The Awesome God Project™®©

The word salvation is very charged—representing a concept that has been at the center of many church schisms, and I’m not just talking Martin Luther’s fit.  I’m talking about the hundred of small church schisms across the country.  My church has been through 3 or 4 schisms in its existence, and at some point the concept of salvation played a role in all of them.  Should we prepare our congregation for the ongoing and epic spiritual war?  If we don’t use it, do we lose it?  Or, is salvation a one-night stand that turns into an ongoing relationship?  Christians grapple with these questions daily—or whenever someone decides to throw a fit about it.  No matter what interpretation Christians pull out of the Bible, salvation is important.  Without salvation we have no way to Christ, which means no access to Heaven, and no wonderful chat with St. Peter when he’s checking the list at the Gate (“Do you guys have hockey?” “Yeah, and a pretty decent football team, but we need Joe Montana to die so we can get a decent QB.” “What about Jonny U?” “I never was a fan.”).  I tell you this, kind reader, not to teach you about Christianity or God, but because it has nothing to do with Terminator Salvation.  If you evoke salvation in your title, one expects that something happens to lead humanity to safety.  Humanity is saved.  We enter the Promised Land—a land free of killer robots, both terminators and cylons—and go on to build a better life.  If you promise salvation, you better deliver on it, and not leave us at the end trying to convolute a reason for the title.

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When a new blog appears on the internet, proclaiming some form of originality and unique perspective on an already oversaturated market of opining – it’s recommend to view the newcomer skeptically and not fall for their fancy tricks.  This usually takes a few posts to determine if the new guy has any game worth watching.  In this case, I’ll save you the trouble: this blog isn’t worth it.  I’ve saved you a week or two worth of reading, and in return I only ask that you give me a few weeks of your time – sounds fair, right?  The pitch is pretty simple: 17 movies, 17 theaters, and way to much money in gas, which I refuse to think about.

There is a bit more to the pitch though than a catchy tagline.  Not by much, but enough.  My obsession with movies and TV dates back to watching Star Trek: The Next Generation with my parents at the age of two, and spurred my college studies.  In college I learned an obvious truth – how you watch a movie affects what you think of the movie.  Technical factors like the size of the screen, the quality of the speakers, or the image quality; environmental factors like who you’re watching it with, where you see it, and what you did five seconds before; and qualitative factors, is the movie any good?  A big, epic studio release or a nauseating, character-centric indie flick?  That’s the basis of The Awesome Project ™©® — how does our environment affect the viewing of a film?

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