Easter is upon us, where we mark the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ by chomping on chocolate eggs all day. Yum.
JC's life has been put up there on the big screen countless times, but outside of the obvious swords-and-sandals epics, there are many movies that are a bit more coy about their Christian message. So here are eight films with stealth Messiahs.
1. Anakin in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
Imagine if Jesus had renounced God and sided with Satan instead. That's kind of the story of George Lucas' Star Wars prequels. After all, both JC and Anakin Skywalker were immaculately conceived (the first one by the Holy Spirit, the other by barely-explained microscopic entities called Midi-chlorians) and both were prophesied to be the saviour of their people. Thankfully, God's sprog backed the right horse in the Good Book.
2. Aslan in The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
Writer CS Lewis was never shy about his faith, and all seven of his Chronicles of Narnia novels are drenched in Christian symbolism. It's no stretch to see Aslan, the noble lion, who dies and is resurrected, as Jesus and the White Witch as Satan.
Talking about Aslan, Lewis once said: "He is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question: 'What might Christ become like if there really were a world like Narnia?'" So there.
3. Ripley in Alien 3
David Fincher's prison-set Alien sequel is pretty subtle with its religious metaphors for the most part. A human being who falls from the heavens to help a hostile religious community against the Xenomorph (read: Devil)? Sure, if you must.
Where it lays it on thick is when Ripley sacrifices herself to stop the Weyland Corporation from getting their capitalist mitts on the alien inside her, falling to her death with her arms stretched out, kind of like… yes, JESUS!
4. ET in ET: The Extra-Terrestrial
"I remember another gentle visitor from the heavens," said The Simpsons' Reverend Lovejoy once. "He came in peace and then died, only to come back to life, and his name was ET, the Extra-Terrestrial. I loved that little guy."
So ET can heal people, perform miracles (we don't know if he can walk on water, but if he can make objects fly in the air – Christ on a bike! – we think it's a pretty safe bet) and, most obviously, croaks before being miraculously restored to life. And did we mention the glowing heart, like in all those Catholic gift-shop tapestries?
But despite all this sledgehammer metaphor, Steven Spielberg has always denied the movie being intended as a Christian allegory.
"If I ever went to my mother and said, 'Mom, I've made a movie that's a Christian parable,'" he once said, "what do you think she'd say? She has a kosher restaurant on Pico and Doheny in Los Angeles!"
5. Neo in The Matrix
Warner Bros.
Was Jesus ever called 'The One' by his disciples? Both were here to save mankind, and both rise from the dead in the final act (with Neo even ascending into the heavens in the closing shot). The Wachowski siblings' cyber-thriller is chocka with Christian Easter eggs.
The hull of their ship has a plate reading 'Mark III No. 11', which in the Bible reads, "Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, 'You are the Son of God!'", while a fellow hacker actually says to Neo, "Hallelujah! You're my saviour, man. My own personal Jesus Christ!" That enough for you?
6. Luke in Cool Hand Luke
Without getting too Room 237 on its ass, there's a hunk of Christian imagery and references all over this sweat-soaked 1967 prison flick. Not only is the lead character named Luke (as in one of the apostles), but the movie goes out of its way to shoot him in Christ-like poses, such as when his head is crowned by the sun's beams and when he lays himself out on a table in a crucifixion pose.
By the time Luke dies at the end of the movie, having being betrayed by Dragline (read: Judas), you can consider yourself thoroughly Sunday schooled.
7. James Cole in 12 Monkeys
Is there not a sliver of Jesus Christ in James Cole's (Bruce Willis) sacrifice to save the human race in Terry Gilliam's timey-wimey head-bender? There are copious religious nods in this one, from the department store angel looking down at Cole to references to the Book of Revelation. Even his initials are the same as the big man's!
8. Superman in Man of Steel
There's little that's subtle about Zack Snyder's movies, and Man of Steel spends most of its running time positioning Superman as a proxy Jesus. Where to start? Well, Kal-El says he's 33 in this one (Jesus' age when he was crucified), he sacrifices himself to save the people of Earth, seeks advice from a priest (with a here-look-at-me painting of Jesus in the background) and, at one moment, hovers in the sky with his arms out-stretched. Yes, Zack, we GET IT.
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