Home > Rant > Open Letter to the Writers of the Movie “Knowing”

Open Letter to the Writers of the Movie “Knowing”

March 21st, 2009

!!!! Spoiler Alert !!!!

Dear writers of “Knowing”,

I just got back from watching your movie, and I am totally dumbfounded about what just happened.

The movie started off great. Actually, I was really surprised. Nicholas Cage played an Astrophysicist (I think?) professor at MIT, which is awesome. MIT is an incredible school, and the campus looks really cool. The topic Nicholas Cage was talking to his students about was the debate between Determinism and Randomness. Both MIT, and this debate are interesting to me, so needless to say, I was excited.

The majority of the movie was not bad. It was not great, but it was not bad. I did think Nicholas Cage figured out the pattern to the numbers a little too quickly, but after all, if he is playing a professor at MIT, you never know.

My biggest complaint is about the ending of the movie. It made NO sense! Why were there aliens in an icicle shaped space ship? Forget the spaceship, WHY were there aliens? The movie would have been much better if everyone had just died (or Nicholas Cage saved the day).

What I am really confused about is whether or not this movie is supposed to portray a Christian message. There were many Christian references: Nicholas Cage talking about heaven to his kid, the picture of Ezekiel, the Adam and Eve reference at the very end. However, what doesn’t make sense, again, is the aliens. If you were trying to send a Christian message, how do the aliens fit into the story? If anything, it shows that four aliens could be possible for our existence (if for some reason a solar flare was going to kill us all and we were picked up by an icicle shaped space ship and dropped on this planet).

If the point of this movie was supposed to answer the question about Determinism vs. Randomness, in favor of determinism, I think the entire alien part voids whatever message you were trying to get across. It was simply crazy.

I think you took a very interesting an idea, added some Christian symbolism, and then ruined the entire thing by adding aliens. I actually started laughing when I saw the spaceship. I said to myself, “This seriously cannot be happening.”

$22 dollars later (tickets for my girlfriend and I + pop corn + pop), I am disappointed, confused, and most importantly, curious as to why you would add aliens to this film.

Sincerely,

Jon

jonnale Rant

  1. March 23rd, 2009 at 08:19 | #1

    Nothing is more mind bottling than nicolas cage, a page full of numbers that a disturbed little girl wrote, small black rocks, and aliens flying down to earth in icicle space ships to kidnap children and save humanity by placing them on an unknown planet with a glowing white tree and wheat fields that look like anemone.

  2. March 28th, 2009 at 22:33 | #2

    i watched it last right with my gf and i find the movie interesting and awakening at some point. right away, we got the messages. i am not a bible guy, but i am aware of certain verses that states the coming of god on judgement day. if you are observant and real critic as your post claim, you should have noticed the aliens have wings. the turle is symbolic.

    but i agree with the size and design of the spaceship, its not appropriate :) . The design is also somewhat similar to Smallville’s Fortress of Solitude.

    its not as surprising as The Mist, but its not bad too. Average.

  3. jonnale
    March 29th, 2009 at 11:53 | #3

    @suddenserenity

    I did not mean to come off like a self-proclaimed movie critic. In fact, I rarely watch movies at all (mainly due to being busy, I really do like movies). I think that my lack of being able to see movies is what inspired me to write the post in the first place. I really wanted this movie to be awesome.

    If the alien guys were in fact angels, it would take some of the weirdness/confusion away, but the spaceship thing is still too weird for me. Thank you for clarifying this though.

    However, one thing that concerns me about this approach, is why was Nicholas Cage’s character not a “chosen one”? Based on the Determinism vs. Randomness theme, it seems like he was not chosen because he was an atheist and believed the world was random. This could be totally wrong, but the movie did not explain why.

    This seems just crazy to me. I studied Christianity for several years when I was younger, and I would hope to think that Christians do not endorse this thought.

    I checked out your blog, and it has some cool stuff on there. I am an aspiring Software Engineer, and some of your software development stuff looks awesome.

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