What with the theory we're entertaining that John 21 is the lost "original" ending of GMark, this fishing-in-Galilee tale would also possibly apply to the Proto-Matthew that probably is the source for both GMatthew and GMark. (With the understanding that the John 21 Galilee fishing that got into Proto-Matthew had been lost except in Mt. 28:16-20 sort-of remembrance of it.) The last half of the movie is this journey to (through Spain, apparently) and arrival at the Sea of Galilee (probably with Malta as its stand-in in the movie). It concludes (as the novelization does not) with the last five verses of GMatthew harmonized with the Lucan-Acts Ascension.
The acting is superb, though more exciting for the Roman interlude in Jerusalem for the first half. Women disappear in the second half (in the movie--in the book the "climax" depends on the primacy of the woman at that point) , but the absence of blood-and-guts is palpable. I found unpleasant the return of the Pope Gregory the Great 594 A. D. myth that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute.
The book played up the Mt. 27:52-53 awakening of the saints from the tombs, where the movie settled for just the surrounding earthquake and darkness.
The movie excised the Lucan scenes involving women like at the Via Dolorosa. It is more purely Matthean than the novel that brings in not just Jesus speaking dolefully to the women of Jerusalem, but also generous helpings of Q put into the mouth of the risen Jeshua. The movie is more bare Marcan, as I said an exposition of a narrative source underlying gMatthew and gMark (understood to extend to John 21).
The movie (and the novelization) is full-bore apologetics. Nothing conflicts with the Bible (or at least the Proto-Matthean version of it), though the Bible only provides the setting and some characters.
"Risen" a Proto-Matthean Movie?
Re: "Risen" a Proto-Matthean Movie?
That the movie "Risen" is Proto-Matthean is particularly stark compared to the book by Angela Hunt novelizing the script. The script included much more emphasis on the women, and the novel is devoted half to a character Rachel not in the movie at all. She falls in with the women who accompanied Jesus, whom we know of only from Luke. Furthermore In Luke 23:27-31 Jesus addresses "women who mourned and wailed for him...": "'Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me....'" but cut back in the movie to Matthew 27:55 wherein "Many women were there, watching from a distance". The book represents Anna and Simeon from Luke 2:25-38 as reviving at the Crucifixion to herald redemption. The movie does not include any mention of bodies coming out of the tombs (Mt. 27:52-53), an apparent departure from my Proto-Matthew hypothesis. Not really, however--we may suppose (with nothing like this incredible event present in Mark) that Proto-Matthew did not include it, and this movie is presenting as I said a Proto-Matthean apotheosis.
Yet more. The novel brings in Cleopas from Luke 24 (Walk to Emmaus), but he is Bartholomew in the movie. In the book the hero encounters the risen Yeshua in the Upper Room owned by John Mark. John Mark is not mentioned by name in any gospel, but only in the Lucan Acts 12:12.
It's probably not that the movie rigorously expunged Lucan elements from the story, but that the novel added them. I see the original draft as purely Proto-Matthean. The main script developed beyond this by Paul Aiello added Rachel and the Lucan elements of the women and Anna and Simeon, Cleophas and John Mark. Yet my explanation here conflicts with the author's own explanation of what happened as that Paul Aiello's script had Rachel in it, but she was cut because of time constraints in the movie. The co-writer of the screen-play is the Director Kevin Reynolds, and I still feel it is more likely that he wrote a bare-bones Proto-Matthean expansion of the guards-at-the tomb story, MEN going to Galilee than that so much Lucan material was rigorously cut out. Otherwise it would be as if he felt only Proto-Matthew was right and thus everything Lucan had to be expunged. Yet perhaps it comes out Proto-Matthean simply because he follows only an action-oriented, male point of view, just like most movies are made to be. Yet ironically it is the journey of solely men to Galilee in which the movie drags.
Yet more. The novel brings in Cleopas from Luke 24 (Walk to Emmaus), but he is Bartholomew in the movie. In the book the hero encounters the risen Yeshua in the Upper Room owned by John Mark. John Mark is not mentioned by name in any gospel, but only in the Lucan Acts 12:12.
It's probably not that the movie rigorously expunged Lucan elements from the story, but that the novel added them. I see the original draft as purely Proto-Matthean. The main script developed beyond this by Paul Aiello added Rachel and the Lucan elements of the women and Anna and Simeon, Cleophas and John Mark. Yet my explanation here conflicts with the author's own explanation of what happened as that Paul Aiello's script had Rachel in it, but she was cut because of time constraints in the movie. The co-writer of the screen-play is the Director Kevin Reynolds, and I still feel it is more likely that he wrote a bare-bones Proto-Matthean expansion of the guards-at-the tomb story, MEN going to Galilee than that so much Lucan material was rigorously cut out. Otherwise it would be as if he felt only Proto-Matthew was right and thus everything Lucan had to be expunged. Yet perhaps it comes out Proto-Matthean simply because he follows only an action-oriented, male point of view, just like most movies are made to be. Yet ironically it is the journey of solely men to Galilee in which the movie drags.