Amazon Prime has not ingratiated itself with Christians due to its woke programming, most famously Rings of Power. This show was a fantasy epic based on the footnotes of Tolkien lore. The show took a hamfisted feminist message to Tolkien’s work and spent hundreds of millions of dollars. Now, Amazon is unveiling House of David, a series that will focus on the rise of King David, at least in its first season. Consider the trailer below.
What I Like
The trailer leans into the sword and sandals epic. The Goliath depiction is the best thing going on as it does not shy away from him being a giant. Even if we want to argue that Goliath not being big enough, it’s a positive sign that Amazon did not take the old-school theological liberal denial of his giant status, instead leaning into it.
The costume design also looks good.
The biggest reason to be confident is Jon Erwin as a director known for I Can Only Imagine and Jesus Revolution. As far as faith-based directors go, Erwin has made better movies over his career. But this is a series.
What I Don’t Like
First impressions are important and while I liked the Goliath in this story, I am not feeling the David depiction. David is falsely accused of vainglory in the Biblical account by his brothers. He was not viewed as an outcast or as someone who is timid, as the trailer shows. David is also not ruddy handsome in this at all. Instead, he’s a short dude with a Timothée Chalamet haircut.
Moreover, Amazon is committing to bad accents. The Chosen committed to using bad accents as well as an attempt to sound authentic, but it doesn’t work to have ancient Hebrews sounding like Latinos. Considering how distant we are from ancient or paleo Hebrew, Amazon should not have bothered doing accents. In contrast, HBO’s Rome did not do accents and is mostly well-regarded by Rome enjoyers. Also in contrast, Mel Gibson committed to speaking authentic languages in Apocalypto and Passion of the Christ. Bad accents is the worst decision that Amazon could have made here.
Final Thoughts
I thought Mark Driscoll had an interesting thing to say:
Excited to check this out. I want to celebrate the world realizing the Bible is the greatest collection of stories in the history of the world. BUT realize Amazon also hosts 70% of all pornographic sites through AWS. You can’t serve God AND money.
Driscoll juxtaposes their interest in biblical epics with their interest in servicing smut. Amazon is truly a double-minded company. It will be interesting to see whether this will be good or horrendous.
