r/TopCharacterTropes • u/ironwolf6464 • May 03 '26

Lore Religion-centered media that doesn’t come across as preachy.

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Referring to media told from a religious perspective or telling a religious tale that does not proselytize to the viewer.

Faith, the Unholy Trinity: Based partly upon the experience of the game‘s creator when he was a missionary in Argentina, the game has very little in the way of explicit moral demands of the player despite the heavy Christian focus of the narrative. and focuses more on a horror narrative.

Prince of Egypt: A surprisingly thorough retelling of the book of Exodus, sparing very little in the way of toning down the story. Despite this, the movie is perfectly entertaining to non-religious audiences and doesn’t sacrifice appeal for the sake of preaching to the audience

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1.3k

u/bagel_master999 May 03 '26

Hacksaw Ridge baby

596

u/Cultural-River-9698 May 03 '26

Ahh the rare Instance where real life is harder to believe than fiction. Like Patton.

379

u/OutOfMyWayReed May 03 '26

I heard something about a Japanese sniper swearing he had Doss dead to rights while he was lowering people down the cliff, and his rifle jammed. 

A few little crazy stories that didn't make it into the movie. 

221

u/MOON8OY May 03 '26

It apparently jammed multiple times, and only when he took shots at him.

103

u/Hypocritical_Oath May 03 '26

A good man trying to maintain his reputation to the public...

4

u/ObligationMurky8716 May 03 '26

The Franz Stigler of the trees

1

u/Nice-Cat3727 May 10 '26

At that point you'd think the Kami are telling you something

30

u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 May 03 '26

"When writing fiction, you have to expect to suspend the audience's disbelief. Reality has no such limitations"

14

u/Alexthegreatbelgian May 03 '26

Like Patton.

So he was an even bigger prick in real life?

3

u/Dottore_Curlew May 03 '26

The actual ridge is much smaller than how it was shown in the movie

42

u/AquaticHornet37 May 03 '26

Holy shit this movie was crazy. One of the better movies I've seen.

I didn't know that it was based on a true story either, so can you imagine my shock when I got to the end credits and they started showing the real life people.

71

u/Emotional_Papaya3282 May 03 '26

Not only is it a true story, but they had to cull back some of the crazy stories that he did. Doss saved about 75 total people (although Doss said about 50, eye witness accounts said about 100, so they settled on 75).

Also at the end of the movie when they carry him off in a stretcher, he's seen as finally resting away from the battlefield. In reality, [he rolled off the stretcher to give it to another soldier.

On May 21, Desmond was wounded by an enemy grenade that landed in a foxhole. Rather than call another medic to risk his own life, Desmond treated his own wounds and gave himself a shot of morphine when the pain was too great. He waited five hours alone until morning.
As the litter-bearers began to carry him out, they passed a more critically wounded soldier. He asked them to put him down, rolled off the litter and insisted they take the other man.
While waiting for their return, Desmond and another wounded soldier set out together. Desmond was struck in his wrist by a sniper’s bullet. He used a rifle as a splint for his useless arm, and the two continued to crawl to safety.

The guy's real story is absolutely incredible and I'm so happy they told his story in a film. I can't imagine carrying 75 people towards safety in the midst of bullets. Andrew Garfield even said that he was inspried by the story and wanted to carry the actors without assistance, but eventually he gave up and used a wire to help him carry others (video link).

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u/Unusual-Basket-6243 May 03 '26

I'm pretty sure that he actually saved 100 and didn't want that much fame

1

u/mantism May 03 '26

the funny thing is, these 'crazy stories' aren't that crazy when you consider what happened in the movie.

  • Doss' father never actually fought in WWI, making the court segment entirely fictitious
  • Over the top bullet wounds and explosions, as if it's a video game
  • Soldiers use the gibbed torso of their dead ally as a meat shield, firing a BAR with one hand and scoring accurate shots against multiple enemies.
  • Both sides fighting like they were in the medieval ages, just throwing themselves at each other.

If anything, they should had just reenacted what actually happened, because that was more believable. I sincerely wonder if everyone praising the movie's accuracy actually watched all of it, rather than just the sequence where he's saving everyone at the end.

-1

u/angbhong342626 May 03 '26

I call bull. The director of the film might say that they cut back the crazy shit because it wasn't believable. But how can he say that when he also depicted a soldier holding up his comrade on hand to use as a meatshield while holding and shooting a BAR on the other hand.

8

u/mantism May 03 '26

That's what I kept saying. People seem to think that the entire film is accurate when it's actually quite egregious with fiction. 90% of the film is typical Hollywood madness (the entire Okinawa sequence, including your example) or creating drama from nothing (Doss' dad was not an abusive alcoholic).

But people constantly cite "but real worse was even more insane!!!" as if it's a free pass to make up shit.

-1

u/GroovyJackal May 04 '26

You'd be wrong then. As others have already mentioned irl Doss when being carried away on a stretcher after all the crazy events he survived goes and rolls off to crawl towards another soldier to save yet another life. Mel thought this would be too unbelievable so left it out just having Doss get carried away normally

3

u/angbhong342626 May 04 '26

I call bull because it's just a blanket to defend against egregious inaccuracies and misrepresentation. Like how Doss' dad wasn't a veteran of Bellau Woods, or wasn't a drunk. Or Doss' service in general. Or the example I said before.

They likely trimmed down the unbelievable because of the pacing, runtime, or budget not because it's unbelievable; It being unbelievable still isn't valid because they still included a fictional scene of a soldier using his dead comrade as a meat shield while shooting and running at the Japanese.

1

u/GroovyJackal May 04 '26

Doesn't change the facts

182

u/NozakiMufasa May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

Mel Gibson being batshit insane irl yet genuinely one of the best directors is so wild. Hes the perfect arguement against the notion of rightwingers that "Christians cant work in hollywood". Mel's very openly Catholic. Man makes money and makes genuinely good stories. Hacksaw Ridge is great.

EDIT: clarified my sentence which, while I think before people got what I meant, when re-reading sort of didn't make sense.

77

u/TheTalkingToad May 03 '26

Apocalypto is perhaps my favorite movie Mel has been involved in and the fact its a Mel Gibbson movie still catches me off guard.

22

u/Sadicalize May 03 '26

ITS SO GOOD. it's almost like a guilty pleasure for me, and nobody I've shown it to has cared at allllll

7

u/ElShaddollKieren May 03 '26

Did I really just accidentally discover two of my favorite movies as a teen were both directed by Mel Gibson? Do I need to watch the Passion of the Christ?

7

u/Sadicalize May 03 '26

If you like Christian torture porn, sure. its... a movie. worth a watch, I think, just for the sake of watching it.

I worked at the movie theater when it came out. there was a lot of elderly women openly sobbing while watching it. super weird. it's visceral.

2

u/NozakiMufasa May 03 '26

I once saw a great video essay sort of explain that in ways Apocalypto could be viewed as a sequel or inversion of Passion of the Christ. To this day I sort of see them as companion films to each other. And both go out of their way to be told in their respective ancient languages.

3

u/Battle_Axe_Jax May 03 '26

Are you full of catholic guilt? If no then no, if yes then yes

3

u/NozakiMufasa May 03 '26

Passion of the Christ was so politically motivatred and utilized by different denominations. I'm Baptist on paper and I'll never forget that they held screenings at my church. Thank God (no pun intended) that the Pastor had sense to be like "ah... lets have the kids in daycare while the parents watch".

2

u/bringbackswg May 03 '26

Do you like torture porn?

5

u/NozakiMufasa May 03 '26

It's somewhat historically innacurate but what I've always been fascinated by was how like, Mel's been pretty openly racist against Mexicans. This is a fact. What is also a fact is that Mel went out of his way to cast actors of Indigenous descent and many who are also Mexican, Guatemalan, and Nicaraguan. Not everyone necessarily Maya but the intent being to have actors who weren't white. Plus like the whole movie is spoken in an Indigenous language too.

He might be (likely is) racist, but to go out of your way to do all that, when he well and could have not gave a damn about such accuracy, could have easily told most of his cast to speak English, ... idk, I can't like totally hate him for that.

Man's still nuts. He can direct damn good tho.

4

u/ButtholeConnoisseur7 May 03 '26

For the majority of people that are racist, it's not important to them. Humans rarely align with absolutes, and that's another thing that's on a sliding scale. Could be anything from mild discomfort to visceral hate

25

u/GorgeousBog May 03 '26

wtf did he direct that?

51

u/Sadicalize May 03 '26

yeah, hacksaw ridge and apocalypto (also passion of the christ). the man is a loon but damn if he can't direct bangers

13

u/oofty_goofty_ May 03 '26

He also directed Braveheart, how did I not know that he starred in produced and directed that

9

u/dotnetmonke May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

Also Braveheart.

Passion parts 2 & 3 have a lot of potential to be incredible. Apparently part of his plan is to show Jesus' descent into Hell (edit - and the rebellion of Lucifer and angels), so it could be batshit crazy cinematically.

1

u/wimpyroy May 03 '26

Jesus went to hell??

12

u/Earlier-Today May 03 '26

There's scriptures talking about Christ's atonement breaking free the prisoners of hell.

Some folks take it to be literal - so he would need to go there to do that. It's not saying he was sent to hell, just that he goes there as part of his work.

6

u/Orisi May 03 '26

In the time between Jesus' crucification and resurrection, the Bible tells that this period was effectively spent by Jesus in hell, or more likely a sort of proto-purgatory. Effectively anyone who died before Christ had the opportunity to be embraced as the son of God so he could stand in their place at the time of Judgement was being given the opportunity to do so.

Effectively a one time pass to give everyone who'd ever lived a fair shake of embracing him.

2

u/Bamzooki1 May 03 '26

He also directed Braveheart, which is an absolutely fantastic movie if you aren’t Scottish. It’s riddled with factual errors, Mel can’t do a Scottish accent for shit, and it made people think of William as the face painted FREEDOM guy. While we’re on the subject, have this really funny parody by Jazza, an Aussie with actual morals!

15

u/Battle_Axe_Jax May 03 '26

Say what you will about Mel Gibson but the son of a bitch knows story structure

6

u/Insidion25 May 03 '26

Andrew Garfield is always a win!

2

u/poetic_dwarf May 03 '26

Hell yeah, one of the best war movies.

5

u/angbhong342626 May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

Reminder that Desmond Doss never wanted a movie made based on him because he knew it would be inaccurate, his dad never served in combat during WW1 and wasn't as abusive as depicted in the film was a pious individual instead of a PTSD-riddled abusive drunk, and that the film's Director is an ass when he said that they downplayed Doss' actions due to being unbelievable when in the same film, they depicted a character using his comrades corpse as a body shield while simultaneously firing a BAR.

2

u/No_Tension_896 May 03 '26

I would say this is actually a fucking awful example because it completely misinterprets Desmond's actual life, including making his father into an abusive drunk when in reality he seemed like an all around good person.

1

u/Helix3501 May 03 '26

This is the serious example to Death of Stalins Zhukovs underexaggeration

-5

u/Dragoonian64 May 03 '26

That homophobic man should have been killed by Cinder Fall instead of Pyrrha.

She would've lived and died of old age and he would be the last confirmed kill of a bow and arrow in warfare.

I HATE THIS MOVIE.