The Giver DVD

This was a great movie adaptation of Lois Lowry's original book "The Giver". While the movie cannot capture all the little details and struggles in the book and had to tweak some of the plot, the main message of the story is portrayed very well. The book series remains to this day one of my favorite dystopian literature series. Highly recommend reading the book before the movie to understand the beauty and details hidden within. If you have already watched the movie, definitely still recommend reading the book and to continue Lois Lowry's other books in "The Giver" series---"Gathering Blue", "Messenger", and "Son". Do you have the Courage, the Strength?“If everything’s the same, then there aren’t any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things!” - Jonas from "The Giver" by Lois Lowry"Sometimes I wish they'd ask for my wisdom more often-there are so many things I could tell them; things I wish they would change. But they don't want change. Life here is so orderly, so predictable-so painless. It's what they've chosen." ["The Giver" by Lois Lowry (Ch 13, pg 103)]“It’s the choosing that’s important, isn’t it?” - The Giver from "The Giver" by Lois LowryYou could connect this with another great saying found in the fantasy series "Harry Potter" by J. K. Rowling:"Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort." -Albus Dumbledore, Ch 34 in Goblet of FireAs this dystopian fantasy story reveals, life is more then just conforming to what is popular, trendy, politically correct, or whatever will be accepted by a public majority or minority. Life is more then "sameness". Fantasy--utopian and dystopian--reveal a part of the deeper reality of creation which is beyond out comprehension yet engrained within our Being, often experienced through community, truth, charity, religion, friendship, and family.As Tolkien and Lewis most eloquently put it:“Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary ‘real’ world.”- (Preface to the Second Edition of "The Silmarillion" by J.R.R. Tolkien and edited by Christopher Tolkien)“But fairy-stories offer also, in a peculiar degree or mode, these things: Fantasy, Recovery, Escape, Consolation, all things of which children have, as a rule, less need than older people.”- ("Tree and Leaf: On Fairy-stories" by J.R.R. Tolkien)"Fantasy can, of course, be carried to excess. It can be ill done. It can be put to evil uses. It may even delude the minds out of which it came. But of what human thing in this fallen world is that not true?”- ("Tree and Leaf: On Fairy-stories" by J.R.R. Tolkien)"You can have a realistic story in which all the things & people are exactly like those we meet in real life, but the quality, the feel or texture or smell, of it is not. In a great romance it is just the opposite. I’ve never met Orcs or Ents or Elves-but the feel of it, the sense of a huge past, of lowering danger, of heroic tasks achieved by the most apparently unheroic people, of distance, vastness, strangeness, homeliness (all blended together) is so exactly what living feels like to me.”- ("The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III: Narnia, Cambridge and Joy" 1950-1963 Edited by Walter Hooper)What do you really feel? What are you thinking? How are you feely willing? What will you choose?Will you conform your mind to reality?"What is Truth?" - Pilate, John 18:38 (RSVCE Bible)P.S. The quotes and more information about their sources can be googled, or found on "The Lion's Call" website. the website was helpful to find the exact quotes I was looking for from Tolkien and Lewis' letters and essays. Google helped with one of my favorite quotes from Harry Potter. Then of course the Bible. Highly recommend all books!!! :)

I really liked the story of The Giver. It really takes the viewer on a journey the character's revelation that their apparent utopia is actually a dystopian society where everything in life has been socially engineered in an attempt to remove all war, hate, and destruction by robbing humanity of its primal components of emotion, feeling, experience and memories of what it means to really be alive. In a sense evil has been socially engineered into tidy sanitized euphemisms with language that misleads the public's perception of what is really going on. SPOILER alert: When someone is euthanized in the dystopian society they are said to be “released to elsewhere”.At the heart of this movie, The Giver is a celebration of life, the discovery of the beauty of colors of sunrises and sunsets, of romantic love, of dancing, sled riding, sky diving, and all the glories of creation that testify of the goodness and beauty of life that is meant to be lived and enjoyed. One of the messages in the movie is that it is our experiences are one of the things that give meaning, purpose, and value to life itself--without which we are not really living life as it is meant to be lived.There is a real mourning in this movie for the bad choices of humanity and the fallen nature of man, but there is also the contrast of the good things in life and the challenge that we can make things better if we make good choices instead of evil ones. The movie ends with the main character at a house in the snow at winter time with the song “Silent Night” being sung in the background. The hero holds a baby in His arms. An image which is very fitting given the song about the baby Jesus playing in the background. He says that the Giver had led him to this house and that he can hear singing in the distance. He thought it might just be an echo but he knew "it would lead us all home". In the background a family is singing Silent Night and the hero walks to the house that is glowing and beckoning with Christmas cheer.As the movie ended I couldn't help but notice the parallels in this movie to what happens when someone is saved by faith in Jesus and they realize that there is much more to life than what we are taught to believe. To me the Giver in this movie is an archtype of God. Not a perfect representation but merely an echo of one who is able to impart life and the treasures of life to humanity. The Elders represent the world and the lies of the world that we have embraced as a society, and that there are things that we have been taught are ok which are actually grievous to the Giver. He is longing for us to take action and save our race. The euthanizing of the baby reminded me of the cold hard fact of legalized abortion and its general acceptance by our Elders who rule in our land. It is a heavy parallel which is only lightened in this movie by the hero’s discovery of the beauty and wonder of life in this movie. The glory of love, the wonder of beauty, the mysteries of faith, the majesty of creation all are paths into the house of the Giver. All bear witness of a song of Eden that echoes from eternity. It is both the song from where we come from and the song that will lead us home. If we listen, to it then it will lead us to a house that is real and brimming with warmth, life, love, and celebration. The Giver is calling you to come. This movie is but one of the memories He wants to give you! Check it out.

Great movie to have in my collection.

I really enjoyed this movie. Being a big fan of the book for so long, I understand why some folks were upset that there are some major changes to the story in this film. However, I believe that the main point of the story comes across well and it even expanded upon the story well in some aspects. Some people say the acting is bad, but we have to remember that the characters in the story didn’t show emotions so these actors did their best. Also, the baby playing Gabriel was so adorable!