In a recent episode of the Flash, Joe West was talking to Barry Allen about his being in love with Joe’s daughter Iris. Joe offered the following words of comfort, “Sometimes the universe has a way of bringing two people together.”

From the purely naturalistic perspective that so much of the traditional science fiction community takes, the notion of an impersonal universe caring about the fastest man alive’s longtime crush is absurd. But it does highlight an interesting trend in many science fiction stories who are giving the Universe powers and attributes that are often associated with God.

The same can be said in Doctor Who. In “The Snowmen”, Madam Vastra suggests the Doctor is trying to bargain with the Universe to save Clara and the Doctor responds that he’s owed by the Universe. “The Rings of Akhaten,” begins with Clara’s father as a young man nearly being run over by a car when a leaf flew in his face and her mother saves him. He saves the leaf and described why it was the most important leaf in human history, “Because this exact leaf had to grow in that exact way, in that exact place, so that precise wind could tear it from that precise branch, and make it fly into this exact face. At that exact moment.”

The same story has the Doctor explaining to the young Queen of Years of her importance by saying she was the result of lengthy billions upon billions of years of evolutionary process: “The elements came together and burst apart, forming shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings. Until, eventually, they came together to make you. You are unique in the universe. There is only one Merry Galel. And there will never be another.”

Such a romanticized view of evolution is something many Atheists would scoff at. Professor William Provine of Cornell speaks for many of these with his conclusions as to where life stands, “There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death… There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.”

The legendary Douglas Adams wrote the classic Doctor Who Story “The City of Death” which posited that life on Earth began as a result of an alien spaceship exploding near a pool of amino acids. In Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the answer to “Life, the Universe, and everything” is “42” and the rest of the plot indicates, to Adams, the greatest joke of the series was that anyone would expect to find any meaning in life at all.

Despite a decreasing percentage of people claiming a religious affiliation, a cold, purely naturalistic view of the world doesn’t resonate with the human experience or the greatest longings of the human heart. So we’ve seen the rise of secular science fiction that’s been far less hardline and suggests a benevolent providence without God or religion.

This development is fraught with both peril and promise for Christians. In some ways, this mystical approach to atheism goes along with a society that offers ala carte spirituality where everyone picks out whatever religious tenets sound nice to them and believes those, disregarding what they don’t like. This makes each individual the arbiter of truth. Ultimately, that makes each of us our own god.

This certainly bodes well for new age and neo-pagan religions which offer people a sense of spirituality without the holiness of God. We’ve already seen more pagan views of human life and human sexuality take hold in the West over the past few decades.

For Christians, this presents a perfect Mars Hill opportunity. The challenge is much the same as it’s always been, to explain how the greatest needs of the human heart are met in the person of Jesus Christ. The only difference is, while Paul pointed to an altar to an unknown God, today’s Christians may point to the latest episode of The Flash.

They need fantastical stories. Even if they don’t know it.

If you’re a Christian who loves fantastical stories, including by Christians, and want more of them, and take time saying this on the web, chances are you’ve recently felt disillusioned.

This discouragement may be because advocates offer flawed (and even reactionary and sentimental) reasons to support, rather than naturally enjoy, fantastical stories by Christian artists. It may also be because authors and publishers were originally gung-ho about blogs and e-reading and self-publishing, but reality has weakened some of those promises.

But for Christians who believe the Bible and want to show their love for Jesus by obeying and following him, there may be a third crucial, deeper, even hiding-in-plain-sight spiritual reason why the fantastical stories we love are not finding wider audiences.

3. We’ve been focusing too much on individual fans/authors and individual readers.

In all our internet advocacy, blogs, comments, emails, fandom circles, social network pages, and writing groups, do we talk too much about authors and readers as single individuals?

Individuals who merely have a preference for this one thing, rather than individuals who are part of, say, a single entity on earth that Jesus Christ himself founded in order to call people to repent of their sin, receive his salvation and join a Cause to promote his worship?

I could provide examples. But I am not picking on any one person. As Mike Duran suggests:

[L]iterary agent Amanda Luedeke recently said, “I honestly feel we have more people writing Christian spec fic than we have people reading it.”

This is the huge fundamental hurdle Christian spec groups and authors must admit and overcome. If we are going to broaden the reach of Christian spec-fic we simply have to learn how to stop talking to ourselves. Face it, the majority of us have the same circle of friends. We interpret vigorous chatter within our circle as evidence of growth or advance. It’s not. It’s an echo chamber. Not saying that is totally wrong. There’s many great writers and enthusiastic readers in our circles. What I’m saying is that they all exist within a relatively small pool. Until we are willing and able to connect with readers outside our “safe” circles, the number of Christian spec-fic titles will remain paltry.

We emphasize what individuals want, and what “the world” needs (or supposedly needs). But we have left out one excruciatingly crucial step — that is, crucial if you are a biblical Christian who want to love and obey Jesus Christ and share his Gospel in ways he favors:

We cannot take great, God-exalting beauties and truths (including stories) straight from individual Christians to the world by skipping over his organized Church.

I am guilty of this oversight. Even here on SpecFaith I often write of individuals’ worship, individuals’ joys, individuals’ this and that. Yes, in the back of my mind I know the fact that individual Christians are part of the body of Christ, not only the invisible collective global Church but local organized groups of believers. And I have mentioned this on SpecFaith.

But not nearly enough.

I think it’s time to get serious about this. To grow up. To go beyond the blogs. To go beyond even our own individual wants to get more awesome and more fantastical stories out there.

Christian fantastical fans need the Church

One resource about how Christ changes the world through his Church.

It’s time to start asking the capital-C Church of Christ’s people how we can best help them.

This must start by asking, directly, in person, what people in your own lowercase-C local church¹ need — that is, what they need from you as a fantastical fan or as an author.

Notice I didn’t say “want.” I said “need.”

Because this will involve efforts that may feel a lot like “pragmatism” or even like “selling out” or even like compromise with those conservatives who don’t Get It. You and your fandom or author friends may love that one fantastically geeky story (by a Christian or otherwise). I definitely join you on that. But what about those “regular people,” the non-geeks and non-fans, at your local church? What do they need for themselves? Their children?

Yes, our local church brothers and sisters need practical stuff that God has commanded, such as training in Gospel-based sin-fighting and biblical-truth-learning so we can start worshiping our Savior forever.²

But they also need great stories, including fantastical stories. They need to understand how God’s people must enjoy yet also discern the world of popular culture in which they can’t help but live. And they need to understand that — for reasons we can discuss or elaborate — God’s people are called to fight sin and fight for joy in Christ alone not only in “family friendly” ways. We’re also called to be church-friendly. And we’re called to be world-friendly, not in the way James 4:4 condemns but in the ways Jesus Christ calls us to shine his light.

Challenges and objections instantly arise, first in my own head as I write, and next in yours. Next week I hope to address some of those, yet return specific challenges to ourselves.

For now, what do you think? Have Christian fantastical fans been ignoring the Church?

I began watching Once Upon A Time last fall, at my sister’s insistence. The premise sounded interesting, as far as I could understand it (something about fairy tales, the modern world, and “Storybrooke”), and at any rate, I was promised Frozen characters.

As I watched the first few episodes, I had many questions, most of them along the lines of, “Who’s that? What’s going on? Wait – they’re related?” And again (this was a big one), “Who is that?”

My point is that while some TV series are easy to jump into, Once Upon A Time is not. No doubt my experience of the show is colored by what I missed – and evidently I missed a lot. But the half season I watched left me thinking, and I saw in it two principal flaws, and two principal virtues. The first flaw is …

A propensity toward soapy drama. It is not that Once Upon A Time is a soap opera, but you can feel it listing, at times, toward cheap emotional drama. The Snow Queen’s tragic backstory, for example, had two great pivots, both of which were chiefly marked by ludicrously implausible behavior. It was illogical and overwrought, and I felt sure that no real person would ever act the way those characters did. (They brought in the Duke of Weaselton for the story. He was less cartoonish as a cartoon.)

In Robin and Regina’s little side story, the drama was worse than unearned. It had some value, at least initially, but it quickly declined as the writers got away from any serious question of honor or happiness to indulge in the cheapest of all romantic tensions: that of a love triangle, particularly a tawdry love triangle. And as with the Snow Queen’s backstory, the drama did not bear too much scrutiny. One begins with sympathy for Regina, who started the relationship quite innocently. But one can only listen to her bemoan her wrecked happy ending so many times before one begins to wonder why this formidable woman believes that unless she keeps her boyfriend, she will be forever miserable.

The second flaw is …

Philosophical glibness. There is some profundity in the show, but it also lapses into glibness. Take the dilemma of whether people ought to get rid of their magical gifts, when they can’t control them and just may inadvertently kill people. The show resolved this question thusly: “It’s a part of you! Love yourself! Throw a party! Yay!”

You don’t need the doctrine of Original Sin to know that things may well be “part” of a human being without being at all good. We just need to observe ourselves or – where it is even plainer – the world. But you don’t need to do even that to realize how glib it is to dismiss the genuine danger of killing an innocent person with magic because it’s a part of you.

Another bit of glibness was spouted by Robin Hood, who justified breaking up his family on the grounds that that was “living truthfully”. I think this is the same essential concept as “being true to yourself”, only wrapped up more elegantly, and again reminds us that at times, it’s better to be true to somebody else. It is the morality of a narcisstic age to be true to oneself rather than being true to God, or even other people. (Like, you know, your wife.)

All this being said, Once Upon A Time has its virtues, too. It has …

An imaginative premise. Once Upon A Time is the ultimate fairytale mash-up. The idea of bringing all the fairytales together, both in our world and in an enchanted one, is bounding with potential. There is real creativity in the series, and genuine moments of suspense and humor. And the best of the series is embodied in …

Rumpelstiltskin. Rumpelstiltskin is the best kind of villain, even the best kind of character. He’s the rare character who can show an impressive mix of badness and goodness, and even act in diametrical ways, while still retaining an inner consistency. Robert Carlyle plays his part magnificently, and owns much of the credit for the unified complexity of Rumpelstiltskin. But the character shows the writers at their best, too.

Once Upon A Time needs to be stiffened up with some good, hard logic; it would kill some of the melodrama, and even some of the glibness. Despite that, it shows enough imagination and skill to be worth attention. When it comes back after the winter hiatus, I’ll be watching.

If for no other reason than to find out what happens to Rumpelstiltskin.

How do we evaluate Christian Speculative Fiction?

I think this is a key question to answer if one is to correctly evaluate the state of Christian Speculative Fiction in general. There are two main areas to evaluate the general state.

Conjunction of Mercury and Venus, align above the Moon, at the Paranal Observatory.

1. The popularity of the Christian Speculative Fiction market.

I think this is what most people tend to think of when this subject is broached. Is the market expanding or shrinking? Are publishers accepting more or less such titles? Are bookstores carrying more of it or less? Is indie-publishing succeeding in publishing and selling Christian Speculative Fiction titles?

I would propose that by itself, this is an inadequate gauge of how the genre is doing. More to the point, it is a symptom, not the cause. Symptoms are good at getting an idea if there is a problem or not, but not how to fix it. Too often, we see the symptom of bookstores carrying little Christian Speculative Fiction, and we hash over how to deal with the symptom.

It’s much like a doctor saying, “Oh, your persistent headaches aren’t a big deal. Take pain reliever and move on.” When all the time the person may be about to have a stroke or an aneurysm. Dealing with symptoms rarely addresses the cause of the symptoms. But that is how we tend to approach fixing any perceived problems in Christian Speculative Fiction.

Likewise, trying to figure out how to get bookstores to carry more CSF titles or publishers to publish more of the genre through artificial means is about as effective as trying to heal cancer with a band-aid.

The solution is to address the core issues in order to change the symptoms. What are those?

2. The quality of Christian Speculative Fiction as a whole.

This is not to suggest that there is little quality in CSF. Rather, that the overall quality may not be where it should be in order to expand the market.

I know, I know. There are other factors involved. Good quality books languish in obscurity all the time, while fluff sells. Some will hang the whole thing on marketing, which is why they point to the publishers and bookstores. But that doesn’t change the truth.

Without a focus on quality in Christian Speculative Fiction, there can be no long-term expansion of the market.

Propping up mediocre stories with marketing will only take a book so far. It is artificial, and only works well when there is product people want to buy. Marketing’s job is to let the right people know you have a good product. If they get it and discover it is not good, you will kill return sales and continued expansion.

Which brings us back to the question at the top. How do we evaluate that quality?

I suggest the standard answer to that, while important, is insufficient: a focus on good story-telling, the knowledge of the craft in plotting, characters, scenery, word-smithing, grammar, spelling, hooks, transitions, points of view, etc.

Because while CFS has been known to be deficient in those departments at times, such that even today many stay away from reading or admitting they write Christian Speculative Fiction, that doesn’t quite cover the full concept of quality we should expect. After all, if we are including “Christian” as part of the genre title, what does that mean and how do we judge it? The previous paragraph applies to all novels and genres. Where does the Christian element come into the quality?

Of course, that can open up another whole can of worms that’s been discussed here and other places. People start evaluating doctrines, use of magic, cussing, sex, cussing, sex, bonnets, cussing, magic, sex . . . you get the picture. That rarely tells us much about the quality of the Christian content, or how well it is presented. So I offer the following guideline on how to evaluate real Christian Speculative Fiction.

Evaluate how well a story incarnates Christian themes and elements into an engaging story.

We just celebrated Christmas. The primary point of that celebration was the incarnation of Christ into the world. To incarnate something is to “embody it in flesh.” The immaterial becomes real to our senses and mind. Once incarnated in a baby, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, could be held, kissed, hugged, and rocked to sleep. He became part of our story, our reality.

Writing a story containing Christian themes and elements is admittedly not easy to do. Too often it can end up appearing unnatural to the setting, the characters, or forced into the plot. Sometimes it can appear the plot is serving the message instead of the plot embodying the message. When done right, a message, Christian theme or element, flows with, in, and from the real world of the story. It becomes incarnate within the story itself rather than appearing to drive the story or stand apart from the story to draw attention to itself.

Combining how well authors incarnate Christianity along with the other elements of how to tell a good story is the route to evaluating how well the market as a whole is performing. Because the more titles that hit that level of quality in Christian Speculative Fiction, the better the genre as a group does, both in the market and in the reader’s hearts. Without that core in place, all the rest is meaningless.

How well do you feel the genre as a whole is incarnating Christianity into their stories?

It’s time for another Spec Faith Writing Challenge.

Here’s the way this particular challenge works:

I’ll give a first line, and those who wish to accept the challenge will write the rest of the story (yes, this time, the complete story)—in 500 words or less, putting your entry into the comments section of this post.

In keeping with Spec Faith’s primary focus on the intersection of speculative fiction and the Christian faith, writers may wish to incorporate Christian elements or to write intentionally from a Christian worldview. Likewise, speculative elements of one kind or another should be incorporated.

Readers will give thumbs up to the ones they like the most (unlimited number of likes), and, if they wish, they may give a reply to the various entries, telling what particularly grabbed their attention.

By the way, I encourage such comments—it’s always helpful for entrants to know what they did right and what they could have done to improve.

After the designated time, I’ll re-post the top three (based on the number of thumbs up they receive) and a judge will select the best entry.

We’ll again offer a prize to the winner (to be announced soon). In the event of a tie for the top three, a drawing will be held to determine the finalist.

And now, the first line:

Ryder needed to know the truth, but he was pretty sure none of the others were interested.

Finally, those silly little details we all need to know:

• Your word count does not include this first line.

• You will have between now and midnight (Pacific time) this coming Sunday to post your challenge entries in the comments section.

• You may reply to entries, giving thumbs up, this week and next. To have your thumb-up counted to determine the top three entries, it must be checked before Sunday, January 18.

• Finalists will be announced Monday, January 19 and judging will begin.

Feel free to free to share this so your friends can participate, either as writers or readers. The more entries and the more feedback, the better the challenge.

Do you ever get that sense when you are in a conversation, telling a joke, engaging in an argument, or even fighting for a cause or a job … and you realize: This isn’t working, is it?

It’s a rather sick feeling. And I don’t think we get ambition points for denying it.

This is a feeling I’ve frequently sensed among fans, aspiring/published authors, publishers, and anyone who has done any internet advocacy for Christian¹ fantastical fiction.

Let’s be honest. This economy is slumping; the vehicle is running on fumes.

How do we know?

I know this because I see fans’ laments, such as: “This whole ‘we need more fantastical fiction by Christian authors’ thing isn’t working because …” and out come many theories.

I have also seen storytellers’ laments. Many authors wonder aloud why their books aren’t finding more readers. They voice disappointment with all the methods they try to share their stories with others, only to find lackluster responses. Or else (this is at once both painful and encouraging) they do find help from only a very few dedicated readers who share reviews, promote books, and do whatever they can to get the story recognized.

I’ve also seen independent publishers’ laments. Of course, because I’m not an independent publisher myself, I can only write what things look like to me. But from here it looks like those promises have also fallen short. Some publishers are barely putting anything out there. Others, such as Marcher Lord Press, found an audience but an apparently limited one — and one year ago today, Marcher Lord was sold and later renamed Enclave Publishing.

What could have possibly gone wrong (so far)?

This seems all very dire. Spoiler alert: I’m convinced this is that kind of darkness just before sudden victory (Tolkien’s eucatastrophe) that repeats frequently in great fantastical stories. But before that turn of great despair to greater good, we must try to identify our villains:

1. Shallow reasons to support Christian fantastical fiction.

Even casual readers of SpecFaith know that our articles often explore not just the what or the whether of fantastical fiction, but the whys. Naturally we’re concerned with shallow reasons. Our tagline says, “[We’re] exploring epic [fantastical] stories for God’s glory.” We make this our goal because this is not what we by default desire. We have other reasons for exploring (or loving, or making) fantastical stories — good reasons, but smaller reasons.

1. “Better stories should challenge individuals’ un-biblical beliefs.” 

   That’s a good reason for stories. But it’s too small. It also confuses the biblical goals of stories and human culture with the biblical purposes of didactic sermons and teaching.

2. “Better stories should explode the Church’s sheltered approach to culture.” 

   That’s also a good reason. But it’s merely a spinoff of the above “conservative” attempt to use art first as a Tool rather than first as a joy and thus a means to worship God.

3. “Better stories should reach out beyond our evangelical niche groups into the world around us.” 

   Another fine goal. But it risks assuming an equally sheltered view of the world: that Christians only need to make better Art and then the world will love us.

Ultimately, all of these reasons are themselves tied to evangelical-niche assumptions. They do not naturally lead to Christians enjoying stories “for their own sake.”² Instead they lend themselves to a mindset closer to that of obligatory donations, fund-raising, and that ever-present S-word present in evangelical activism: Support.

2. Flawed promises in a changing story-world.

I’ve already alluded to some of these. I can still recall images of an e-book revolution that would return publishing power to all those who try it. And yet only a few hit it big, just as in traditional publishing. I can also recall the promises of blogs and social-network marketing. But individual bloggers are overwhelmed by decreasing time and increasing competition, and social networks such as Facebook are putting the kibosh on posts about products that rsemb advertisements (because they kinda are).

Am I right? If so, what can change?

However, I promise one more reason why Christian fantastical fiction may have (so far) not met with the success its fans and makers expected. Lord willing, I will share that next week.

Read The State of Christian Fantastical Fiction 2: We Need the Church.

When my family went to the movies this holiday season, we were faced with several choices. Among them was a film named Exodus, a retelling of the Biblical exodus from Egypt of the Israelites under the leadership of Moses. I admit, I was interested in it. But is that the one we went to see? Nope. Instead, we laid down our money to see the final Hobbit movie.

Rebecca reviewed the Hobbit movie here on SpecFaith yesterday.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who, given that choice, stood in line for the Hobbit movie.

According to IMDb, Exodus, with an estimated budget of $140 million, raked in $24.5 million on opening weekend and a little over $53 million as of the 26th. It will be doing good to surpass the box office of “God is Not Dead” earlier this year which ended up just over $60 million. That equates to a big fail given its budget.

Scott Mendelson had the following to say about Exodus:

But there is something weirdly fitting of one of the worst films of the year being one of the year’s biggest flops, especially in a year basically lacking in mega-budget disasters on this scale.

Not having seen it, I can’t confirm his opinion of the film. That said, despite 2014 being a banner year for “faith-based” films, Exodus is an bookend on a series of less-than-successful Christian-themed movies. So much so that Christian-themed films as a group garnered a spot in io9’s “Top 10 Harshest Lessons That 2014 Has Taught The Entertainment Industry” article:

5. You can’t make a tentpole Bible movie that pulls in Christian audiences

This was the year of the religious epic, and it seemed as though the lucrative Christian audience mostly stayed away. Aronofsky’s Noah did okay, not quite making back its production costs in the U.S. but probably breaking even in worldwide receipts. But the Left Behind remake starring Nic Cage seems to have gotten (sorry) left behind. And Ridley Scott’s Exodus has joined his Robin Hood in the ranks of lavish costumed dramas that crashed and burned, at least domestically.

This doesn’t even consider the more overtly Christian movies like God is Not Dead.

Why did the “lucrative Christian audience” stay home for these movies?

It probably varied with the movie. I know there was a lot of negative press about Noah because it didn’t faithfully follow the Biblical account, and that probably hurt its Christian audience sales. I don’t know about Left Behind but I think while the books had a market, it wasn’t on Christian’s list to see the movie version. Aside from some lackluster content in Exodus, I think its biggest problem was going up against the Hobbit.

Interestingly enough, the one movie not specifically labeled a Christian movie, but many Christians do think of it as one since its author is a Christian, is The Hobbit by Tolkien. If you include that one, then one Christian movie did end up a blockbuster in 2014.

But it isn’t considered a Christian movie because there is no overt Biblical story being told, nobody converting to Christ, or quoting Bible verses. Just a world grounded in Christian values and a gripping story.

In the end, it may spell the end for more epic Christian movies in 2015.

With the dismal showings this year, people will be less willing to plunk down money to make them. This Hobbit movie is the last of Tolkien’s stories to put to film (but you never know when Hollywood will decide it’s time to do a remake of LOTR). It seems the Narnia films ran out of steam, but could be revived. The Silver Chair I think would innately make a good movie without major modifications.

It may mean most of what we have to look forward to is more like God is Not Dead. But major Hollywood productions of Christian-themed movies may indeed be dead. At least for the time being.

Where do you think the direction of Christian-themed movies will go for 2015?

Without a doubt, The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies is hugely successful, garnering the top spot at the US Box Office among the Christmas movies. And yet, this final installment of Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth saga is not without its critics.

Both Rotten Tomatoes and the Meta Critic, for example, rate the movie as worthy of only three stars. One critic even went so far as to say

A better title for THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES would be: ‘Rubbish: The Desolation of Tolkien’.

And this from a Rotten Tomatoes super reviewer:

The Hobbit as a adaptation simply does not have a narrative rich enough to sustain this bloated, distended bore. The chronicle is not deep nor meaningful nor even well-executed, with one exception. At least there is a definitive conclusion.

To be sure, not all reactions were equally negative, and some that were, seem to exist because the critic or reviewer has not forgiven Peter Jackson for a) making three movies out of one book or b) adding characters (and therefore scenes) that weren’t in Tolkien’s work.

Once again I am mindful that movies and books are different media for telling stories. A movie adaptation can not replicate a book, merely putting it in visual form. Novels can do what movies cannot, and movies can do what novels cannot.

Consequently, the two should be viewed and appreciated for what they can do, not criticized for what they are unable to do.

That being said, I would give The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies four stars. It was not a perfect movie, but it was a very good one.

I was one of the biggest critics of the ending of The Desolation Of Smaug. I thought the defeat of Smaug was the perfect way to end a movie about the dragon holding the entire valley in fear. To end the movie on a cliff hanger seemed manipulative and unnecessary.

The following summary contains spoilers!

Now, after seeing the third installment of The Hobbit, I understand better why Smaug’s defeat belonged in this final film. As in the book, the claims the Men made on the dragon wealth stemmed primarily from the devastation Laketown suffered, counterbalanced by the help they had provided the dwarfs when they set out for the Lonely Mountain. Add in the fact that Bard killed Smaug, and you have a triumvirate that makes the Men’s claims on the dragon fortune seem reasonable and just.

This understanding is crucial to the initial conflict—that of men and elves and dwarfs.

The elves’ claims on some portion of the dwarfs new wealth stems from reasonable compensation, too. They bring much needed supplies to the Laketown people and claim an elf necklace that was taken from them.

Thorin, king of the dwarfs, has succumbed to dragon sickness and will not agree to share the treasure with anyone, even Bilbo, it seems.

Bilbo the burglar has his own plan which he believes will force Throin to do the right thing. It does not, and Thorin nearly kills Bilbo because he took the “heart of the mountain,” a valuable stone owned by the King of the Mountain.

The animosity of the three races against each other ends when the orcs show up with their own plan to take advantage of the end of Smaug. When victory seems possible, a second army of Sauron’s followers enters the foray, and all seems lost.

Thorin, however, becomes the king and leader he had shown himself to be earlier, though it cost him his life. Before he dies, however, he and Bilbo reconcile. How the final victory is secured, I’ll leave for you to discover.

Strengths. Having chosen to add characters and elements to this adaptation of The Hobbit, the writers did a good job using them to add tension. I didn’t find them as intrusive as I did in the first two films. And their threads resolved naturally and even fit into the main plot nearly seamlessly.

For the most part, the main plot was true to Tolkien’s story and concluded in the same way. It’s true that Bilbo was not a central figure in the actual battle (a criticism of some), but that’s the way Tolkien wrote the story. To have Bilbo somehow become the hero of the war would have been a subversion of the original story, and I’m thankful the movie version didn’t go in that direction.

The main strength, in my view, is simply bringing Middle Earth to life. It’s amazing to see Smaug and the elves and Hobbition and Gandalf in living color. Tolkien’s world already felt real, but seeing it depicted on the screen made it live.

My first thought at the end of the movie was, How sad that there will be no more stories set in Middle Earth.

Weaknesses.
My main complaint of The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies is similar to my complaint of The Desolation Of Smaug: in places the special effects took the story from fantasy to unbelievability. Just because the computer generation could make a think look as if it happened did not make it likely that it could happen.

In other words, there were places—critical places that should have contained high tension—that seemed comic book-ish because of the special effects.

Sadly, those places pulled me from the story and reminded me that some parts of the movie were add-ons from the book. I had to remind myself this format wasn’t attempting to be a novel replication. But I don’t like having to explain to myself during the movie why I should not be put off by something going on on the screen.

Recommendation.
I wish the movie trilogy had trusted Tolkien’s story more, but I enjoyed what Peter Jackson did. I found The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies to be a satisfying conclusion, and I truly am sorry that there’s not another Middle Earth story to look forward to. It feels like an end of something grand, something epic, and I don’t see another similar fantasy on the horizon. I know I’ll miss these movies and the world to which they transported me.

For lovers of fantasy, for those who have seen the first two Hobbit movies, for anyone who’s read J. R. R. Tolkien’s works, this movie is a must see.

In 1642, Jean de Brébeuf, a Jesuit missionary to the Huron nation of Canada, imagined what the Incarnation might have looked like had God sent His Son to the wilderness of Ontario instead of the hills of Bethlehem. The fruit of this speculation is one of the most beautiful entries in this world’s repertoire of Christmas hymns — one which translates exceptionally well into English. As performed above by the Cambridge Singers, the Huron Carol, as it’s now known, inspires awe at the glory and mystery of God putting on flesh, and refreshes stale visions of the Nativity by means of careful cultural contextualization.

Jean de Brébeuf

Behold, an alternate-universe Christmas!

‘Twas in the moon of wintertime
When all the birds had fled,
That mighty Gitchi Manitou
Sent angel choirs instead;
Before their light the stars grew dim,
And wandering hunters heard the hymn:
“Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria.”

Within a lodge of broken bark
The tender Babe was found,
A ragged robe of rabbit skin
Enwrapp’d His beauty round;
But as the hunter braves drew nigh,
The angel song rang loud and high …
“Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria.”

The earliest moon of wintertime
Is not so round and fair
As was the ring of glory
On the helpless infant there.
The chiefs from far before him knelt
With gifts of fox and beaver pelt.
“Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria.”

O children of the forest free,
O sons of Manitou,
The Holy Child of earth and heaven
Is born today for you.
Come kneel before the radiant Boy
Who brings you beauty, peace and joy.
“Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria.”