- Apr 16, 2019
- 298
- 183
- 52
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- Single
I want to look at two aspects of this movie: the story, and the theology.
Story:
First, whose bright idea was it to start this movie with a four-and-a-half minute long lecture?
I’ll give this movie some credit for some decent animation. Nothing groundbreaking, but the animation is solid.
It’s pretty clear that the people behind this movie were trying to take Pilgrim’s Progress and make it into a Pixar-like movie. That may work with some stories, but doing it to Pilgrim’s Progress just fails.
As the movie says a couple of times, in the opening lecture and at the end, Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress while in prison (some resources I’ve seen say that he started work on it while in prison but finished after his release). We can be sure that a man who at the least starts work on such a story while in prison is not writing something cheap and frivolous, but something he considers of great importance, something weighty and serious, something he thinks greatly needs to be said. That is what reading Pilgrim’s Progress is like; it’s a serious, sober-minded work, not lite, not cheap, not silly. In other words, Bunyan’s story is everything this movie is not.
I don’t know why the creators of this movie felt the need to throw in cackling and stupid bad guys, gargoyle-like demons who do the stereotypical shriek that all movie monsters seem to do nowadays when they appear on screen, or even the Supervisors. I don’t know, except maybe the formula calls for conflict, thus bad guys are needed. But they add nothing important to the story. Pilgrim’s Progress is about a man, Christian, and all the things he goes through and experiences, and how they apply to both believers in Christ and non-believers. All these extra things take away from the main point of the story.
I’d like to offer a prescription to these story creators who seem to think Pixar is the end-all-be-all in animated movies: take a month, and watch Studio Ghibli movies. Watch them, study them, examine the stories, especially ones like Whisper Of The Heart and When Marnie Was There and even Spirited Away, stories where there are no real bad guys to be defeated, and even the conflicts aren’t really the main focus of the story. You’re simply not going to be able to do Pilgrim’s Progress justice doing things in the stereotypical way of American animated storytelling, it’s a story that will not fit that mold.
Theology:
I’m almost tempted to start this section by asking, “What theology?” It might be an unfair question, but not by much.
Bunyan’s book is saturated in theology. Biblical passages are everywhere. Even the character and place names are often allusions to biblical virtues and vices. Agree or disagree with Bunyan as you may, you’re left with little doubt as to what he believed.
The theology in this movie is unclear, even squishy. While the character names are for the most part kept, other things are changed, and I think most of the changes are not for the better.
Why was Interpreter, in the book an ordinary man, turned into an airy-fairy woman who glows in the dark and talks like the stereotypical wise guy (or gal) who makes cryptic statements that are very unlike the clear teachings of Interpreter in the book? This is a theological issue. Interpreter in the book shows Christian many things, and explains those things to him. Interpreter in the movie explains little to Christian, but goes on and on about how great and insightful he is becoming.
I can understand why time made it necessary to not show all the things Interpreter showed Christian in the book, so cutting it down to three is not a problem. But how they change the messages from the book is shameful.
In the Passion and Patience part, here’s what Interpreter said in the book, “So he said, These two lads are figures: Passion, of the men of this world; and Patience, of the men of that which is to come; for as here thou seest, Passion will have all now this year, that is to say, in this world; so are the men of this world, they must have all their good things now, they cannot stay till next year, that is until the next world, for their portion of good,” and Christian’s understanding of the message, “Then I perceive it is not best to covet things that are now, but to wait for things to come.” And what does the movie say about them? “Patience is happy to enjoy things as they come,” and “I must be content to wait in patience for the things the King has promised me, and not be tempted out of the way.” The idea of not storing up treasures on Earth because they will perish, but instead storing up treasures in Heaven where they will not perish, is at best hinted at, and very vaguely hinted at, in the movie.
And the man in the cage is completely changed. From the book, “I have crucified him to myself afresh [Heb. 6: 6]; I have despised his person [Luke 19: 14]; I have despised his righteousness; I have "counted his blood an unholy thing"; I have "done despite to the Spirit of grace". [Heb. 10: 28-29] Therefore I have shut myself out of all the promises, and there now remains to me nothing but threatenings, dreadful threatenings, fearful threatenings, of certain judgement and fiery indignation, which shall devour me as an adversary.” And what does the Interpreter say it means in the movie? "That is for you to interpret when the time comes.” Yeah, they actually went with this bad cryptic cliche.
Finally, there is simply this: no Christ, no sin, no forgiveness, no redemption, no judgment against sins, no wrath to come, and no gospel. The cross, when it does appear, is merely a light shining through some trees. In the book, when Christian reaches the cross and his burden falls off, one of the Shining Ones tells him, “Thy sins be forgiven thee.” In the movie, the Shining Ones say nothing like that to him, but seem to be more concerned that Christian understand what happened, which is puzzling; I mean, are we to think that people are converted when they don’t understand, when they’ve not been taught, when no one has preached to them the gospel of Christ crucified for their sins?
Conclusion:
There has been a very annoying trend in the last several years, where old stories are taken and either redone or added to, yet these additions are used more to push the politically correct agenda then to tell good stories. We’ve seen it with greatly popular stories like Star Wars and Star Trek, Ghostbusters, and He-Man, while comic books are failing because they’ve become saturated with wokeness. The thing is, something similar to that happened with this movie. They took Bunyan’s great story and changed it, filling it with their own agenda, watering down his hard statements into some kind of goofy, fluffy, feel-good movie.
This movie has the same relationship the Bunyan’s book that a knock-off 5$ Rolx has to an authentic Rolex watch; it may look similar on the surface, but the insides are of much inferior quality, it never gets the time right, and stops working the day after it’s bought.
Why even call this movie “Pilgrim’s Progress”, when Bunyan’s original work is treated with such disrespect?
Story:
First, whose bright idea was it to start this movie with a four-and-a-half minute long lecture?
I’ll give this movie some credit for some decent animation. Nothing groundbreaking, but the animation is solid.
It’s pretty clear that the people behind this movie were trying to take Pilgrim’s Progress and make it into a Pixar-like movie. That may work with some stories, but doing it to Pilgrim’s Progress just fails.
As the movie says a couple of times, in the opening lecture and at the end, Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress while in prison (some resources I’ve seen say that he started work on it while in prison but finished after his release). We can be sure that a man who at the least starts work on such a story while in prison is not writing something cheap and frivolous, but something he considers of great importance, something weighty and serious, something he thinks greatly needs to be said. That is what reading Pilgrim’s Progress is like; it’s a serious, sober-minded work, not lite, not cheap, not silly. In other words, Bunyan’s story is everything this movie is not.
I don’t know why the creators of this movie felt the need to throw in cackling and stupid bad guys, gargoyle-like demons who do the stereotypical shriek that all movie monsters seem to do nowadays when they appear on screen, or even the Supervisors. I don’t know, except maybe the formula calls for conflict, thus bad guys are needed. But they add nothing important to the story. Pilgrim’s Progress is about a man, Christian, and all the things he goes through and experiences, and how they apply to both believers in Christ and non-believers. All these extra things take away from the main point of the story.
I’d like to offer a prescription to these story creators who seem to think Pixar is the end-all-be-all in animated movies: take a month, and watch Studio Ghibli movies. Watch them, study them, examine the stories, especially ones like Whisper Of The Heart and When Marnie Was There and even Spirited Away, stories where there are no real bad guys to be defeated, and even the conflicts aren’t really the main focus of the story. You’re simply not going to be able to do Pilgrim’s Progress justice doing things in the stereotypical way of American animated storytelling, it’s a story that will not fit that mold.
Theology:
I’m almost tempted to start this section by asking, “What theology?” It might be an unfair question, but not by much.
Bunyan’s book is saturated in theology. Biblical passages are everywhere. Even the character and place names are often allusions to biblical virtues and vices. Agree or disagree with Bunyan as you may, you’re left with little doubt as to what he believed.
The theology in this movie is unclear, even squishy. While the character names are for the most part kept, other things are changed, and I think most of the changes are not for the better.
Why was Interpreter, in the book an ordinary man, turned into an airy-fairy woman who glows in the dark and talks like the stereotypical wise guy (or gal) who makes cryptic statements that are very unlike the clear teachings of Interpreter in the book? This is a theological issue. Interpreter in the book shows Christian many things, and explains those things to him. Interpreter in the movie explains little to Christian, but goes on and on about how great and insightful he is becoming.
I can understand why time made it necessary to not show all the things Interpreter showed Christian in the book, so cutting it down to three is not a problem. But how they change the messages from the book is shameful.
In the Passion and Patience part, here’s what Interpreter said in the book, “So he said, These two lads are figures: Passion, of the men of this world; and Patience, of the men of that which is to come; for as here thou seest, Passion will have all now this year, that is to say, in this world; so are the men of this world, they must have all their good things now, they cannot stay till next year, that is until the next world, for their portion of good,” and Christian’s understanding of the message, “Then I perceive it is not best to covet things that are now, but to wait for things to come.” And what does the movie say about them? “Patience is happy to enjoy things as they come,” and “I must be content to wait in patience for the things the King has promised me, and not be tempted out of the way.” The idea of not storing up treasures on Earth because they will perish, but instead storing up treasures in Heaven where they will not perish, is at best hinted at, and very vaguely hinted at, in the movie.
And the man in the cage is completely changed. From the book, “I have crucified him to myself afresh [Heb. 6: 6]; I have despised his person [Luke 19: 14]; I have despised his righteousness; I have "counted his blood an unholy thing"; I have "done despite to the Spirit of grace". [Heb. 10: 28-29] Therefore I have shut myself out of all the promises, and there now remains to me nothing but threatenings, dreadful threatenings, fearful threatenings, of certain judgement and fiery indignation, which shall devour me as an adversary.” And what does the Interpreter say it means in the movie? "That is for you to interpret when the time comes.” Yeah, they actually went with this bad cryptic cliche.
Finally, there is simply this: no Christ, no sin, no forgiveness, no redemption, no judgment against sins, no wrath to come, and no gospel. The cross, when it does appear, is merely a light shining through some trees. In the book, when Christian reaches the cross and his burden falls off, one of the Shining Ones tells him, “Thy sins be forgiven thee.” In the movie, the Shining Ones say nothing like that to him, but seem to be more concerned that Christian understand what happened, which is puzzling; I mean, are we to think that people are converted when they don’t understand, when they’ve not been taught, when no one has preached to them the gospel of Christ crucified for their sins?
Conclusion:
There has been a very annoying trend in the last several years, where old stories are taken and either redone or added to, yet these additions are used more to push the politically correct agenda then to tell good stories. We’ve seen it with greatly popular stories like Star Wars and Star Trek, Ghostbusters, and He-Man, while comic books are failing because they’ve become saturated with wokeness. The thing is, something similar to that happened with this movie. They took Bunyan’s great story and changed it, filling it with their own agenda, watering down his hard statements into some kind of goofy, fluffy, feel-good movie.
This movie has the same relationship the Bunyan’s book that a knock-off 5$ Rolx has to an authentic Rolex watch; it may look similar on the surface, but the insides are of much inferior quality, it never gets the time right, and stops working the day after it’s bought.
Why even call this movie “Pilgrim’s Progress”, when Bunyan’s original work is treated with such disrespect?
Last edited:
