I love this novel, and I consider myself to be highly spiritual, but this movie is just terrible. I feel bad for those that have watched the movie, but haven't read the book.
shareThe movie was worse than the book? Man, if that's true it must really suck.
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Otto: This is intense!
Miller: The life of a repo man is always intense.
Although I think the insights are brilliant, I found the story per the book almost painful in its cheesy factor. The story as told in the movie seemed much less contrived as a vehicle to deliver Redfield's message.
Different strokes, eh?
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The movie is retarded. The "prophecies" are vague, the script is stupid and the actors are mostly eye candy out of a sears catalogue.
The only good part of the movie was the 1963 300 4 door hardtop that they drove the the rainforest near the end.
Mopar or Nocar!!!!!!!!!!
This was one of the stupidest and most poorly written books ever to have sold a million copies. Another utopia story concluding if the whole world joined together, our collective positive energies would dissolve our collective problems. How profound.
From the structure of sentences to the construction of paragraphs and the logic that just doesn't follow, Redfield wrote a book that was as derivative as is possible and as insightful as a 6 year old.
Even though the movie was much like a TV mini-series, it was much better than the book. I actually liked the score and some of the CGI effects (like aura's/energy fields) and transitions were interesting. Overall, I think it's pretty impressive that this cast and crew was able to make what they did out of such a crappy book. I'm glad the characters avoided becoming the soapopera-like characters in the book and believe it or not, they seemed less 'preachy' than in the book.
I would definitely recommend watching this movie instead of reading the book...of course that's not really saying much.
>>> "Another utopia story concluding if the whole world joined together, our collective positive energies would dissolve our collective problems. How profound. "
So, just exactly what do you find offensive and/or wrong with that? Think about it - if we really did do that, then what WOULD be the result?
Oh, and if you really don't like this, then don't ever read anything by Neil Donald Walsch, Deepak Chopra, or anything else that is supposed to help you expand your mind / consciousness / world view.
Personally I thought the film was horrible. The book on the other hand I loved. That's not to say it was well written, because it wasn't, but I was able to look past that and see that it was written to put across a point. The concept of the book and the nine insights I find valid and make complete sense. The 'energy' Redfield speaks of is almost completely real. By that I mean, there is an energy, but it's not visible. It's not the halo-like orb of coloured smoke surrounding us, it's more psychological. Many of Redfields ideas come from aclaimed and accepted psychological study (for example 'Games People Play' by Eric Berne is one of Redfields primary sources of inspiration, and if you read it you would see that it talks of the same energy, but in a less supernatural way and a more psychological way).
Long before reading the book I was able to notice many examples of synchronisity or 'coincidences' in my life as I'm sure many others have too. In fact long before the book itself was written Carl Jung had experimented with the concept of synchronisity. It is not an entirely new idea and it is not an idea that belongs to one man only, everybody experiences coincidences in their lives but many are not aware of them, hence the message Redfield ortrays to 'open up' to the world and notice these coincidences.
The idea that we should give each other energy and that we can absorb energy from beauty around us is not completely unbelievable either. How many of you have visited a park or a garden, or a beach or some mountains, just because you felt relaxed and happy in those places?
Although the concepts of the book were fascinating and thought-provoking the writing style of Redfield left something to be desired. I believe that he was aware of his lack of ability and chose not to create a masterpeice of a literature, but to create a plot which merely explained and supported the ideas expressed within. If you haven't read the book and you watch the film, you'll find that there isn't enough explaation of the insights to make enough sense of them. The book however is crammed full of coincidences and examples of the insights applied to real life which, although weaken the plot, allow the reader to fully comprehend the complex ideas Redfield is trying to show us.
I found the book to be fascinating and indeed life changing. I really feel as though I have come away with a new outlook on life. The ideas were familiar from my study of psychology but this new way of presenting them was far simpler to grasp. The film was a dissappointment and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who hasn't read the book first as it would do them a great diservice.
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well i havent read the book, but id agree that its better than the film simply because i dont see how it could be any worse. the film was utter b*llocks. sorry but it was. it completely lost touch with any sort of reality and it had no direction. it was just pants basically. it probably works much better in novel form, but as a film it just doesnt go anywhere and the characters didnt seem to have achieved anything by the end.
is it a long book? coz the film seemed like it was missing something, probably the crucial parts of the book which got cut as is inevitable with all book to film conversions.
if you havent watched this film yet, dont, seriously.
No, the book is only about an inch thick though a couple nanometers deep. You can read it in one sitting if you have strong coffee to keep you awake.
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Otto: This is intense!
Miller: The life of a repo man is always intense.
puhlease.
I don't find it offensive, I find it unrealistic.
The problem with this type of utopian theory is that they assume:
1) There is only one truth
2) Everyone will acknowledge and support that truth
3) There will not be a movement against the tide once everything has settled into the new synergistic direction.
The only truth that exists is that life is about struggle. Witness the animal kingdom. All those elements of human nature that these stories attempt to correct are absent in most of the animal kingdom, yet life feeds on life. Territorial instincts perpetuate themselves through Darwinism. These doctrines of enlightenment are a bunch of *beep*
The novel was good. I must say that the story was annoying, but all the spiritual insights were very profound.
I read the book a year ago, and though I remember the jist of it, I don't remember everything specifically.
Some parts of the movie I was able to connect to the book, although the movie only made vague references towards the actual insights, and spit them out very quickly. I know that the movie didn't illustrate the insights well because I couldn't remember the meaning of some of the insights.
I think the only way the movie can be considered good would be if you read the book just before. If you haven't read it or don't remember it perfectly, you'll just end up trying to figure out what they mean.
The movie is like a visual guide to the book. It tried to stay to true to the book and should of ignored what each insight was: They should have only concentrated on the meaning of them.
They probably could have simplified the whole story too so that they could concentrate on the messages.
I have to agree with the idea that the book is better than the movie, but that's not saying a whole lot, the way I see it. I read The Celestine Prophecy twice, once in 2001 and again just a few days ago. It could have been really good, but the message was too blatant and James Redfield is a pretty bad writer who would get reamed in any serious creative writing workshop/class. He does write imagery pretty well, but that's not enough. Anyway, I didn't find the message of the Insights all that significant...the book (I've also read The Tenth Insight) doesn't uplift me in any way, and the movie did a good job of ruining what few elements that I did like in the book. Of course, I'm not the intended audience for these books. I'm a non-spiritual agnostic who doesn't believe a thing that science can't demonstrate is true. But for those who do believe in these things, I can see how the book, and maybe the movie, would be a real source of inspiration.
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