Monday, October 8, 2012

Superman used to MOCK God


"Superman is considered "a universal icon," "the apocalyptic hero par excellence," and "the most omnipotent hero ever invented."  Scriptwriter Mario Puzo originally constructed Superman: The Movie (aka Superman, hereafter S1) as a mythologic story based on "a Greek tragedy." Later, other writers were hired and the script reshaped at director Richard Donner's insistence. Donner initially disowned Superman's religious origins. Presumably because of duress: "I had life threats, because people accused me of approaching Brando as God and his son was Jesus...we had Scotland Yard, the FBI, and the LAPD looking in to them. I literally had people saying that my blood would run in the streets for doing that.
 However, many years later, Donner gladly admitted to the Christic subtext: "It's a motif I had done at the beginning when Brando sent Chris [Reeve] to Earth and said, 'I send them my only son.' It was God sending Christ to Earth." It was a dramaturgical decision that made good sense, for just as Superman was literally a super-man, Jesus was "the ultimate Super Jew of his day," the "Christian super-hero," the pop culture "God with us" (Matt. 1:23). Indeed, many Jesus-Superman parallels exist within S1 and S2 because both films were planned, scripted and partially shot back-to-back.
David Bruce considered the infant Kal-El (Lee Quigley) to be the only begotten son of Jor-El (Marlon Brando), thus forming the second member of the Holy trinity (Matt. 28:19). Kal-El was the son of Jor-El just as Jesus was "the Son of God" (Mark 1:1; Heb. 10:29; 1 John 4:15). Indeed, in Superman II (hereafter S2), Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) described Superman (Christopher Reeve) as "the son of Jor El" thereby mimicking the biblical form.
The need for a deliverer "is expressed in the biblical messianic hope that God would send his Messiah in the form of a single human being, a person just like us, who could speak to us and show us, through human words and deeds, the way to the truth and the life." Superman was the fictional, secular equivalent of that sacred hope.
Thirty years of age is when Jesus started his messianic mission (Luke 3:23) having "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man" (Luke 2:52). Clark Kent walked into the Fortress of Solitude as a physically fit but troubled eighteen-year-old teenager. Twelve years later, at age thirty, Superman flew out with "a clear idea of his messianic mission to battle evil and save Earth from its own foolishness." Superman's age was not specifically mentioned in S1, in fact, it was deliberately avoided to protect his identity. One had to calculate it (18+12=30), but in the various screen tests attached to the special edition of S1, Superman clearly stated that he was thirty-years-old, thus leaving no numerical doubt of his Christic nature.
Like the biblical Satan did to Jesus (Matt. 4:8-9), Luthor in S1 tempted Superman with an indirect offer of a worldly kingdom. This was refused, just as Jesus refused the Devil's offer (Matt. 4:10).
Superman cannot be viewed in quite the same light ever again. No wonder he was considered "a sexy, humanized, and Americanized Jesus." Journal of Religion & Film
But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words,
2 Chronicles 36:13