The Nativity Story

finchfeeder · 12-05-2006, 05:01 AM

What is all this cheap posting in my thread?

Go see the movie and come back with a serious review.

JesusFrEaK0077 · 12-07-2006, 03:57 PM

I saw the movie last night with my youth group. I think it was a very good movie and personally I liked it. I thought that the story was very close to what I've heard about that. I'd say this was a movie that I'd get because it just really explained some things.

**Rach** · 12-07-2006, 05:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JesusFrEaK0077

I thought that the story was very close to what I've heard about that.

Have you read it in the bible? It's pretty important, I suggest reading it.

zero91 · 12-18-2006, 08:32 AM

I went to see it last night, I thought it was very good. It was nice to see a movie that was about the true meening of Christmas. It also seemed very much in line with how the bible tells it. I would suggest annyone to go see it.

**Ted Logan** · 12-18-2006, 10:41 AM

I took the youth group to see the movie last night. I thought it was well-done, and I have one series of comments and two complaints.

Comment: This movie is basically a nativity scene transferred to film. The wise men look just like the statues most scenes have. There are three of them, and they arrive at the manger (the Bible specifies no number and they visit Jesus at a house, which implies that it was at least a day and perhaps as much as 2 years after his birth). The names of the magi are traditional (Gaspard, Balthasar, and Melchior). The actors play their roles quite well, and Joseph is particularly good, in my opinion. I was also well-pleased with the fact that they never shied away from the declaration of Jesus as God made flesh, and that they made the angelic visitations so clearly miraculous. It bothered me a tiny bit that they went beyond the text with regards to Joseph's dream, but even that was okay.

Complaint #1: This movie works for Christians, and is going to be called "boring," "dull," and "confusing" by plenty of folks unfamiliar with the story. More than that, I think it was probably boring, dull, and confusing to some of the youth in our group who have a less thorough background in the Nativity story. I don't mind that the movie is more for Christians than people unfamiliar with the story, but I think the filmmakers' intention was to make a film that was easily accessible to non-Christians. In that, I think it fails. I think, if I had never heard the Christmas story, I would not have understood the movie. As it was, a large portion of my enjoyment came from anticipating what was about to be portrayed, and wondering how they would pull it off, and then being pleased with the filmmakers' vision.

Complaint #2: The Star of Bethlehem. The movie makes no qualms about the miraculous anywhere else in the movie, but for some reason, they explain the Star of Bethlehem away as the confluence of three planets. Why? It's as though the Virgin Birth and the conception of John the Baptist, along with angelic visitations, were completely believable, but the idea of a miraculous star was just... ludicrous. Now, the Bible does not tell us anything about the star, but merely says that the wise men saw "his star" and followed it. Maybe it was a comet, or a supernova, or three planets aligning. Maybe it was (as Lightfoot speculated) the light of the host of angels who sang before the shepherds, whose light was so bright that it could be seen afar off. The point is that the Bible doesn't tell us, and it seems to me that the movie didn't need to tell us, either. It would not have been difficult to leave out this detail.

Those complaints are minor, and overall, the movie pleased me greatly. I almost cried about ten times.