Fan Rant: 'Expelled' Is Awful, But Let's at Least Be Honest About It
Filed under: Documentary, Independent, New Releases, Box Office, Religious, Cinematical Indie
Up front, let me confess an error I made regarding Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, the new documentary about the Intelligent Design movement. In Friday's edition of "The (Mostly) Indie Film Calendar," I said the movie was "a documentary about how people who believe in evolution are big meanies who don't understand why 'Intelligent Design' (i.e., that God made everything) should be taught in science classes, too." This was a mistaken summary of what Intelligent Design is.Having now watched the film -- which is terrible, filled with specious reasoning, false dichotomies, and self-contradiction -- I find that I did learn a thing or two. I had assumed that Creationism and Intelligent Design were the same thing. They are not. Creationism is the belief that God created the Earth more or less the way it's described in Genesis. Intelligent Design merely holds that certain things about life on this planet are best explained by something supernatural. Where there are gaps in scientific knowledge, ID fills 'em in.
There is plenty of overlap between Creationism and ID, of course, and I guess you could say all Creationists are also ID-ists. But you can certainly believe in ID without believing God made the world in six days. The film says that this misunderstanding is why so many scientists are so virulently anti-ID -- because they think it's Creationism, which truly doesn't have much scientific evidence in its favor.
Now then. The film opened on 1,052 screens and made $2.97 million, coming in 10th place at the weekend box office. That's the third best opening in history for a documentary, and it's already enough to make Expelled the 30th highest-grossing doc of all time. By the time it's finished its run, it will almost certainly crack the top 10. It's a terrible movie, but for a documentary, it's very successful. Those are excellent numbers. You gotta give 'em their props.
Or maybe you don't. IMDb's studio briefing for Monday (which used estimated weekend figures, not the final ones) said it "flopped," adding: "The Ben Stein documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, which argued on behalf of 'intelligent design' -- that is, the biblical view of creation -- failed to bring out church groups in big numbers and settled for just $3.1 million to wind up in ninth place." Never mind the inaccurate definition of ID -- what's with the slanted assessment of the film's box office haul? Yeah, $3 million and ninth place is a lousy opening weekend for a mainstream wide release -- but Expelled is a documentary, and it played on 1,000 screens instead of the 2,000+ that are typical for a wide release. How many docs have opened in the top 10 at all?
Other box office reports haven't been quite so dismissive. Variety, the Associated Press, and AFP all mention the film's score without comment. Entertainment Weekly's Joshua Rich gives it a fair shake in his report, though, and so did Cinematical's Peter Martin in his. (Whew! That would have been awkward.)
Look, I'm not defending the film. Let me say again that it's utter crap, with jaw-dropping assertions that, for example, a belief in evolution leads to Nazism. (WTF, Ben Stein?) But I don't see how you can deny that its box office take is sizable for a documentary. To suggest otherwise is to let your bias against the film speak for you.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
4-22-2008 @ 12:38PM
Philip said...
The "created" doesn't understand the "creator".
It's as simple as that. Or you can stand around waiting for empirical scientific evidence as proof that something doesn't exist.
In the meantime, please pardon my bemused look as I stand in the back laughing.
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4-22-2008 @ 1:12PM
JJH said...
Actually, these aren't excellent numbers. Based on the amount of advertising and number of theaters they decided to release the movie in, they really expected it to do far better.
Just take a look at the numbers from the rankings you posted. Expelled made $3 mil from over 1000 theaters for a ~$2800 average per theater in its opening weekend. Each and every other documentary in the top 30 at the very least quadruple that number.
4-22-2008 @ 11:18PM
michael jenkins said...
Einstein:
Those individuals most inflexible and unable to continue to question any given subject , theory , or area of intellectual pursuit represent the most ignorant.
Michael D Jenkins MD
4-22-2008 @ 1:16PM
Eric D. Snider said...
Yes, but each and every documentary in the top 30 also opened on far fewer screens than "Expelled" did. Fewer theaters is bound to mean a higher per-theater average.
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4-22-2008 @ 1:37PM
JJH said...
Well, just anecdotally, I can testify to Expelled's small numbers. While waiting in line to see Forbidden Kingdom this weekend, I actually peeked in on a theater playing Expelled just to see the number of people in it. And I only saw a handful.
From the blogosphere, it seems that in just a couple conservative states, the theaters are packed, but in all of the other states, it's virtually empty.
Just based on this info, I think Expelled will very quickly lower the number of theaters and continue to aggressively market it as a religious film church groups should see.
I'm thinking it certainly will be successful based on its religious marketing campaign, but it will have a hard time breaking $10 mil. However, it's hard to underestimate the power of religious groups to prop up bad movies (i.e. Passion).
4-22-2008 @ 1:20PM
dukrous said...
The fundamental difference why ID is despised among scientists (and don't lump all religions into this...the Vatican has distanced itself from ID) is because ID has no empirical proof. If you asked someone 1000 years ago how the Moon moves around the Earth, you would've received all sorts of magical answers. Now, with study and positive results of tests, we can answer that question definitively.
ID simply says "We don't understand it, so it must be supernatural." That's an ignorant and pessimistic stance to take. It assumes because we don't understand it now, we won't tomorrow.
The primary argument is about the Eye...how it could not have evolved naturally. So if tomorrow we find empirical and testable proof of the Eye's evolution, wouldn't it mean ID is wrong? And if not tomorrow, then next week...or next year...or next decade.
If we listen to ID, it becomes a scientific dead-end. That is why it's reviled in scientific circles.
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4-22-2008 @ 2:09PM
Astin said...
Hasn't the eye thing already been largely debunked? Working theories on how the human eye could have developed exist, where evolutionary stages of said development can be found in other species. In fact, the flaws of the human eye would seem to contradict ID, as improvements found elsewhere should have been incorporated.
4-22-2008 @ 1:23PM
Greg Holkan said...
ID and Creationism are the same thing, insofar as it's possible to make a Creationist textbook into an ID textbook using find and replace. In the Dover, PA case from several years ago, one of the key pieces of evidence in ruling that ID was in fact Creationism was a copy of the textbook, "Of Pandas and People," and a copy of an earlier manuscript of the book. Everywhere that the earlier manuscript said, "Creationism," the new book said, "Intelligent Design." The most damning piece of evidence was a spot in the new version where the find/replace went awry, and a frankensteined, "creIntelligent Designerator," was dropped in.
The notion that Intelligent Design is in any way materially different from Creationism is disingenuous at best.
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4-22-2008 @ 1:28PM
blessingx said...
"But you can certainly believe in ID without believing God made the world in six days. The film says that this misunderstanding is why so many scientists are so virulently anti-ID."
Yes, you can believe in ID without believing in the creation myth of a particular religion, but arguing scientists are so virulently anti-ID for that reason is ridiculous. Even the religious tend not to believe at least one (and usually every other) of the creation myths. ID = creationism, just not necessarily Christian, if that point matters to you. It seems a minor one to me. It's about evidence.
As Dawkins regularly points out, creationism/ID, is even statistically less likely than evolution. It's not a solution.
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4-22-2008 @ 1:36PM
ehe123 said...
There really is no fundamental distinction between Creationism and ID, as the history of this movement shows. Creationism was "repackaged" as the Theory of Intelligent Design following the ruling of the Supreme Court that it was unconstitutional to teach Creationism in public school science classes. The main book expounding ID, Of Pandas and People, contained "Creationism" in every place where the words "Intelligent Design" appeared in the final version. The most prominent examples of both Creationism and ID, the eye and the bacterial flagella, can actually now be understood in molecular detail, completely refuting the claims that these systems could not have evolved (and therefore that supernatural events must have taken place).
One of the key points of this film appears to be that scientists have perpetrated one of the greatest conspiracies in human history, since every major scientific society in the world has come out with the strongest support for the theory of evolution. But Ben Stein and other religious zealots think that they can understand the science better...
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4-22-2008 @ 1:50PM
Grant Canyon said...
Actually, you were right before. Unfortunately, it looks like you were taken in my Stein's propaganda.
The biblical literalism which you seem to be describing by referencing Genesis and six-day creation is known as is a form of Creationism, but it is merely a small subset of Creationism. But although this form of Creationism isn't exactly the same as ID, they are both forms of Creationism. Like Young Earth Creationism, ID Creationism is wholly devoid of scientific merit or evidence.
ID is nothing but a con, devised after the Supreme Court repeatedly held that Creationism (or its euphemistically named spawn, "creation science") could not be taught in publics schools, because of that pesky, First Amendment, separation-of-church-and-state thing. It was set up to try to skirt by these constitutional protections.
However, in the Dover, Pa case, it was clearly shown that ID is basically a sham through which its adherents try to get their religious ideas taught in public school science class.
ID can be considered cut-and-paste Creationism. In one text book they tried to force on school children, in fact, they cut the references to "creationism" and "creation science" and pasted "intelligent design" in its place, after the Supreme Court found teaching creation science to be unconstitutional.
And as for whether this film was a success, it must also be considered that it had (for a documentary) a fairly extensive advertising campaign. Moreover, it may have had a big opening weekend (due to its advertising blitz, no doubt), but will it have legs?? Is there really much more of an audience for a lying, poorly made, anti-scientific propaganda piece?? And although it's at #30 all time, it's not like the genre is busting with big money makers. The step from #2 to #3 is pretty darned steep.
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4-22-2008 @ 2:03PM
abb3w said...
BoxOfficeProphets had a fairly balanced description. Their analysis of Friday's yield characterized the haul "pretty good, actually, content notwithstanding", and after the weekend results were in, Hamann simply remarked "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a film that I am going to decline comment on. It earned $3.2 million from 1,052 venues."
From where I sit: decent for a documentary, but not worldshattering, unspectacular given the number of screens opening, and deeply mediocre considering the level of publicity push. It's going to have trouble lasting, considering the relatively weak competition it opened against, and it would need epic legs to make it to the Narnia/Passion level the makes evidently had hoped for. However, I doubt those who made it did so primarily to make money.
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4-22-2008 @ 2:27PM
Heath said...
Well, first of all much to my shame apparently, I am a creationist and enjoy science. As a creationist I take my stand similar to the aethiest. The Aethiest basically says you have shown me no significant proof of the existance of God; so therefore I don't except your premise. And likewise, the evolutionist has not produced significant proof of macro evolutionary process; so therefore I don't except their premise. Now neither of these stands are strictly scientific, nor would I attempt to argue my Faith in a Creator based on science. However, science has not provided evidence of significance to disuade me away from a Creator and there is legitimate creation science research that provides evidence contrary to evolution. I will not agrue it is conclusive, but it is scientific in nature. This includes the 100' deep canyons produced in a single day outside Mount Saint Hellen; creation science studies regarding C14 dating; problems with U235 dating. I wished the evolutionist would at least leave room to analyse data using a different 'worldview' as this can impact the 'scientific' understanding based on the set of data. By all means evolution scientists march on doing your study within the framework of your worldview (naturalism, uniformintarianism); but allow at least a little room for those who want to explore the same data from another world view (design, catastrophism). Surely this can't hurt science as a whole, and I tend to say would even strengthen it - as Evolution and ID and Creationism could all benefit from a health push and pull from each other. I welcome any thoughful evolutionist response.
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4-22-2008 @ 2:38PM
Christian said...
Has anyone considered that perhaps said creator created an evolutionary process?
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4-22-2008 @ 3:02PM
Heath said...
Christian - are you referring to a 'macro' or 'micro' evolutionary process? Macro - single cell to modern man. Micro - changes within a species or kind.
Also, Christian, is that your name or you faith?
4-22-2008 @ 2:39PM
Gina said...
"What's with the slanted assessment?" I think you pretty much answered your own question, Eric. (And if you hadn't, certain commenters have answered it for you.) While I disagree with your assessment of the film's merit, I have to say I appreciate your honesty and the fact that you're willing to say you learned from the film. As you noted, not many would do that much.
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4-22-2008 @ 3:03PM
rex said...
I think the movie would have sold more tickets if they hadn't barred people who oppose its viewpoints from the theaters.
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4-22-2008 @ 3:06PM
Christian said...
Heath,
I mean everything from the first quark. I have been long studying the creation and my theories work with Einstein's. That's my name. I have no religion.
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4-22-2008 @ 3:10PM
Grant Canyon said...
Heath, If you do not accept the evidence of "macro" evolution (as you creationers call evolution), it is because you have ignored it or you never sought it in the first place. And the "evidence of significance" you speak of would by laughable, if it weren't for the fact that people like you get taken in by the hucksters and con-men and peddle it.
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4-22-2008 @ 3:33PM
Heath said...
This is the part that is always a little frustrating to me. I don't understand why your response has to be exaggerated and somewhat insulting. I don’t have a PhD in biology, but I have studied evolution and was an evolutionist through first half of college. I have done post-graduate work in nuclear engineering and find the creation research regarding C14 dating, among other research, reasonably compelling. I don’t doubt there are arguments against most creation interpretations of data, however, the opposite is also true regarding evolution. I am not asking you to believe Creationism, I am only asking for some room for diversity of views.
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