didn't have a great plan after that. And here we are.
- [36:41]
A
So, you know, this is just what I'm begging everyone. Unless you're the cartoon Spider man, which actually uses the multiverse pretty well, but it's cartoon Spider man, so lower stakes. But avoid the multiverse, guys. Run from it. Flee it. Avoid time tricks. Run from them. Flee them.
- [37:03]
B
As a writer, I'm sure you experience this all the time. You are constrained. I'm sure the New York Times gives you certain constraints of what you're allowed to do and how much space you have and things like that. And originally, when you hear those constraints as a writer, you go, oh, darn it, that's going to restrict what I want to do creatively. And then over time, you realize it's those boundaries and constraints that actually make you a better writer and force you to think more creatively. And similarly, the constraint of having to have a linear narrative makes for better stories. And when you go, I'm just going to have time travel and infinite universes to do whatever I want, it means no death is actually that costly. It means no decision is really that important. It drains all of the power out of your narrative and out of your characters, and you water it all down and no one cares anymore. So to all those writers out there, all these filmmakers making these popcorn summer blockbusters, like constraints are your friend. They make for better movies. Same thing with special effects. I mean, no one has taught us that when you can do anything with cgi, it becomes garbage. When you're constrained by the limits of what you can do with special effects, it actually leads to more creative solutions. No better example of this than Jaws, the first original blockbuster. In 1975. They built this mechanical shark that was broken for most of the shoot. So Steven Spielberg had to come up with a creative way of communicating. The shark is near. And they come up with, well, we're not actually going to show the shark. We're going to have this John Williams music. And it made for a better, more terrifying movie so that when you do eventually see the shark, it's that much more terrifying.
- [38:41]
A
Well, and the thing that actually cements the fear and horror of the movie is a monologue. It's USS Indianapolis monologue. And you're just like. You talk about creating a sense of dread. I mean, it's. You know, you're absolutely right. And I feel like what MCU does is sort of ramp up the spectacle in lieu of the story.
- [39:03]
B
Yes.
- [39:04]
A
When the best moments of the mcu, yeah, there were special effects, but they were. The moments were narrative driven. And I will never forget being in the theater opening night, imax, Row C, right in the middle. I bought these tickets way in advance, guy. And when Mjolnir moves while Thanos is about to kill Thor and you see it moving, and you're just assuming Thor in his dying moments is calling for Mjolnir, and then it flies into Captain America's hands and the audience loses it. Like you just seen Stephen sink a three to win the gold for the US in the Olympics or something. That was an earned moment. Like, that moment was earned by years of, this is who Cap is. This is who Thor is. This is the whole thing. This is what the hammer Means who is it attracted to? Who can hold it? Like, all of that is built up into this one moment that absolutely delivers. And I'm going to go see Doomsday. I will. I'll see it opening weekend Sky. But it. And I'll go with an open mind. But it's very hard to imagine that there's anything that is going to be built or delivered or earned in that, in those two and a half hours or however long it's going to be that can come anywhere close to the previous movies.
- [40:24]
B
Okay. To pivot to, like a spiritual application of this whole idea, which is, you
- [40:28]
A
know, it's in there somewhere.
- [40:29]
B
Yeah. That's why people come here. There is a. There's a concept of freedom that's very popular in our culture, that freedom is simply unlimited choice, and the fewer restraints that are put upon me, the more free I can be. And that's very different from a classical Christian concept of freedom which says freedom is the ability to be truly who you were created to be. And one of the constraints we have to realize is scripture, Christian doctrine, tradition, whatever, has all kinds of boundaries on our behavior and our lives. And the modern world wants to say, well, that's terrible that you can't define marriage however you want, or you can't define morality however you want, or you can't define your identity however you want. And yet the Christian message is, no, you can't. But within those boundaries is where life actually finds more meaning. It's the fact that we aren't limitless, that we are constrained, that actually gives life more meaning. And it feels like the modern world wants to be like the MCU with a multiverse. There's no real consequence. Anything, anything goes. Do whatever you want, create your own realities. But you drain the meaning and value and significance out of life when you have no boundaries whatsoever. The far other extreme is there's such tight constrictions, the boundaries of fundamentalism, that it chokes you to death. Right, exactly. And I would argue that orthodox classical Christianity has boundaries.
- [42:01]
A
But.
- [42:02]
B
But they're boundaries that give meaning and definition and purpose to life within which there's a lot of joy and freedom. But it's not boundless like a multiverse that drains it all away. So that's my theological application. This weird movie thing we're talking about.
- [42:17]
A
No, there's an awful lot to that, I think, because what is the multiverse? What are these time travel things other than you? Just infinite options for infinite stories and infinite different kinds of characters and different variations and themes like Even the, you know, the Dead Pill, the most recent Deadpool and Wolverine movie, which is hilariously funny and ridiculously profane, but they actually play the sort of like there's all these different kinds of Wolverines and Deadpools and all of that in a very funny way. But you realize I'm just watching a comedy here. Yeah, like the Deadpool movies, they're just a com. They're comedies. They're not that arc that you saw within the, you know, the broader mceu that ended.
- [43:05]
B
And they're basically parodies of the comic.
- [43:08]
A
They're send ups of the whole thing.
- [43:10]
B
Right.
- [43:11]
A
Like I'll watch the heck out of a comedic send up of the multiverse nonsense, but a serious attempt.
- [43:24]
B
Okay, last thing, we're gonna pivot to something totally different. Hard pivot. Since we're done with the nerdfest side of this, I wanted to get your take on what you're working on right now, which is there's a lot of news items out there about some survey data that came out that says significant.
- [43:42]
A
Was it 40%, 48% of Gen Z adults?
- [43:46]
B
48% Gen Z adults are saying that the church's embrace of Donald Trump is a factor for why they're not going to church.
- [43:53]
A
Yes.
- [43:55]
B
This is getting a lot of headlines, a lot of play in different places. Obviously it's great intersection of faith and politics right now, but there's plenty of folks who are coming out going, I'm not sure about this data, not sure about this headline or making excuses for it. So what are you working on or what are you seeing out there around this that you want to share?
- [44:14]
A
So, yeah, this is really interesting to me because on the one hand it makes a ton of sense, but we can't overread it. So here's where it makes a ton of sense. Just put it very plainly. If you see a group of people embracing somebody who is incredibly corrupt and incredibly cruel and incredibly dishonest, especially if that cruelty and that corruption and dishonesty are sort of directed against you and they're doing it in the name of God, that is going to cause a lot of people to scratch their heads. And I'm sorry, that shouldn't be a news flash to anybody. Like, not to anybody. It's the most common sense thing in the world. Now here's where you can overread it. The polling isn't saying that's the sole reason why you're not going to church.
- [45:03]
B
Right.
- [45:04]
A
It's about, is it a factor? Is it a factor? And I think the more interesting part isn't the poll. That's not interesting to me, that sky is blue, water's wet kind of stuff. Right.
- [45:16]
B
Hypocrisy is not attractive.
- [45:18]
A
Hypocrisy is terribly. And we've known for a long time that hypocrisy is one of the prime reasons why people don't go to church, as they're put off by what they see as hypocrisy. And so what I'm actually interested in is the way in which this was sort of treated within sort of the larger Christian community with either a total shoulder shrugged or sort of a defense that is. No, no, I don't believe it, because those are just excuses. The real reason people don't want to go to church is because they don't want to be confronted with their own sin. And nobody likes to be confronted with their own sin. So therefore they are rejecting the message of the church. I'm thinking, hmm, actually, physician, heal thyself. Because what this data is doing is actually confronting the church with the consequences of its own sin that it has in fact, in many ways. And we can really unpack this in a lot of different ways. But it is also a fact that right now, the people who are self described evangelicals are often not church going themselves. Right. And so what you have is a movement that is increasingly seen as an adjunct to a political party that includes millions upon millions of people who don't even really darken the doors of a church, but still have a religious zeal for a particular politician, saying to the world that's looking at that and saying something's not right, saying, oh, you're rationalizing, you're justifying. No, I think the rationalizing and justifying that's happening is coming from within the church. And it creates a very convenient story we tell ourselves. It says, well, you know, we're just making a hard choice. You know, we're making the hard choices that everybody makes in politics and you guys just don't want to see the consequences of your choices that you're making. And, and I feel like what we're doing, we're creating this closed universe, this closed moral universe that says this we are for Donald Trump or we are for this maga. We have, to greater or lesser degrees, whether enthusiastic. And it's always hilarious to me, sky, how many people try to tell us that the church reluctantly embraces Donald Trump. Oh, my gosh, that's hilarious.
- [47:42]
B
I've been hearing it for 10 years. And the data for 10 years. I mean, does not support that.
- [47:46]
A
Yeah, nobody can credibly make that case anymore. But they sit there and they say, okay, this is the way the closed moral universe works. It is. I am this because I believe that this is what I must do as a Christian. I am supporting Donald Trump because this is what I believe I must do as a Christian. Whether it's I'm operating in an into. Under the influence of prophecies and say Donald Trump is the man, or I've been told that, you know, like King David, imperfect people can accomplish great things, or like Cyrus, you know, godless people can do great things for the people of God, whatever. The thing is, I believe that my support of Donald Trump is downstream from my Christian faith. I have been taught that people will hate me because of my Christian faith. Therefore, if people are angry about me, at me for my support of Donald Trump, this is fulfilling the prediction that people will be angry at me because of my Christian faith. And therefore, this is val. Their anger is validating my choice. The. The persecution, the criticism, the. Everything that I get for supporting Donald Trump is, you know, scripture that says the wisdom of God is foolishness to man. And when people are saying I'm being foolish for supporting Donald Trump, that's confirming that I'm operating and walking in the wisdom of God. And I see this all the time, this sort of sense that the secular criticism of Christians for supporting Donald Trump is seen as vindication or in other uncertain. Some. Some ways, sort of that's their excuse for not loving Jesus. It's either your criticism of me as a vindicating I'm being persecuted as a Christian, or your criticism of the church is just rationalization because you want to keep having sex or you want to keep taking drugs, or you want to do this or you want to do that, and you've created a world in which self reflection in the church is being shut out. Because ironically enough, as you're accusing others of rationalization, you're in an infinite rationalizing feedback loop.
- [49:55]
B
Okay, I don't disagree with you. I'm trying to figure out. This is totally anecdotal, so there's no data behind this. I've had a number of conversations in the last 10 years with people who have no significant Christian background, no church upbringing, maybe totally secular, or some non Christian religious background. They've expressed to me genuine curiosity about Jesus, genuine curiosity about the Bible, genuine curiosity about the Christian faith. At the same time as I've had these conversations, they completely discount the white evangelical church in America as essentially, they wouldn't use this language. They don't know this language, but they essentially are saying it's an apostate version of Christianity because they know enough about Jesus and the New Testament to go, it ain't that it doesn't treat immigrants that way. It doesn't dehumanize people that way. It doesn't judge this way. It's not full of this much anger and malice and hatred that they see in. In the MAGA movement. So it isn't that they would otherwise go to those churches. It's just like that's not even on their radar anymore as an option. And some of these folks, not all of them, but some of them, have gravitated closer in orbit to the Roman Catholic Church.
- [51:18]
A
Yes.
- [51:19]
B
Or to some other traditions, or they're just on their own or with a small group of friends kind of exploring these things. So I wouldn't say that people are being actively driven away from Jesus because of the MAGA movement. I would say the people who are genuinely attracted to Jesus are not going to go looking for him in churches that they associate with the MAGA movement.
- [51:41]
A
Well, and also, honestly, I'm so glad you took it in that direction, because the other part of this is that this statement that says, well, you don't want to be confronted with your own sin implies that what's happening is people are walking in and saying, they are more moral than me and I don't want to be that moral.
- [52:02]
B
Right. That's not what's going on.
- [52:04]
A
It's not what's going on. They are looking at it going, they are less moral than me and I don't want to be that immoral. And that is what is putting off Gen Z young people. They look at the corruption, they look at the lying, they look at the cruelty, they look at the violence, they look at all of this and they look at the way, especially if you're a younger person who is online a lot, they look at the way Christians behave online. And many of the most prominent MAGA Christian voices are some of the most vile people you will encounter in the Internet space. I mean, raw, pure hatred and evil. And they go, I don't. Those are horrible people. They don't feel like they're being called to something higher. They're feeling that they're being tempted to something lower.
- [52:55]
B
Yeah. This kind of echoes what your friend and mine, Russell Moore, said some time ago when he was talking about what's going on in, I think it was Southern Baptist churches that he was referring to from his background. When people were leaving the church in the early MAGA years. He was saying it's not because they don't believe in Jesus, they don't think the church does. And that's a little bit what's going on here. But the other piece of this, though, that I'm wrestling with, if a religious
- [53:23]
A
institution needs a Donald Trump to survive, as they often will say, that's not an institution worth joining.
- [53:31]
B
Okay, but David, what do you say to those folks? And I'm sure, you know, communities like this, evangelical churches, communities that are largely apolitical, with very faithful leaders, with very godly people. I mean, some probably vote for Trump, some didn't, whatever, but it's just not. It's not the defining reality of their lives. It's not the defining center of their faith. It's not what's being preached in the pulpit. Like, it's just a regular old evangelical church with people who are trying to follow Jesus, but they're getting wrapped up in this view because they're associated with this movement. Because you might be that young person who sees these so called evangelicals online who are vile, angry, militant, demonizing outsiders kind of voices. And though that's not true of the evangelical church down the street from them, because that's an evangelical church, that's what they assume is going on in that church, even though it isn't. Like, that's what's sad to me is there's a lot of good, faithful leaders and churches out there that are having their ability to love their neighbors and serve their community impacted and certainly preach the gospel impacted because of the larger movement that they are connected to, even though they're not participating in those unchristian qualities.
- [54:48]
A
And sometimes even if they've spoken up against it, you know, just, just the mere fact that they belong to an evangelical denomination or their church is affiliated with an event part of the evangelical movement, they, even when they speak up, they can't seem to pry themselves apart from that tie to Trump's cruelty and will to power and all of that. And that is very difficult. It is very difficult. And I have extreme sympathy for the people in that posture. But I'll tell you why they're in that posture. Because the vast majority of the evangelical church has either gone along with it or been completely silent. And in an interesting way, worse than silent. So what happens is that I know, I also know a number of evangelicals like this who are very hurt that people impute to them the kind of Trump devotion and MAGA love and cruelty and anger that they See, in other maga Christians, and they're genuinely not like that at all. Like, if you met them, if you got to know them, you would just love them to death. Just the people you'd want to be your neighbors. But I'll often ask them, okay, have you said anything about against Trump or against all this stuff that you don't like? No. Okay. We got an issue here in the church where you actually. And then. So, but here's the thing. You don't speak up and you carry a sort of sense of injury and anger that you've been lumped in with the bad people, but you've never spoken up. And I will tell you, from the standpoint of somebody who has been. And you've been to the same, in the same boat sky, who's been viciously attacked in horrible ways by some of these people online, just completely cruel, completely deceitful, completely dishonest, malicious, sometimes physically threatening. And all these nice people don't do jack or squat about it. And then they feel injured that people are, like, casting aspersions on the church when they're not like that. Yes, you're not like that. But you know what? When people like me were sitting next to you in the pews and being treated like garbage, you did nothing about it. You stayed away. It was the last thing you wanted to get involved in. It was the last thing, even though you knew the underlying moral dynamics in play. Not, you know what was? Not. Not my circus, not my elephants or whatever like that.
- [57:15]
B
You know, not my circus, not my monkeys. I think.
- [57:18]
A
Exactly. You stayed away. Well, you can't feel a sense of, like, anger if you have been a part of this institution that, let's quite frankly, gave Donald Trump to America. Like In. In 2024, Trump won the white evangelical vote 82 to 17%. 82% to 17%. He lost everybody else, 58% to 40%. Like, sit with those numbers for a minute. Let's just sit with that. And then you realize that we gave this to America. That's what, you know, the. The white evangelical church did. And then to be a member of it, never lift a finger to say one negative thing about Trump because it's more trouble than it's worth. Or never lift a finger to see somebody who's being treated terribly and being driven from church because they don't like Donald Trump, and then feel somehow aggrieved that you get lumped in after 10 years, that's kind of on you.
- [58:19]
B
Yeah, I think you could. We gotta wrap it up. But I think you could even take it a step further back. It's one thing to not have spoken up since 2016 or in 2020 or 24 during all this, but prior to that, the evangelical church in the United States just has not done a good job of discipling people into a public theology. What does it mean to live as a Christian in a diverse pluralistic society and, and to do so in a way that is faithfully loving our neighbors and understands the complexity of following Jesus in the diversity of our culture. Like, we just, we have so individualized discipleship and made it about our quiet time and raising our kids and managing our families and households, but we don't. We haven't taught people what it is to follow Jesus in the public square. And so the evangelical church in America, even if you were appalled by Donald Trump over the last 10 years, you didn't have the theological groundwork laid to be able to teach people how to think critically about what was going on, because we had surrendered that ground for decades to Christian media and to the religious right and everything else. So it caught a lot of church leaders off guard over the last 10 years because they weren't equipped to speak up. And then they feel aggrieved to your point, because they're like, don't lump me in with all those people. But what did you do to stop it? Well, I didn't do anything. Well, why didn't you do anything? Because I had never been trained in how to deal with these kinds of issues in the church because I was taught to just help people with their marriages and their addictions and their personal stuff, not the way they engage in the culture.
- [59:53]
A
And also the active MAGA elements of many churches is just so cruel and vicious that unless somebody's coming after you, you've got a lot of reasons to sit it out because your life will get a lot worse. It gets a lot worse. And. And you risk losing your community, you list, you risk losing your kids, school. Like, I know people who've just been thrown out of homeschooling co ops for not supporting Donald Trump. Like, which is again, when people say, how dare you judge us for very reluctantly, with much hand wringing supporting this man. Come on, come on. That is not. That is not what's happened here.
- [60:30]
B
Okay, well, after that little excursion into politics and contemporary American church life, we should end on a hopeful note, which is the nerdfest can continue later this year when Dune 3 comes out. And I'm really excited for. That's one. Maybe you and I could hit together at an IMAX theater.
- [60:51]
A
We have to do that. We have to do that.
- [60:53]
B
We'll have to revisit. We'll have a mini nerdfest later after that movie comes out. Won't be the whole episode, but we'll talk about that because, gosh, that's another exciting one. I'm just so grateful there are movies that are not superhero movies that I can look forward to in this year. David, anything else you're looking forward to? I don't know. TV show movie that's coming down the pike here. That.
- [61:15]
A
Can I tell you what I'm looking forward to? Actually, the most urgent way, the season finale of Cape Fear coming out on Friday.
- [61:23]
B
I've not been watching that.
- [61:25]
A
Okay. Did you see the 91 movie with
- [61:28]
B
Roberto Robert De Niro?
- [61:29]
A
Yeah. I don't know what you thought about it, but I thought it was very well done, very suspenseful.
- [61:34]
B
Isn't it Martin Scorsese?
- [61:36]
A
I think it's Scorsese. And it was Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte. I mean, like, this is. This is like, it was a very good movie. And this is how I put it, describing the Apple TV version, which features Amy Adams, Patrick Wilson, Javier Bardem, Juliet Lewis. Great cast. Scorsese and I think Spielberg are also affiliated with it. Like, this is pouring in the effort. Imagine you took the 91. This is what I said on the Times podcast. Imagine you took the 91 script, gave it into the writers room for the new series and then distributed like LSD laced crack to everybody and then said, now start writing the new series. Like.
- [62:17]
B
And you mean that as a compliment?
- [62:18]
A
I mean it as a compliment. It is wild. The acting is phenomenal, but it is a wild story. It is crazy, but it is. You cannot. You cannot take your eyes off the screen. It is so well done and so dark. Like, if you don't like dark tv, stay away from it. But it is very well done. It is very dark. It is very crazy. And yeah, so that's what Nancy and I are obsessed with right now.
- [62:47]
B
You are a man of many facets, David, but I'm grateful for that because it gives us a chance to roam the horizon of different topics. Thank you for your time today. Hope you have a great weekend and we'll be back next month with another French Friday. See you, everybody. French Friday is a production of Holy Post Media featuring David French and me. Sky Jatan music and theme song by Phil Vischer. This show is made possible by Holy Post patrons to find out how you can become a Holy post, Patron. And to find more common good Christian content, go to holypost.
- [63:21]
A
Com.