Modern Mars Hill

Over the last few years, my brother and I have been brainstorming about how to make an epic movie (or series of movies) out of The Book of Mormon. We didn't want something simple. We want something epic - a grand adventure for the ages, like we sometimes say the Book of Mormon itself is. I've heard a lot of people love the idea, and I've heard a lot of concerns. I'd like to address some of the concerns and see if I can help. Perhaps you could help me address my major concern with making the Book of Mormon into a movie. If you have any more concerns, let me know. I'd love to discuss them. Concern #1: "It would be rated R." This is the single most frequent concern I hear. I even heard this from someone who played in the Bible videos. To be fair, it's a legitimate concern. There are plenty of lots of R-rated ancient war movies - from Gladiator  (2000), to 300  (2006) to the extended edition of The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies  (2014/2015). Th...

For months, I've wondered "What's the best way to pick whether a character should be male or female?" This started partially because I knew some feminist writers who wanted more female characters, so it made me wonder what justification I had for making a character male or female. It started partially when people kept asking for superhero movies with female main characters. It started partially because I had a character who was male in the initial idea, but as the character changed more and more, the character eventually turned into a female, but the fact that the character was male or female had nothing to do with the plot, so it made me wonder "How should I decide whether I should make this character male or female?" After looking at various strong female characters and asking various writers their opinions, here are the answers I've formulated so far. How to write a character's gender: 1) Check to see if any part ...

In Book 6, Hagrid sings a Christmas carol: "God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs". Does this mean the English side Wizarding World had a concept of a God (at least as a mythological figure)? Was it just an expression? Is there some sort of God-worshipping religion in the English side of the Wizarding World?