Was the Kennedy Assassination a conspiracy? You don’t have to be crazy to think so . . .

John-F-Kennedy-9362930-1-402The 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination is upon us.

John F. Kennedy was the first—and so far only—American president to be Catholic.

He was not a particularly good Catholic.

His policy on Church-state relations has been widely faulted as contributing to the marginalization of religion in American society.

But nobody deserves to be gunned down in the street the way he was, and the Kennedy assassination has left us with an enduring mystery.

At present, only 29% of the American public accepts the claim that he was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, acting as a lone gunman.

By contrast, 62% of the American public thinks that he was killed as the result of a conspiracy. Another 8% apparently isn’t sure.

That means that 70% of the American public don’t buy the version of the story that major elements in the government and the mainstream media have pushed for the last 50 years.

Does this show that 70% of the public are naïve? That they are fools? That they are crazed conspiracy theorists?

No. Whether or not there was a conspiracy, you don’t have to be crazy to think there was.

Here’s why . . .

 

The Two “Official” Investigations

Shortly after the assassination, President Lyndon Johnson convened a panel of dignitaries headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren to investigate the event.

This was dubbed “the Warren Commission,” and it reported its results in 1964.

It concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted on his own and was not part of a conspiracy.

Although this was the official version promulgated by government and mainstream media channels, subsequent polls over the years have shown that a large numbers of Americans—even a large majority of Americans—are skeptical of its conclusions.

This led to a second investigation, conducted by the U.S. Congress to begin its own investigation. In 1978, the House Select Committee on Assassinations came to the opposite conclusion—that President Kennedy had been killed as the result of a conspiracy.

The American public was thus presented with two official investigations coming to opposite conclusions.

Both the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee has been criticized, and there is reason for both to be criticized. Neither was perfect.

The fact that they reached opposite conclusions, though, means that a closer look at the evidence is warranted. This leads to . . .

 

My Own Study

The Cold War is one of the periods in history that I study, and over the years I’ve done quite a bit of reading about the Kennedy assassination.

I’ve made a point of reading books by both the defenders of the claim that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman and by critics of this view.

Books on both sides of the issue make good points—as well as bad ones. There are a lot of problematic arguments and claims made both by supporters and opponents of the lone-gunman hypothesis.

Because of this, I’ve tried to take a skeptical stance toward the arguments made by both sides—to dismiss ones that aren’t solid.

In particular, I dismiss out of hand claims that aren’t supported by primary sources. There’s too much junk among the secondary sources.

In a piece of this length, there’s no way that I could review the voluminous material that’s out there, but I would like to make a few points that converge on the conclusion that you are not crazy if you think there was a conspiracy.

I’m not saying that there was, but there is enough evidence that the claim should not be dismissed out of hand.

So here we go . . .

 

1) Conspiracies exist

The first point is the rather obvious fact that conspiracies exist. That’s why we have laws against them. If two persons agree together to commit a crime, they’re engaging in a conspiracy, and that happens all the time.

It wouldn’t be necessary to make this point except that the mainstream media has done its best to make everyone who thinks there was been a conspiracy in this area sound like a kook. The very term “conspiracy theory” is pejorative.

Admittedly, many JFK conspiracy advocates are kooks, but that doesn’t make the idea itself kooky, because conspiracies do exist.

You can probably name some conspiracies—even famous ones: Watergate, Iran-Contra, the Mafia.

 

2) Assassinations can involve conspiracies

Sometimes, conspirators agree to commit the particular crime of assassination.

This has happened repeatedly in history: Julius Caesar was killed by a conspiracy. Caligula was killed by a conspiracy. So were many other historical figures.

What about American presidents?

Four have been assassinated: Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy.

  • The first assassination involved a conspiracy: John Wilkes Booth was the leader of an anti-Lincoln conspiracy.
  • The second involved a lone gunman: Charles Guiteau seems to have been a lone nut, acting on his own, when he shot President Garfield.
  • The third case is ambiguous: Anarchist Leon Czolgosz may or may not have been acting in concert with other anarchists when he shot President McKinley.
  • And the fourth case—the Kennedy assassination—is the one we are considering.

So if the idea that a presidential assassination can be the result of a conspiracy is not to be dismissed out of hand, what particular evidence might lead one to think that the Kennedy assassination involved one?

 

3) Who Oswald Was

Lee Harvey Oswald was a troubled young man who spent time in the U.S. Marine Corps before defecting to the Soviet Union in 1959 and then defecting back to the U.S. in 1962.

Despite this being the height of the Cold War (a few months before the Cuban Missile Crisis—which brought us to the brink of nuclear war), Oswald was granted permission to return to the United States, with his Russian bride and their baby girl.

His status as a multiple-defector raised questions about his having possible connections with Russian intelligence, American intelligence, or both.

After he was fingered as the assassin of President Kennedy, people could and did raise the question of whether he was acting on behalf of the Soviets.

  • Given his Soviet connection, he would have been plausibly viewed as part of a Communist conspiracy to kill Kennedy.
  • Given his troubled life, he could plausibly be viewed as a lone nut who decided to kill Kennedy on his own.
  • Given both of these things, paradoxically, Oswald could make a suitable “patsy” or “fall guy” for the crime—someone who could be seen either as a Soviet agent or a lone nut.

 

4) Oswald’s Attitude

Unless they are hired by others, assassins tend to really hate the person they are killing. Think about it: They are so angry at this person that they are willing to take human life.

They also frequently think they are doing so as part of some higher cause.

As a result, they are frequently proud of what they have done. They may even expect to become justly famous for it.

  • Thus John Wilkes Booth, after shooting Lincoln, jumped on the stage at Ford’s Theater, held a knife above his head, and shouted in triumph to the audience. Witnesses said he shouted “Sic semper tyrannis”—the Latin phrase meaning “Thus always to tyrants!” This remark is widely attributed to Marcus Junius Brutus when he assassinated Julius Caesar. It was also the Virginia state motto. Some witnesses also said they heard Booth shout “”I have done it, the South is avenged!”
  • Charles Guiteau was similarly unrepentant after killing President Garfield. In custody of the authorities, he declared: “I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts. . . . Arthur is president now!” (The Stalwarts were a group in the Republican Party that Garfield did not belong to, but his vice president—Chester A. Arthur—did.)
  • Similarly, Leon Czolgosz was proud of what he did. Just before his electrocution, he stated: “”I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good people—the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime.”

All of this contrasts with Oswald’s attitude. Rather than proudly claiming responsibility for his action (which one might have expected from a dedicated Communist angry enough to kill the U.S. president), Oswald denied involvement and famously stated: “I’m just a patsy.”

His attitude is so different from that of other presidential assassins that it’s worth further consideration.

 

5) The assassin assassinated

Remarkably, Oswald did not live to stand trial. He was himself assassinated while in the custody of the Dallas Police Department.

The event occurred on Sunday, November 24, less than 48-hours after the presidential assassination.

The Dallas police were in the process of transporting Oswald from their headquarters to the county jail.

They had gotten Oswald down into the basement garage of police headquarters, intending to place him in a protected vehicle for transportation to the county jail.

Then, Jack Ruby (a.k.a. Jacob Rubenstein), a local nightclub owner with reported ties to the Mafia, emerged from the crowd and shot him in the chest.

Since Oswald’s transfer to the country jail was being televised live, across the U.S., this was the first murder committed live on U.S. television.

VIDEO HERE.

Though he was friendly with both the Dallas police and the mob, Jack Ruby had no authorization to be in police headquarters during the transfer, raising the question of how he got in to the supposedly secure facility.

The killing of Oswald by Ruby would seem to be explainable in two ways:

  • Ruby was a second lone individual who was able to infiltrate police headquarters and who then killed Oswald for his own reasons.
  • Ruby was sent to kill Oswald and granted access to the facility (or was known in advance to have it).

The first would be surprising on two grounds: (1) It would present us with a second “lone nut” and (2) this second lone nut was able to gain access to the first during an extremely short window of opportunity, amid high security conditions, with a deadly weapon, without the complicity of others.

The second would be consistent with the idea of a broader conspiracy on two grounds: (1) If Oswald was a patsy (or, at least, not the only person involved) there would be reason to eliminate him quickly, lest he spill what he knew, and (2) other people involved could have granted Ruby access.

 

6) Ruby’s reaction

Just as Oswald’s reaction after the events of November 22 is significant, so is Ruby’s reaction after those of November 24th.

Early on, he stated that he had killed Oswald on the spur of the moment, to prevent Jacqueline Kennedy from having to come to Dallas to testify in the foreseen trial of Oswald.

At one point, Ruby reportedly gave a note to his attorney, Joseph Tonahill, which stated:

“Joe, you should know this. My first lawyer Tom Howard told me to say that I shot Oswald so that Caroline and Mrs. Kennedy wouldn’t have to come to Dallas to testify. OK?”

Later, in a press conference, he said the following:

RUBY: The world will never know the true facts of what occurred—my motives. . . . The people had, that had so much to gain, and had such an ulterior motive for putting me in the position I’m in, will never let the true facts come above board to the world.

REPORTER: Are these people in very high positions, Jack?

RUBY: Yes.

VIDEO HERE.

Ruby also, in his testimony to the Warren Commission, repeatedly requested to be taken to Washington, D.C., so that he could tell what he knew—apparently fearing for his life.

In his transcripted remarks, we read:

Mr. RUBY. Is there any way to get me to Washington?

Chief Justice WARREN. I beg your pardon?

Mr. RUBY. Is there any way of you getting me to Washington?

Chief Justice WARREN. I don’t know of any. I will be glad to talk to your counsel about what the situation is, Mr. Ruby, when we get an opportunity to talk.

Mr. RUBY. I don’t think I will get a fair representation with my counsel, Joe Tonahill. I don’t think so. I would like to request that I go to Washington and you take all the [lie-detector] tests that I have to take. It is very important. . . .

Mr. RUBY. There is only one thing. If you don’t take me back to Washington tonight to give me a chance to prove to the President  [i.e., Lyndon Johnson] that I am not guilty, then you will see the most tragic thing that will ever happen.

And if you don’t have the power to take me back, I won’t be around to be able to prove my innocence or guilt.

The assassin of Oswald—who initially claims that he did the deed on the spur of the moment, to spare Mrs. Kennedy an emotional trauma—thus becomes much more ambiguous, stating that his original story was recommended to him by his original lawyer, giving a press conference in which he hinted at larger reasons involving people in high positions, and also asking to be taken away from Dallas so he could tell the full story in safety.

 

7) Ruby dies

Ruby himself did not live long. He died on January 3, 1967 from a pulmonary embolism secondary to lung cancer.

He apparently claimed, though, that his death was not natural.

Dallas Deputy Sheriff Al Maddox claimed: “Ruby told me, he said, ‘Well, they injected me for a cold.’ He said it was cancer cells. That’s what he told me, Ruby did. I said you don’t believe that b***s***. He said, ‘I damn sure do!’”

I have no idea whether it’s possible to inject someone with cancerous cells to cause cancer. Ruby’s understanding of what happened may well have been mistaken.

But we do know that the U.S. government was researching ways to kill people with various substances. Fidel Castro was the intended target for some of these.

And some cases of assassination by radiation poisoning in other parts of the world have come to light.

Regardless of why Ruby died, he died at a very interesting time.

After failing to get transferred out of Dallas when he spoke to the Warren Commission, Ruby’s lawyers attempted to get a new trial for him outside of Dallas, where they said pre-trial publicity had made it impossible for him to get a fair hearing.

Eventually, the courts agreed, and preparations were being made for a new trial in Wichita Falls, Texas in February 1967, just the month after Ruby died.

If Ruby had any co-conspirators, they might well have been afraid that, upon finally getting out of Dallas, he would tell the story he was afraid to tell there.

In fact, Deputy Sherriff Maddox went on to claim:

[Then] one day when I started to leave, Ruby shook hands with me and I could feel a piece of paper in his palm… [In this note] he said it was a conspiracy and he said … if you will keep your eyes open and your mouth shut, you’re gonna learn a lot. And that was the last letter I ever got from him.”

 

8) The Zapruder Film

In the Zapruder film (the best footage available of the assassination), at least to the casual eye, it does look like Kennedy is struck from the right front and then thrown backwards and to the left.

VIDEO HERE. (WARNING: GRAPHIC).

If so, he would have been shot from the so-called “grassy knoll,” not from (or not just from) the Texas School Book Depository.

Oswald was seen and identified on the second floor of the book depository less than two minutes after the fatal shot, so he could not have been on the grassy knoll. If there were any shots fired from there, there would have to be another gunman, and thus a conspiracy.

Now: I am not saying that the Zapruder film shows that there was a shot from the right front.

There are counter-arguments seeking to show that it does not.

My point is: To the casual eye, it looks like there was a shot from the right front, whether there was or not, and thus you don’t have to be crazy to think there was.

 

9) Ear-Witness Perceptions

Numerous eye-witnesses perceived shots coming from the grassy knoll.

Among them were presidential aides Kenny O’Donnell and Dave Powers, who were riding in the Secret Service backup car, immediately behind the presidential limousine.

Some Secret Service members perceived the same thing, as did dozens of pedestrians.

In fact, just after the event, numerous pedestrians and Dallas police officers rushed up the grassy knoll to apprehend the shooter they thought was there.

Does this prove that there was a shooter there?

No, but it does show that, even in the heat of the moment, many reasonable people thought there was.

 

The Bottom Line

None of the individual things we have considered here prove that there was a conspiracy, but taken together they show that a reasonable person could think there was, and thus that the conspiracy hypothesis should not simply be dismissed.

  • There are such things as conspiracies, and sometimes they involve assassinations, even when the American president is the target.
  • In this case, we have an assassination in which the alleged shooter fails to behave like a normal, proud and unrepentant assassin. Instead, he denies involvement and claims to be a patsy.
  • His background is so bizarre that he would, in fact, make a rather good patsy.
  • Then, before he gets legal representation and before he tells what (if anything) he might know about the people who he thinks set him up as a patsy, he is shot dead while in police custody!
  • The man who shoots him, though, is not a policeman. It’s a nightclub owner with ties to the Mafia.
  • The second assassin then claims that there is much the public doesn’t know about the situation, indicating that there was a conspiracy. He begs to be taken out of Dallas so that he can tell his story, and then when he finally secures a new trial outside of the city, he drops dead the month before, after claiming that he was the victim of foul play.
  • The best footage of the assassination, at least to a casual eye, suggests that the president was hit from a direction that would indicate a second gunman, and numerous witnesses on the scene perceived shots coming from that location and even rushed to the site in an attempt to capture the gunman.

You don’t have to be crazy to look at this fact pattern and think there was a conspiracy!

And we’ve only scratched the surface. We’ve only looked at top-level facts that are widely agreed upon. We haven’t descended into the detailed evidential arguments that lurk below.

Of course, there are arguments and counter-arguments concerning all of this.

My concern is not to tell you who is right. In fact, to put my cards on the table, I’d probably count myself among the 8% of Americans who aren’t sure if there was a conspiracy. At least, at this point, I’m not willing to confidently assert that there was. I’d want to do more work on the question.

But I do think that, even just considering these top-level facts, there is ample reason to take the conspiracy hypothesis seriously.

And I don’t think people who take it seriously should be sneered at.

 

Sympathy for the Warren Commission

The Warren Commission, which endorsed the lone-gunman hypothesis, has been widely criticized, even by people who support its ultimate conclusion.

The charge is that it did sloppy work in order to reach a pre-determined conclusion that Oswald was the lone assassin.

To tell you the truth, whether Oswald acted alone or not, I don’t blame the Warren Commission for acting the way it did.

Oswald had undeniable links to the Soviet Union, and if the public had come to the conclusion that the Soviets had engineered the assassination of an American president, the demand for war would have been massive.

There is no doubt about it: We would have gone to war with the Soviet Union. We’d already had several close brushes just during the Kennedy Administration (e.g., the Bay of Pigs could have led to war, and the Cuban Missal Crisis led us to the very brink of war with Russia).

Had the public concluded that the Soviets killed our president, we would have gone to war, and it would very likely have gone nuclear.

The Warren Commission thus may have saved us from the horror of global, thermonuclear war.

Given that, it’s hard not to have sympathy for them, whatever flaws they had.

On the other hand, now that we’re fifty years on and passions have cooled, that’s no reason not to take another look at their version of events.

 

What Now?

If you like the information I’ve presented here, you should join my Secret Information Club.

If you’re not familiar with it, the Secret Information Club is a free service that I operate by email.

I send out information on a variety of fascinating topics connected with the Catholic faith.

In fact, the very first thing you’ll get if you sign up is information about what Pope Benedict said about the book of Revelation.

He had a lot of interesting things to say!

If you’d like to find out what they are, just sign up at www.SecretInfoClub.com or use this handy sign-up form:

Just email me at jimmy@secretinfoclub.com if you have any difficulty.

In the meantime, what do you think?

Do our souls go to sleep when we die? (And more!)

microphoneJimmy appears on Catholic Answers Live in this episode of the podcast and answers these questions:

  • Do our souls go to sleep when we die? (3:00-8:25)
  • How to deal with an anti-Catholic husband? (11:45-19:35)
  • How to interpret 1 John 3:9? (19:40-24:53)
  • What does Scripture have to say about Tradition? (27:50-33:45)
  • Are the differences in the Gospels due to the audiences they are written for? (33:45-38:40)
  • Is it moral to sell your organs? (42:23-49:40)
  • Was Adam more culpable for the Fall than Eve? (49:45-53:00)

(Original Airdate: November 19, 2013)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The Weekly Francis – 17 November 2013

pope-francisThis version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week from 31 October to 16 November 2013.

Angelus

General Audiences

Speeches

Daily Homilies (fervorinos)

Papal Tweets

Is the fire of purgatory Jesus Christ himself?

sacredheartThe Catholic Church associates the image of fire with the final purification known as purgatory.

Why does it do this?

Is there a scriptural basis for this image?

Also, what kind of fire is this?

In past centuries, many theologians have speculated that it might be a form of material fire.

Although that has been a common opinion historically, there’s a difficult question that the idea raises: How could material fire affect the holy souls in purgatory? They don’t have their bodies, so how could material fire affect them? And why would it accomplish a spiritual effect on them?

More recently, some theologians have suggested that the fire is something else entirely.

In fact, they have suggested that the fire of purgatory is an intense, transforming encounter with Jesus Christ.

You might be surprised to find out just who has been proposing this idea.

Here’s a video in which we explore the idea . . .

 

 

YOU CAN CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE.

You can also listen to or download it as an MP3:

 

What Now?

If you like the information I’ve presented here, you should join my Secret Information Club.

If you’re not familiar with it, the Secret Information Club is a free service that I operate by email.

I send out information on a variety of fascinating topics connected with the Catholic faith.

In fact, the very first thing you’ll get if you sign up is information about what Pope Benedict said about the book of Revelation.

He had a lot of interesting things to say!

If you’d like to find out what they are, just sign up at www.SecretInfoClub.com or use this handy sign-up form:

Just email me at jimmy@secretinfoclub.com if you have any difficulty.

In the meantime, what do you think?

Did Pope Francis just tip his hand on Medjugorge? (10 things to know and share)

daily-homilyMany people are wondering what will happen at the end of the current investigation of Medjugorje.

As a result, they’re trying to figure out what attitude Pope Francis takes toward the reported apparitions.

On Thursday, Pope Francis made remarks which some people think tipped his hand and revealed his attitude.

Here are 10 things to know and share . . .

 

1) What is Medjugorje?

Medjugorje is a location in Herzegovina where, in 1981, a group of young people began reporting visions of the Virgin Mary.

Currently, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican is investigating the reported phenomena.

When their investigation is finished, they are expected to report its findings to the Pope, who will make the final determination of what, if anything, is to be done regarding the apparitions.

YOU CAN READ MORE ABOUT MEDJUGORJE HERE.

 

2) Where did Pope Francis make his remarks?

He made them in the “fervorino” (informal homily) at his daily Mass on Thursday, Nov. 14.

By the Pope’s own request, the full text of these fervorinos are not published, only summaries of them.

This means that we need to be somewhat cautious when interpreting them, because we do not have the full remarks.

YOU CAN READ THE VATICAN RADIO ACCOUNT OF THE FERVORINO HERE.

 

3) What did he say about Medjugorje in the fervorino?

If the fervorino is taken at face value, he didn’t say anything about Medjugorje.

It is not mentioned explicitly.

He did make remarks that have been interpreted as a reference to Medjugorje without naming it.

 

4) What did he say?

KEEP READING. 

 

Doctor Who Fans Must Watch This!

TARDISINSPACESteven Moffat has just released a prequel mini-episode to the 50th anniversary Doctor Who special that will be broadcast later this month.

It’s titled The Night of the Doctor.

WOW!

Mini-episodes like this are often interesting and/or amusing, but they are rarely must-see.

This one is different. For any long-term Doctor Who fan, this one is must see!

We already know, from things that have been revealed by the publicity, that the 50th anniversary special will deal with the Time War that took place between the original Doctor Who series and the new series that started in 2005.

There are many unanswered questions about the Time War and the Doctor’s role in it, such as which of his incarnations participated n it and how some of his regenerations happened.

I don’t want to spoil what happens in the mini-episode, but long-time fans of the series really should watch it. We get some questions answered. We even get to see one thing that I never thought’d we’d see.

(One note: If you have not seen the conclusion to season 7 and don’t want to be spoiled on the final reveal in The Name of the Doctor, wait to watch the mini-episode.)

Here we go . . .

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE.

NOTE FOR THOSE WHO WONDER WHAT THE FUSS IS ABOUT . . .

SPOILER SPACE.

After the original Doctor Who series ended, there was an attempt to get a new one started in the 1990s. They did a pilot movie, but it didn’t lead to a series.

That pilot movie was the first and only appearance on video of actor Paul McGann as the 8th incarnation of the Doctor.

We saw the 7th Doctor regenerate into McGann, but we never saw McGann’s regeneration or knew his role in the Time War.

This mini-episode has McGann as the 8th Doctor, meaning it is only the second time he has appeared on film as the Doctor. It also reveals that the 8th Doctor was active during part of the Time War but was not the incarnation who ended it.

We also get to see McGann’s regeneration into John Hurt–McGann’s regeneration being something many fans (including myself) never expected to see on film.

Awesome!

HERE’S AN INTERVIEW WITH MOFFAT ABOUT THE NIGHT OF THE DOCTOR.

What is revelation?

prophet (1)“Revelation” is a mysterious-sounding word.

Sometimes it conjures visions in our minds of the end of the world. That happens when we think of the last book of the Bible—the Book of Revelation.

But even when the word isn’t being used that way, it suggests something powerful and mysterious.

This is a bit of a paradox, because of what the word “revelation” actually means.

Revelation is something that is revealed—something that is now known. If I reveal what I’m doing or thinking, that’s a revelation.

Since the term refers to what is known, it’s ironic that it would have such mysterious overtones.

 

Human vs. Divine Revelation

If we only used the word “revelation” to refer to ordinary, mundane, human revelations—the kind of things people reveal in their Facebook status—then it would never have acquired such mysterious overtones (indeed, it would sound trivial to us rather than momentous).

But we also use it for things that God reveals to us, and God is very mysterious indeed.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts [Isaiah 55:8-9].

It’s understandable that, by its association with the mystery of God, the word “revelation” itself would come to sound mysterious.

Despite the fact that we can never fully grasp God, never fully comprehend an infinite Being like him, we can understand something about how he reveals himself to man.

 

More Than Words Can Tell

In the past, some theologians have conceived of divine revelation as if it’s just a matter of words—as if everything that God has revealed to man could be stated as a proposition, like these:

KEEP READING.

The Weekly Francis – 10 November 2013

popefrancisThis version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week from 26 October to 9 November 2013.

Angelus

General Audiences

Homilies

Speeches

Daily Homilies (fervorinos)

Papal Tweets

  • “I thank all missionaries, men and women who quietly work hard for the Lord and their brothers and sisters.” @pontifex, 4 November 2013
  • “We need courage if we are to be faithful to the Gospel.” @pontifex, 5 November 2013
  • “Saints are people who belong fully to God. They are not afraid of being mocked, misunderstood or marginalized.” @pontifex, 7 November 2013
  • “The Year of Faith is about to end. Lord, in this graced moment, help us to take the Gospel seriously.” @pontifex, 8 November 2013
  • “I ask all of you to join me in prayer for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan / Yolanda especially those in the beloved islands of the Philippines” @pontifex, 9 November 2013
  • “Our life must be centred on what is essential, on Jesus Christ. Everything else is secondary.” @pontifex, 9 November 2013

The Weekly Francis – 3 November 2013

pope_francis_mass_20130314124558_640_480This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week from 20 October to 2 November 2013.

Angelus

General Audiences

Homilies

Messages

Speeches

Daily Homilies (fervorinos)

Papal Tweets

My Ender’s Game Movie Review

enders-game-movie-ender-harrison-fordLong time blog readers know that I’m a fan of the Ender’s Game series of books by Orson Scott Card.

Well, many of them. Some of the later books following Ender become unbearably tedious, but the original is very good, and the books following Ender’s buddy Bean are good as well.

The two best books in the series are the original novel, Ender’s Game, and its parallel novel, Ender’s Shadow, which follows the events of the original novel from Bean’s perspective.

According to what Card said a few years ago, the movie was going to be a fusion of these two books, so I’ve been really looking forward it.

Now it’s out, and I’ve seen it.

I have a good bit to say about it, so I’m going to structure this review in a way that won’t bore people who are new to Ender’s Game and that won’t spoil people who don’t want to be spoiled on what happens.

Here goes . . .

 

If You Are New to Ender’s Game

Here’s the basic premise: It is set in the future, and mankind has been invaded by an insect-like alien race.

We beat them back, but only barely, and now we’re preparing for a rematch. If humanity has a hope of survival, we need to find a genius strategist on the order of Alexander the Great.

To find that genius, the world government is testing children to find those with military potential and train them.

They hope that they’ve found the child they are looking for in a young man named Andrew “Ender” Wiggin.

If that’s all you know about the movie, if you’ve never read the book, then I think you’ll find it an enjoyable science fiction outing.

It will be fun—assuming you like science fiction in the first place.

I don’t think, though, that you’ll rave about the movie the way long-time fans rave about the book.

As often happens, the movie isn’t as great as the book, but that’s normal.

 

If You Are a Long Time Fan

Many fans will enjoy watching it. I did. But I didn’t think it was anything special, for reasons I will explain.

Other fans will hate it, and that’s understandable. That’s the case with any adaptation.

No movie can capture every aspect of what a fan likes about the book, and depending on which elements you are most fond of, your experience of the movie will vary.

If you are a long time fan of the book, the movie is a mixed bag.

On the one hand, you get to see things you read about in the book visualized on screen.

That’s good. That is, after all, why a fan of the book would want to go see the movie in the first place.

Sure, things may not be exactly the way you imagined them, but if you’re going to obsess about that kind of thing, then you’d better stay home. (I’m thinking of you, Sheldon Cooper.)

In terms of how the film visualizes the book, it does a good job. I was happy with it.

On the other hand, I think that the movie doesn’t have the emotional “oomph” of the book.

Not even close.

It felt rushed, the danger wasn’t set up fully, and—most importantly—Ender himself doesn’t come across the way he does in the book.

To explain why, I’ll need to introduce some minor spoilers.

Proceed beyond this point only if you don’t mind that.

 

Minor Spoilers Ahoy!

At the end of the audiobook adaptations of the Ender’s Game books, Orson Scott Card has some afterwords in which he discusses the prospects for a movie, which was then years in the future.

Early on, he wrote some drafts of a screenplay for the movie himself, and he quickly identified a problem with them.

If his test reader knew the book, they thought the screenplay was fine, but if they hadn’t read the book, they didn’t find it emotionally satisfying.

The problem, he discovered, was that the book relied too heavily on Ender’s introspection. Card writes heavily introspective novels, but we can’t get inside Ender’s head in a movie the way we can in a book, and so the intense emotions Ender was feeling weren’t coming across through the screenplay.

The solution to this problem came, he said, when he was told he should fuse Ender’s Game with Ender’s Shadow, so we could feel Ender’s emotions through Bean.

Card said he realized this was exactly what was needed, and so he wrote a draft that way and it was vastly better. The Ender-Bean relationship became the crux of the movie and it turned into a sort of buddy picture, where Ender could be drawn out of himself and show his emotions to Bean.

Problem solved.

Unfortunately, Card explained, Hollywood would never trust a never-before-screenwriter like him with the screenplay, and so he expected that someone else would do the filmed version.

They did, and they should have used Card’s solution to the problem.

Unfortunately, they didn’t.

 

How Faithful to the Original Is Too Faithful to the Original?

I was amazed at how faithful the movie was to the original. I expected much bigger changes than they ended up doing.

Some changes were merely cosmetic. Major Anderson is now an African American woman? Big deal. Dink Meeker is no longer Dutch but, apparently also African American? So what.

Bean is on Ender’s launch shuttle? Fine.

Armies are now sixteen people instead of forty-one? That’s probably a good thing. Having eighty-two people in the Battle Room to follow would have been too confusing.

Ender is no longer the shortest, youngest kid (other than Bean) in Battle School? Bonzo Madrid is shorter than Ender? We’re starting to lose part of the dynamic of the book, but neither of these makes a crucial difference.

What I was amazed by, though, was the tiny things from the book that they preserved. The opening sequence of the movie plays out very much the same way that the opening of the book does.

It’s abbreviated, but we’ve got the monitor, the fight with Stilson, the scene at home with Valentine and Peter, Peter making Ender play buggers and astronauts with him, the parents’ reactions to Ender being taken away by Graff, etc.

Even lots of the dialogue is lifted from the book.

In my amazement at their including all this, I found myself thinking, “What are you going to cut? You can’t be this faithful to the book the whole way through. You don’t have enough time in a two-hour movie. If you keep all this stuff, something has to be cut.”

One of the things that went right out the window was any hope of doing an Ender’s Game/Ender’s Shadow fusion.

There simply was no time to do the kind of Ender/Bean relationship that Card envisioned, and—I hate to say it—Bean is barely in this movie!

That means we’re staring the problem that Card identified early on right in the face: The movie cannot capture the power of the book because Ender has no way of showing us his emotions without the relationship with Bean.

The emotional depth and texture of the book’s version of Ender is simply gone.

What’s worse, so is his brilliance.

 

Informed Attributes

Don’t get me wrong. The movie still hinges on Ender being the greatest commander since Alexander the Great, and we have characters in the movie telling us this.

They also tell us Ender is a freaky good strategist and leader. Han SoloCol. Graff tells us Ender is “perfect” over and over, but that’s the problem: We’re being told, not being shown.

This is a significant problem, which is sometimes called informed attributes.

Merely telling the viewer that someone is super-awesome is not enough. We have to be shown that they have this attribute, not merely informed of it, in order for it to feel emotionally real.

And that’s not what happens in this movie.

Ender is still playing vulnerable kid up until the point he becomes commander of Dragon Army. We don’t see almost any of his brilliance (though we do get a flash of it in the climactic Battle Room game).

We also only get a faint glimmer of the other students warming up to him—and then for very little reason. We are not shown how he builds their trust and earns their loyalty over time.

They make gestures at this, but they’ve spent so much time on other things that they basically rush through this part of the novel, and that’s bad, because it’s the necessary emotional set-up for the climax.

We have to believe that Ender is a genius, that he’s a born leader, and that he’s emotionally anguished for the ending to have the needed payoff.

And we don’t get that.

What I need to say next depends on major spoilers, so bail now if you don’t want to be majorly spoiled. You can come back and read it after you’ve seen the movie . . .

 

Major Spoilers Ahead!

One of the things that takes the punch out of the movie is the way it tones down certain events.

For example, there’s the bit in the book where Ender sends the desk message from “God.” There’s a version of that in the movie, but the messages that are sent are different, and Ender’s isn’t signed “God,” which deprives the officer present of the ability to do the clever smackdown that happens in the book.

The core idea of the scene is there, but it’s so toned down that it’s nearly pointless.

Far worse is what happens with the two fights Ender gets in—with Stilson and with Bonzo.

These are crucial points of character development, since they reveal just how committed to winning Ender is. In the book he kills both of these characters.

But at the same time, these scenes establish Ender’s vulnerability: Although he kills these characters, he doesn’t know that this is what he has done and could not bear it emotionally if he knew, consciously, that he had done so.

That’s the central character point of the book.

Ender unknowingly killing Stilson and Bonzo is what sets us up for the climax of the story, when Ender unknowingly kills all of the buggers.

But the edge is taken completely off of that in the movie, because neither Stilson nor Bonzo is established to be dead!

Indeed, we see an autodoc working on Bonzo—still alive—after the fight, and Ender later states he’s been spending time by Bonzo’s bed on earth, hoping he will wake up.

What???

I guess that they took the edge off these things because they thought it would be too dark if Ender actually killed other children, but this just sucks the drama—the fact that Ender is able to unknowingly kill people—right out of the situation.

They also take the edge off of other things, some much more minor. For example, the buggers are never referred to as buggers in the movie, just “formics.”

This is just misguided P.C.-ness. I’m sorry, but when insect-like aliens have killed millions of humans, it’s okay to call them “buggers.” In fact, that’s what we’d do.

 

Fan Confusion

The P.C.-ness of calling the buggers only “formics,” is only a tiny example of things in the movie that will confuse long time fans.

There are much bigger ones.

For example, there is significant ambiguity in the film about who the good guys are. At a certain point in the film, we start getting indications that the buggers aren’t hostile now.

We’ve actually got them “surrounded” in their home system, but Graff is determined to have Ender proceed to “train” to kill them all.

Ender doesn’t seem to have much of a problem with this, but the long time fan is going to be going, “Wait a minute! This is just making us look like the bad guys! None of this was in the book! Yes, we were invading their space, but we didn’t—already—have them ‘surrounded’.”

There are actually two moments in the movie where I was thoroughly confused: One was when Ender, instead of being taken to Command School on Eros, is taken to a planet near the buggers’ home world!

So much for faster-than-light-travel and communication not being possible!

At this point I thought they were going to completely re-write the final act of the movie, but they didn’t.

Now it’s just that Command School is on a planet near the buggers’ home, and the story proceeds more or less as you’d expect.

But for a long time fan, this is a deeply confusing moment, as the lightspeed barrier and the secret existence of the ansible were major factors in the books.

They were, in fact, the key things preventing Ender from realizing that he was really commanding a fleet.

In the movie, we’re thus put in a position in which FTL travel and communication are possible and we’re on a planet just outside the bugger solar system (only one), running “simulations” of an invasion of that system, with the expectation not that Ender might some day command a fleet but that he will start commanding an invasion fleet right after passing his “graduation test.”

Then there’s a moment in the final “simulation” where they fire Dr. Device and, for the sake of a cool special effect (apparently blowing up a bunch of rocks around the planet that aren’t in the book), it looks like they just destroyed the bugger home world.

At this point, I found myself saying, “What? That’s it? They end the battle before it’s even begun?”

But then it becomes clear that it was just a special effect and the planet is still there and needs to be destroyed.

 

The Wrong Notes

The film continues to hit the wrong emotional notes in this act.

Unlike the book, Ender does not go into the final battle at his wits’ end. He doesn’t give up at the unfairness of it all. He isn’t rescued from cluelessness at the last moment by Bean’s remark that the enemy’s gate is down.

He’s positive going into the fight, and at the end of the simulation, he and the other members of his jeesh are jubilant.

And suddenly the adults watching are somber. They aren’t weeping and praying with joy, as they are in the book. They just stand there, showing little emotion.

Then they show the children an ansible connection revealing the devastation of the bugger homeworld (which hasn’t actually blown up, just become uninhabitable).

Not. Exactly. The. Best. Way. To. Tell. Children. They. Are. Xenocides.

Only then does Col. Graff come up to Ender jubilantly telling him he’s a hero—after this weird silence of the adults.

And Ender immediately leaps to the fact that he’s going to go down in history as a xenocide.

We don’t get anything about joyful masses on earth realizing they are finally free of the bugger threat.

Instead, Ender has a fight with Graff, stalks off, and is then drugged and put to bed for no apparent reason.

 

The Postlude

The final part of the movie does result in Ender getting the hive queen’s egg, and it does so in a way that I thought was okay.

It’s not the same as in the book, but it’s similar, and I was able to accept it.

I was disappointed, though, that Val doesn’t end up going into space with Ender at the end.

He goes alone, promising to come back to her (apparently possible due to FTL space flight).

If there are future movies in this series, it is hard to see how they will resemble the later volumes Card wrote. They may take elements from them, but they could not be as faithful to them as this movie was to its original.

It’s also hard to see how they could make books like those of the Bean arc, since Bean has not been established as a significant character in this movie.

So it may be just a one-off, and not a brilliant one.

 

What Should Have Happened

If they were going to try to be as faithful as they were to the original book then they should have done to this what they did to Lord of the Rings.

The audiobook version of Ender’s Game is 12 hours long, and they should have made three multi-hour films out of this.

That would give them the space they need to flesh out Ender’s character and emotional situation, and show us his brilliance and leadership rather than just telling us he had them.

If they didn’t have funding for a multi-movie project then they should have lengthened this one to two and a half hours and been less faithful to the book, cutting out everything not necessary.

Val and Peter should have gone, for instance. When space is short, they aren’t necessary. They were not, for example, in the original Ender’s Game short story.

In either case, they should have used the solution of making the movie almost as much about Bean as about Ender.

The dynamic between the two would be the best way of pulling Ender out of himself and letting the audience experience the emotions of the two characters.

Unfortunately, they wasted these opportunities.

 

My Summing Up

I’m glad that I saw Ender’s Game—once. That may well be all I see it.

I enjoyed seeing a visualization of a favorite story of mine, one that I have read many times.

However, I felt it was a profoundly flawed adaptation, because it was faithful when it shouldn’t have been and also unfaithful when it shouldn’t have been.

In a way, I feel about this the way I feel about J. J. Abrams’ Star Trek movies: They have enjoyable aspects, but they aren’t really Star Trek. They’re action movies with Star Trek trappings.

This isn’t quite as remove from the original book as they are, but it’s similar.

The situations may be much more like what we have in the book, but the main character is not the same person—not by a long shot.

He’s a different character in Ender trappings.