Batman is thrashing around with Ras al Gul in the monorail thingy and overpowers him. as he stands over him with the train hurtling toward the destroyed bit of track Ras says something (predictable) about Batman finally having the courage to kill or whatever and Batmans response is:

"im not going to kill you but i dont have to save you."

er....huh? howzatagin? lets look at some evidence real quick shall we?

exhibit a: Batman sent gordon on ahead to blow up the tracks.
exhibit b: he also stuck some sharp object into the control panel causing the train to hurtle into the awaiting chasm created by gordons turret skills.
exhibit c: theres previous dialogue revealing that batman intended the whole thing all along.

so whats with this line: "im not going to kill you but i dont have to save you." what a load of crap right? ultimately he did in fact kill Ras through his premeditated actions right?


i dont think so - and heres why. Batman has established a no win scenario for Ras but it is not a hopeless scenario. Ras hope is in repentance and clinging to Batman for salvation as the train careens into oblivion. but Ras has condemned himself by his actions. he has pursued evil and in the end he is destroyed by his own doing. he set into action the course of events that led to this moment. even in the final moments he could have turned from his wicked plans and im 100% positive that his real repentance would have seen Batman hooking up a zipline for two out of that train. but he fights to the end....when he realizes his fate as Batman withdraws from the doomed train alone.

and in this scene i finally understood something about God that i have wrestled with for a long long time:

hes not condemning anyone but he doesnt have to save them.

God sets up the scenario and actively intervenes in the situation but ultimately man pursues the course that leads to his condemnation or salvation. its a no win scenario but it isnt hopeless. at any time they can repent and God will save them - but villainous pride and single-minded self-centered choices lead them to fight against their only means of salvation as life hurtles toward its end. and then theres the moment when God withdraws and man faces his immanent doom.

i doubt very seriously that anyone involved in the making of this movie had this in mind when they wrote/filmed it. i dont think for a minute they were trying to establish any sort of link to theology with their fateful end-sequence. but God is cool enough to reveal himself in the strangest of ways sometimes and i found him lurking in shadows of Batman Begins.

great movie.

awesome God.

well - its over. it turned out as we knew it had to. Anakin turned to the dark side and single handedly destroyed the jedi. it was a good flick - better than i or ii. it brought to a conclusion Anakins transformation.

but for me the most interesting thing about star wars ep-iii revolved around Anakins relationship with Luke from iv-vi. i grew up watching the iv-vi movies (in the theatre mind you) and when Vader proclaimed he was Lukes father my reaction was the same as Lukes - nooooooooo!

from where i sat then Vader was an icy machine. he wasnt a human capable of having a child -especially a noble kid like Luke. he was robotic evil. the viability of him being Lukes father was negligent. he was programmed. he was industrial. he was anything but human and everyone hated him. it was easy to hate him for these very reasons.

but then i-iii come out and we are introduced to Lukes real father - Anakin. We see a man with passion and concern and love. we see him married and expecting and all the troubling thoughts that come with that. we see him be led astray by a sinister evil. we see him make bad choices. and yet we root for him. throughout the trilogy there is no secret what happens to Anakin. he becomes the cold machine we hate in iv-vi. but even to the end i found myself rooting for him to make the right choice. to pull back from that evil. to trust Obiwan and Padme.

so why is this? bc he had become real to me. he had become human - Luke's father. strange in a way that his transformation in my mind from machine to human took place in reverse of the reality the storyline presents. but maybe thats actually for the best. it makes me wonder if the world were familiarized with Adolph instead of Hitler would our knee-jerk be as quick or calloused? am i defending Hitler? no way. but the link between he and Anakin is undeniable. we like to dismiss Hitlers humanity and chalk him up as a cold killing machine or some kind of monster. but he wasnt. at least not always. he was a human. a boy with parents and family. a boy who played and went to school and fell in love.

when we put that face on it we are forced to realize something we dont like to realize. we are no different. we are human and humanity is sinful and capable of the most heinous of atrocities and - as much as we don’t like to admit this – even you and i given the right circumstances.

but for the grace of God...right?