MovieChat Forums > Bruce Almighty (2003) Discussion > Did bruce break one of God's rules?

Did bruce break one of God's rules?


wouldn't bruce messing with evan on the news show be tampering with free will?



just wandering

reply

bump

reply

That's what I thought too

reply

It's a fine line, but free will perhaps pertains more to feelings, such as the seen when Bruce attempts to make Grace love him. I don't know. If we wanna split hairs, wouldn't making a sports team win be tampering with free will also? Because you'd have to control the movements of the opposing team to make them do dumb things, and conversely make the team prayed for do genius things? What about making the dog pee in the toilet, tampering with its instincts and forcing its movements to the bathroom instead of furniture? I don't know, good question though.

What if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today!
-Groundhog Day

reply

Free Will pertains to feelings and emotions.

reply

Free Will pertains to feelings and emotions.

reply

I think conventional theology says that only human beings have the gift of free will, so controlling the dog is not a problem.

I think the no tampering with freewill rule does not mean that Bruce cannot physically jerk human beings around like a puppets through sheer external force. But he cannot make then WANT or DESIRE to do those actions.

He could freeze Grace from moving if he wanted to for example but can't make her want to stay with him.

Similarly for making sport teams win, he doesn't even have to physically handle humans in this case. He could have freak accidents and all that making the ball fly one way etc.

reply

Ii was thinking that very thing tonight as I watched it. He caused Evan to say something weird. I would say up until the point that Evan starts speaking gibberish it was okay, but that when he started doing the gibberish stuff that he was interfereing with free will.

I would have to agree with the person later who said about the dog being an animal so free will dosn't apply in that situation.

reply

Human beings ARE animals.

reply

I dont think so.Again,it goes with if you believe you have free will,cause form what I remember,if God's Plan is correct,you have no free will.But I dont think Bruce did anything wrong.I'd like to mess with people that way :)

The age of chivalry is not yet dead!-Anna Sackville-Bagg

reply

He made Grace love him, so that's messing with Free Will.

Derek: What's your job, professional...head of annoyance department?

reply

Also, what about when he made Grace become turned on. That was also not really following the rules of free will I think. It was kind of silly.

reply

orgasm's are chemical not emotional

reply

Yes, it was a very obvious violation of one of God's rules. And, very poor writing.

reply

Not at all, Evan was doing what he wanted, he wanted to say the news and that's what he was doing... Bruce just made the sound come off weird.

reply

I'm pretty sure the part where Evan was merely spouting gibberish, he was possessed by Bruce, I seriously doubt it said that on the teleprompter.

I interpreted free will as the want to do something; he couldn't change the way people feel; for instance he could have forced Grace to do things but they would be against her will. He couldn't force her to love her. Much like how him forcing evan to act up on the news was against his WILL.

reply

Evan clearly didn't want to say those gibberish crap, you can see it in his facial expression, he was wondering why his mouth was moving the way it was. So it's free will pertains to feeling and emotions. Like you can force your wife to stay with you but you can't make her love you.

reply

Free will is anything that we don't have conscious control of, and happens automatically. An example of this is with Bruce controlling Grace. He had complete control of Grace's orgasms and boob-size, since they're automatic body functions which we don't normally control, and therefore doesn't count as free will, whereas we CAN control how we feel about people, which is why it counted as changing free will to try to make Grace love him. Of course, in that case, Bruce's powers simply didn't work, so it's odd that they worked when messing with Evan, since that would seem like messing with free will, unless he was doing something to Evan's body to elicit those noises from him.

reply

It was never exactly stated what God meant with free will, so we don't know if that was breaking the rules.

But yes, going by technicality Bruce did break the rules. Feelings can be controlled. Either Grace loves him or not.

reply

There's an even more blatant example in the script, which thankfully got cut. One of the prayers that Bruce answered was going to be a prayer by some construction site workers for some girls walking past to lift their tops up, which they do, and afterwards EVERY girl who walks past does. That's blatently breaking the free-will rule, so it's a good thing they didn't include it.

reply

Yes, this movie, like many others, break their rules a lot. The same goes for the movie 'Yes-Man', or whatever it was (also Jim Carrey starring).

The problem is, moviemakers are handed great ideas, but they don't know how to write them into an interesting, consistent script; they just know which agendas have to be there ('woman is the most precious thing, so instead of teleportation, traveling to galaxies, dimensions, knowing fundamental laws of the sub-atomic and spiritual levels of existence, getting to a woman's pants will be the best thing an omnipotent being can attempt), and which actors pull in the money, and what formula to use to please the audience, etc.

This movie is as paint-by-the-numbers as it gets - no thought was put to the intricacies and implications of omnipotence whatsoever. Bruce's omnipotence is "local", but he can change the moon and stars. What? Bruce can't affect free will (not even by changing reality around people (which he did with the moon and stars already), using hypnosis, drug-effect-style energy manipulations, making people forget things, suggestion, seduction, emotional/psychological manipulation, mind games, gaslighting, etc. etc. etc.

reply