Do you think a movie with a good storyline but some immorality scattered in should be watched?
Question:
I read your comment on a question about movies and video games. I believe you even referred to watching the Lord of the Rings movies if I'm not mistaken. I totally agree that there are movies that Christians should not watch. What do you think of movies, though, that have a very good story or plot to it that may have scenes scattered throughout it maybe of smoking or drinking or things that a Christian definitely should not do? A lot of action and drama movies or movies about wars and war times may have some profanity scattered throughout it or even a lot of violence in it. Do you think movies with any of this in it should be stayed away from completely? What is your general thought on this?
Answer:
Whether a movie has a good storyline or plot doesn't excuse immoral behavior. The problem that Christians face is that the more you are exposed to immoral behavior, the more likely you will accept such behavior as "normal." If one hears vulgar language frequently, it is difficult to keep it from slipping out of your mouth in times of stress.
In my own household, we have two devices set up to minimize problems. The first is the TVGuardian. Unfortunately, it is no longer being made, but what it does is reads the closed captioning and if a vulgar word is seen, the sound is turned off briefly and the caption is displayed with the vulgarity edited out. The second is a ClearPlay DVD player. This one has editing scripts that can be loaded to remove a large variety of things you don't want to see or hear. The ClearPlay people do a pretty good job of making the editing not noticeable.
I rarely see a movie while it is in the theater unless I am certain it is a decent movie. Typically I wait until it comes out on DVD so I can have it cleaned up for viewing.
As I mentioned before, when deciding what to watch, you need to consider whether the inappropriate things are mentioned to illustrate what is wrong or glorify incorrect behavior.
