Chefelf.com Night Life: Bond - Viewing Profile

Howdy, folks! Welcome to The NEW MSPaint Comic Game Thing thread!

Okay; before we start, here is a list of rules I've compiled from three lists by Spoon Poetic, Jane Sherwood, and Civilian number two:

1. No Bond references.
2. Size of panels must be 400x400.
3. Only one panel per post.
4. Nothing too terribly crude or offensive.
5. Every panel counts unless it clearly goes against the rules.
6. There is NO rule six.
7. Only post if you have a good idea.
8. No using someone as a character who doesn't wish to be used.
9. Contribute in a rotation. Don't get upset if it takes a day or two for someone else to step in.
10. If no one has posted 24 hours since your last post, you are welcome to post one more panel to try to keep the thread going.
11. The point is to a] set someone else up for a joke b] go off of someone's set up with a joke or c] advance the plot.

If you don't keep to any of these rules, this'll happen to you:



I know, I know: slick of me, eh? Rule #1, and I break it...

Hey, it was coming to me, anyway.

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Okay, happy posting!

Recently, I saw the film The Prestige for the first time, and it got me wondering.

I know a little bit about Gnostic religious texts and such, and one of them describes the supposed sayings of Jesus, as told to one "Didymus Judas Thomas"; fittingly, the text is known as the Gospel of Thomas.

This gospel holds within it numerous phrases said in the Bible, but it also contains strange deviations. For example:

(2) Jesus said, "Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All."

But what of this Didymus Judas Thomas who transcribed the sayings? Why, he is in the Bible itself, of course: Doubting Thomas.

If we take a closer look at this man's name, we see that the name Judas, or Judah, is surrounded by Didymus, which means "twin", and Thomas, which also means "twin". His name could thence be translated as "Twin Judas the twin". Therefore, the title of his gospel means "Gospel of the Twin".

Why so much emphasis on this man's twinship, then? His name, with all its emphasis on having another twin, and therefore brother, is first mentioned in the text alongside "the living Jesus". Seeing as there are 114 sayings in all, this man Thomas must have spent a long time with Jesus, having written down a multitude of quotes by him.

We now move back to my first point: The Prestige. (A warning: for those of you who have not seen the film, DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER.)

Assuming that those of you now reading have already seen the film, you all know that "[e]very great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man (emphasis mine). He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige"."

If you've noticed where I've put emphasis, you're probably wondering why. It's simple: after watching the film, I noticed striking parallels between the story told in the Gospels and the one told in the film; that being, "a man... [who] probably isn't [ordinary]... [does] something extraordinary... [y]ou don't really want to know. You want to be fooled... making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back".

Sound familiar?

The plot point also struck my interest: two brothers, living the same life, as one person, in order to protect their greatest trick. In the end, one dies, and one lives, but people regard them as risen from the dead or such.

This made me formulate the very inklings of a theory, which I now present to you in finished form:

Jesus knew Judas was to betray him, so, in the Garden of Gethsemane, while the other disciples were asleep, he and Thomas traded places; Jesus would use some form of disguise to flee with the disciples as Thomas, while Thomas himself would be tried as Jesus, saying nothing but that which Jesus had taught him to speak in his own voice, else he be recognized as not being Jesus. Thomas was then hung on the cross, dying in agony, and his body was deposited in the tomb by Joseph of Arimathea.

Later on, secretly, while all were asleep, a party of followers, perhaps Joseph, Nicodemus, and Jesus himself, came to the tomb and bribed the guards to roll the stone back from the entrance and sneak Thomas' body out, bringing it to the home of Nicodemus. The other two in the party then tried to approximate the wounds of the cross on Jesus, using his brother's corpse as a guide. When all was finished, a shallow hole was dug for Thomas, and Jesus went back out to the tomb, to await any visitors who might come to anoint the body with oils. The rest, as they say, is religious history.

I know the stolen body hypothesis has been thought of before, but I believe this is the first to take Thomas into account.

So, what do you think? I'd like to hear your reactions.

I've always prided myself on owning a copy of THX-1138, especially considering it's not well known outside of certain circles.

Made some years before Lucas started work on American Graffiti, and long before even the words Star Wars popped into his head, THX is a slice of pure, unadulterated Lucas -- and it's facinating to watch.

Starting with the retro Buck Rogers opening, the film assures us that we will not be watching a comfort food-movie (that is, a movie we are reassured by in its sterile dependability). The scrolling green credits, reminiscent of the old Lucasfilm logo, is made incredibly eerie by Lalo Schifrin's haunting score, and the first scene, a montage of security images and sound bites, jolts us out of our comfort zone and into a place of rapid uncertainty.

The wonderful performances by Robert Duvall, Maggie McOmie, and Donald Pleasance (everybody's favorite Blofeld) bring a certain depth and life to Lucas' somewhat stilted lines, and the gorgeous cinematography (remember, this was the man's first feature) lend a robust maturity to the film -- the final shot (of THX staring into the setting sun for the first time while a haunting chorus fills the air) would be reused, in a way, by Lucas (twice, no less) in his epic Star Wars films.

Well, now that you know I simply adore this stunning masterwork, what are your thoughts on the film?

Hi, guys. I've got a problem:

I'm trying to post a picture onto this site without having to go through a photo site. Basically, it's a picture file, but I want to post it here. Can anyone help me?

Thanks.

Is it just me, or am I the only person to detest the assorted works of Franz Kafka? The man was obviously disturbed. Also, his writing, like Christopher Paolini's, shows all the hallmarks of an amateur besotted with his own writing skills. Because of such, I can't stand the fellow.

It seems to me, however, that he would have felt right at home consorting with emos. Anybody else get this vibe?

So, does anyone agree with me? Disagree?