Bruce, played by Jim Carrey, is given the powers of God, played by Morgan Freeman for a week. In the movie Bruce squanders his new found power lifting women’s skirts and parting traffic for his Lamborghini. Ultimately He learns he doesn’t need to be God to do good, a lesson God was trying to teach him all along.
A remake of the movie could involve a weakening God in a traditional depiction. An old man with a big beard living in heaven surrounded by drunk angels who talk back and don’t follow his orders. He is weakening because people don’t believe in him anymore. Bruce’s girlfriend played by Jennifer Aniston dies in a freak accident in the first scene and bereft, Bruce walks out of his apartment in a lightning storm and curses God’s apathy. We show God listening, and for the first time since biblical times God answers him. The exchange is something like a bombing comedian saying “Do you think this job is easy?” So they strike a wager. God grants Bruce equal power for a week. Bruce ultimately does a significantly better job than God. He walks through the children’s hospital and heals all the children, eliminates scarcity, And teaches people the music of the cosmos. People start to believe in Bruce, but as the scope of his ambition to do good increases, so too does his conviction to refuse to surrender his power back to God when the week is up. The resulting God-fight would destroy entire civilizations across the universe and importantly, corrupt Bruce who develops a win-at-all-cost mentality, ultimately emerging victorious and believing it was a necessary sacrifice, the same sacrifice he now demands in Old Testament style bloody tribute from earthlings now puny and insignificant in his eyes, and in order to keep them believing in him to maintain his power. People start worshipping Bruce and making icons to the new image of an interventionist God. Somehow we imply the exchange of God powers will happen again and the cycle will continue.
It’s a tale of the corrupting influence of power at a massive scale, that the means define the ends, that the Gods are hypocrites and their only power is what we give them, and that the line between good and evil runs through the middle of every human heart.
Bruce, played by Jim Carrey, is given the powers of God, played by Morgan Freeman for a week. In the movie Bruce squanders his new found power lifting women’s skirts and parting traffic for his Lamborghini. Ultimately He learns he doesn’t need to be God to do good, a lesson God was trying to teach him all along.
A remake of the movie could involve a weakening God in a traditional depiction. An old man with a big beard living in heaven surrounded by drunk angels who talk back and don’t follow his orders. He is weakening because people don’t believe in him anymore. Bruce’s girlfriend played by Jennifer Aniston dies in a freak accident in the first scene and bereft, Bruce walks out of his apartment in a lightning storm and curses God’s apathy. We show God listening, and for the first time since biblical times God answers him. The exchange is something like a bombing comedian saying “Do you think this job is easy?” So they strike a wager. God grants Bruce equal power for a week. Bruce ultimately does a significantly better job than God. He walks through the children’s hospital and heals all the children, eliminates scarcity, And teaches people the music of the cosmos. People start to believe in Bruce, but as the scope of his ambition to do good increases, so too does his conviction to refuse to surrender his power back to God when the week is up. The resulting God-fight would destroy entire civilizations across the universe and importantly, corrupt Bruce who develops a win-at-all-cost mentality, ultimately emerging victorious and believing it was a necessary sacrifice, the same sacrifice he now demands in Old Testament style bloody tribute from earthlings now puny and insignificant in his eyes, and in order to keep them believing in him to maintain his power. People start worshipping Bruce and making icons to the new image of an interventionist God. Somehow we imply the exchange of God powers will happen again and the cycle will continue.
It’s a tale of the corrupting influence of power at a massive scale, that the means define the ends, that the Gods are hypocrites and their only power is what we give them, and that the line between good and evil runs through the middle of every human heart.
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