Dover, the Movie

Paramount Pictures is planning to make a movie about the Dover trial. They've hired a screenwriter, Ron Nyswaner, who says, "This story is about the place where faith intersects with science, where what we believe in intersects with what we know. This was a town that was split in half, neighbor against neighbor."

Ed Brayton is pretty excited and so are the readers over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars. Calm down guys, it's a friggin' movie ... you know, love scenes, car chases, ... that sort of thing. It ain't gonna be another "Inherit the Wind." Instead think "Contact."

I can see it now. There'll be a character from NSCE like Nick Matzke (that's him on the left of the photograph) or Wesley Elsberry (second from the left). The hero will be an atheist. (Sorry Nick and Wes.) Paramount should get Antonio Banderas (a real agnostic) to play Nick. (Incidently, the other handsome dude in the picture is John Harshman. Steve Steve is sitting on the table.)

Nick will fall in love with a sexy Christian school board member, played by Madonna. There'll be a car chase when some of the local yokels try to run Nick off the road. At the end of the movie Nick has to leave town realizing he can never make it with the Christian, ... but there will be at least three attempts. The trial itself will be irrelevant.

This is not something that evolutionists should look forward to. First, it's about one of our biggest failures—a situation were we completely failed to get our message out to the general public and had to rely on lawyers and legal trickery to defend evolution. Second, it's likely to be very sympathetic to the Christians, just like "Contact." The story will end with the audience thinking that good Christians can triumph over atheism. Nick the movie character might even convert to theistic evolution.