Hollywood Apocrypha

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

1Now behold, it did come to pass that in the city of Los Angeles, the writers of science fiction and fantasy did begin to wax exceedingly fat off of the labors of their hands.
2Yea, they did profit exceedingly from their craft, insomuch that they did pen all manners of diverse scripts and movie treatments.
3And behold, many of their stories did deal with Chosen One protagonists, insomuch that these writers did spend much labor crafting phony-baloney scriptural prophecies to flesh out the protagonists' back-stories.
4Now it came to pass that these prophecies were contained in sacred texts, which the writers did toil exceedingly to invent.
5And behold, the writers did send forth a law, yea even an exceedingly strict law, by which these texts would be known.
6And the law did read thusly:
7Behold, the text that thou shalt write shall be exceedingly ancient and obscure, insomuch that thy audience might have no expertise on the culture of origin, and will just have to take thy word for it.
8Ancient shall be thy text, and ancient and exotic shall be the language in which it first appears.
9Behold, thy text shall be written in Aramaic, or in Chaldean, or in proto-Mongolian, or in Sanskrit, or in Mayan or Sumerian or some demonic language that thou hast invented on the spot.
10Though the potential origins of thy text shall be many and diverse, thou shalt always generate an English version of thy text, which thy protagonist or his lackeys shall translate from the original in an unrealistically brief amount of time.
11And it shall come to pass that when thy text is translated to English, it shall be written in Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe.
12Yea, thy verb conjugations shalt be incorrect, even to the point of meaninglessness.
13Thy sentence structure and writing style shall be based on the King James translation of the Bible, regardless of the culture and language of origin.
14Thou shalt not use all the styles of the King James Bible, which are diverse and many. Instead, thou shalt focus on those bits for which thou hast read the Cliff's Notes.
15Thou shalt begin as many sentences as possible with the words, "Thou Shalt" or "Behold".
16For behold, if it is good enough for the Ten Commandments, it shall be good enough for thee.
17Thou shalt frame all of thy prophecies in the language of the Book of Revelation, particularly the parts about rivers turning to blood, seven headed dragons, and women riding monsters or wearing crowns of stars.
18Thy prophecy shall sound exceedingly cool, and shall mirror events transpiring in the plot thus far.
19Thy prophecy shall not be so specific as to preclude a Prophecy Twist.
20Thou mayest include a Nostradamus-style cryptic timetable.
21Insomuch as thou includest this time-table, it shall always work out to the prophecy being fulfilled within three weeks of its being read on-screen (or at least no later than the season finale).
22The location for the fulfilling of thy prophecy shall invariably be within four score furlongs[1] of the protagonist's house. Thus endeth the law.
23And behold, it came to pass that the writers did name this law "Hollywood Apocrypha," and did use it to generate diverse sacred texts and fake scriptures.
24And they did look upon their labors, and see that they were good. Well, no, not really good. But they did look upon their labors and see that they were not so horrible that people stopped watching their shows.

25And they did go shopping.
—The Gospel according to Hollywood, chapter 42, verses 1-25

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Examples of Hollywood Apocrypha include:

Comic Books

  • The Crime Bible in The DCU, which even spawned its own mini-series, Crime Bible: Five Lessons of Blood, each issue of which opened with a passage from the Crime Bible.

Film

  • Monty Python and the Holy Grail has a reading from the Book of Armaments (Chapter 2, verses 9-21), which gives the history and the correct usage of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.
    • Hilariously averted in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, where (after a reading from the "St. Victor" sketch mentioned below) a chaplain leads the school in a prayer consisting of uninspiring ass-kissing ("Gosh, we're all really impressed down here, I can tell you"), then in a hymn begging God not to cook them in various specific ways.
  • Invoked by the title characters of The Boondock Saints in the sequel. When asked if they say a prayer before executing someone, they decided to have a little fun, point their guns at the guy who asked them the question, and dramatically make up "verses" about the Vengeance of the Lord using Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe.
  • Pulp Fiction. About a third of Jules's speech is pretty close to the real Ezekiel 25:17, the rest is a pastiche of other Biblical phrases inspired by old Sonny Chiba movies.
  • The Shepherd's Journal from Atlantis: The Lost Empire.
  • The Hell Bible in Constantine, which has a different Book of Revelation.
    • Seasons 4 and 5 of Supernatural delve into this as well, with the show's designated heroes consulting a "special" version of the Book of Revelation.
    • The Prophecy uses the exact same idea for a Bible found on a dead angel.
  • Woody Allen, in Love and Death:

"Moses was right. He that...he that abideth in truth will have frankincense and myrrh smeared on his gums in abundance, and he shall dwell in the house of the Lord for six months, with an option to buy. But the wicked man...the wicked man shall have all kinds of problems. His tongue shall cleave to the roof of his upper palate, and he shall speak like a woman, if you watch him closely. And he shall...he shall...the wicked man shall be delivered into the hands of his enemy, whether they can pay the delivery charge or not. And...wait, I have more about the wicked man. I shall walk through the valley of the shadow of death...In fact, now that I think of it, I shall run through the valley of the shadow of death, 'cause you get out of the valley quicker that way. And he that hath clean hands and a pure heart is okay in my book. But he that fools around with barnyard animals has gotta be watched."

  • The classic Giant Bug movie Them has a character mutter such a verse:

"And there shall be destruction and darkness come over creation
"And the Beasts shall reign over the earth."

Literature

  • This is parodied in Good Omens, where Agnes Nutter's book and the Buggre Alle This Bible are both written this way.

25 And the Lord spake unto the Angel that guarded the eastern gate, saying Where is the flaming sword which was given unto thee?
26 And the Angel said, I had it here only a moment ago, I must have put it down some where, forget my own head next.
27 And the Lord did not ask him again.

  • The Discworld novel Small Gods pokes fun at this, where everything the Great God Om says after a sudden influx of worshippers is a scriptural passage.

"Will you help?"
V. You Don't Even Believe In Me!
"Yes, but I'm a practical man."
VI. And Brave, Too, To Declare Atheism Before Your God.

    • In the same book, a scribe jotted down Cut-Me-Own-Hand-Off Dhblah's eyewitness account of Om's ascension and Brutha's reaction, and it's written like this as well. Except that Dhblah's still trying to shift his very old produce, and tries to sell it to the scribe.
  • As explored by Bob Price in the non-fiction book "The Paperback Apocalypse," this is a frequent feature of apocalyptic/anti-christ related fiction.
  • The Necronomicon is often portrayed this way.
  • Dave Barry's column "He Knows Not What He Writes" had this mysterious religious anecdote of the sort best explained by broadcast preachers:

"And Bezel saideth unto Sham: 'Sham,' he saideth, 'Thou shalt goest unto the town of Begorrah, and there shalt thou fetcheth unto thine bosom 35 talents and also shalt thou fetcheth a like number of cubits, provideth that they are nice and fresh."

  • The "Smokey the Bear Sutra" by Gary Snyder is a Buddhist variation on this theme.
  • Borderline example is the "Book of (insert Israeli leader name here)" in Private Eye, which presents contemporary events in the Middle East in a parody of the King James Bible style.
  • David Langford's account of why War In 2080 didn't have a publicity budget.
  • Similarly to the Rowan Atkinson version above, there was The Bible...According to Spike Milligan.

Live-Action TV

  • The Book of Origin for the Ori in Stargate SG-1.
  • Joss Whedon is one of the most blatant abusers of this trope.
  • Supernatural does this occasionally, trying to pass off prophecies about the 66 Seals as extracts from obscures versions of the Book of Revelation

Music

New Media

  • The Netscape and Firefox browsers have the Easter Egg "about:mozilla", which brings up a quotation from the Book of Mozilla.

Professional Wrestling

  • "You talk about your psalms, you talk about your John 3:16. Well, Austin 3: 16 says I just kicked your ass!"

Recorded and Stand Up Comedy

And they brought to him on a stretcher a man who was sick of the palsy, and they cried unto him, "Maestro, this man is sick of the palsy." And the Lord said, "If I had to spend my whole life on a stretcher, I'd be pretty sick of the palsy too!" And they were filled with joy, and cried out, "Lord, thy one-liners are as good as thy tricks; thou art indeed an all-round family entertainer."

Web Comics

And with righteous pap and blessed shoosh he did quell his brother's fury. For the Knight looked upon his Bard all acting up and completely losing his shit and he did resolve to calmeth his juggalo ass right the fuck down.

Western Animation

Megatron: "...and there came a hero who said: 'Hurt not the Earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, nor the very fabric of time,' but the hero would not prevail!"
Optimus: Finish the quote, Megatron. "Nor would he surrender!"

Real Life

  • The U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in Zim v. Western Publishing Co., 573 F.2d 1318 (5th Cir. 1978) (transcript here) starts out with a parody of the first chapter of Genesis ("In the beginning, Zim created the concept of the Golden Guides") and continues in biblical fashion for a short while:

Then there rose up in Western a new Vice-President who knew not Zim. And there was strife and discord, anger and frustration, between them for the Golden Guides were not being published or revised in their appointed seasons. And it came to pass that Zim and Western covenanted a new covenant, calling it a Settlement Agreement. But there was no peace in the land. Verily, they came with their counselors of law into the district court for judgment and sued there upon their covenants.

  • The Book of Mormon is near-universally agreed to have errors and phrasing consistent with this trope indicative of a man of Joseph Smith's education emulating the King James Bible's style. Whether this is an indicative and an artifact of him writing it whole-cloth or of him translating something given from on high to the best of his ability is largely a matter of faith.
  1. ↑ ten miles
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