Several weeks ago, I got a look at an early cut of Big Idea’s G-rated The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything—due out in theaters next Friday, January 11^th. After that, courtesy of a national publicist promoting the film’s release, I was able to speak with Big Idea founder Phil Vischer over the phone for twenty minutes. Our conversation quickly got derailed, though, thanks to my own enthusiasm about the Veggie Tales spinoff 3-2-1 Penguins!

The first half of my interview with Vischer—the part that focused on Penguins—was published at this site back in December. This week, we pick up part two of that discussion.

In one of your most recent posts about The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything—

Phil Vischer: Whether it’s Christian or not? Whether it “counts”?

Yes. You know, that’s a pretty hot topic of conversation in a lot of Christian circles.

PV: Right. Everyone in Hollywood is looking for Christian movies, and no one has any idea what a Christian movie is.

Exactly. So for a lot of people, if it’s not The Passion of the Christ or The Nativity, it doesn’t count.

PV: Right.

That’s a pretty tough standard to be up against.

PV: Yeah. And it’s tricky, because all the major studios—when they pick up what’s supposed to be a Christian film—want pastors to jump all over it and champion it. They want giant Christian ministries to hail it as the Second Coming so they’ll turn out all of their constituency; it’s all about motivating the faithful. So then you take a film like this, and most Christian filmmakers just aren’t preachy enough to get the kind of reaction from preachers that the studios want. So it’s really tricky. With this one, it’s been screened for a lot of the major Christian ministries, and the talk is afterwards, “It was a good movie, but… there wasn’t very much God in it!” It’s almost like they’re whispering about someone with cancer who’s about to die. It’s like, “Oh, no! Where’s the God in it?” And so you have to go back and say, “Well, let’s look at Narnia; let’s look at Jesus’ parables. You can teach a Christian truth in a story that doesn’t have God plastered all over it explicitly. It’s implied.” But apparently that’s cheating.

And there’s an interesting middle ground there, too, because there are a handful of filmmakers out there who happen to be Christian making films that don’t seem to satisfy either camp—neither preachy enough nor mainstream enough. And if you go too far one way… Did you see Facing the Giants?

PV: Yep.

On the one hand, it satisfied those pastoral concerns about inviting people to a film that kind of explains the Gospel to them—

PV: Pastors loved it.

—and do their pitch for them; but on the other hand, it got very little respect from critics, who didn’t see that there was a decent story being told.

PV: Or they found it hopelessly didactic. And then you’re out. Once they pull that out and stamp it on your forehead, you’re done.

Which is too bad. Because I think that Alex Kendrick shows a real facility for understanding fundamental storytelling technique, and finds a way to tell basic stories about the human condition that really connect with people.

PV: Yep.

And yet there are going to be those critics out there who dismiss it as propaganda and miss the story that’s there.

PV: Right. Someone just pointed out to me that the Wikipedia entry for Veggie Tales has a link to “propaganda.” [ed.: either this was in fact not the case, or the link has since been removed]

Oh, no kidding!

PV: Yeah.

Great, great.

PV: Yeah.

Well, there was an interesting piece of propaganda attached to The End of the Spear, which came out two years ago, because here was a film about the missionaries killed in Ecuador—obviously, a very Christian story—and yet they hired a gay actor to play the central character. And so they were attacked by Christians—

PV: “Does that ruin the film? Does that make the message not work anymore?” Right. What if the other actor were a gossip? How strict do we have to be?

Or a glutton, perhaps.

PV: Yes. “Have you ever lied? I’m sorry. You can’t play this role.” I don’t want to get into that one…

It’s really funny the extent to which that kind of thing is a hot issue for people. Now, the screening of Pirates that I attended was hosted by a Christian radio station—and this was in a public theater, and presumably anyone who heard about the screening was welcome to attend. And they actually got up there before the film started and announced that this was, indeed, a Christian film. They did read from your description about it being a Christian parable; but then they seemed to take the extra step and say that made it a Christian film through and through. And I was kind of surprised by that.

PV: Well, those screenings were primarily for Christian ministry workers and influencers, and so they’re really working hard to assure them. That’s been a pretty frequent comment: “Are you sure this is Christian? Because Jesus never walked on set.” So they’re doing what they think they need to do.

Obviously, one of the big concerns for fans of Veggie Tales—and I’m sure you’ve heard this from a million people, so I hope I’m not hurting your feelings or telling you anything new—is the disillusionment they felt about the whole meltdown of Big Idea, feeling that something pristine and wonderful had been ruined forever.

PV: Right. I kind of feel that way, too.

I’m really sorry about that, the way things worked out. But are you hoping that Pirates will in some way kind of restore people’s faith in Veggie Tales, and what it stands for?

PV: Not really.

Wow. You’re not that optimistic?

PV: You know, it’s a story I wrote before the meltdown that got picked up by the new owners and put into production. Am I happy that it’s being made? Yes. Do I think that it restores Veggie Tales in some way as a pure Christian ministry again? Well, no. It doesn’t actually change anything. But it’s a story that I like, so I hope the story gets out. I have no idea what kind of impact it will have on Veggie Tales as a property; I just hope that people enjoy the film. The story is a good way for parents to talk to their kids about the Christian life—which is really the point of it. It was not a resuscitative event for a children’s [media] property.

That’s worth people hearing, I think. So it sounds that you’re pretty philosophical about Veggie Tales have changed and morphed into something other than it was, right?

PV: Well, what it is next year or the year after that is simply anyone’s guess. It’s completely beyond my control; it’s beyond Mike Nawrocki’s control. No one who was involved in the first ten years of Veggie Tales has any authority anymore. So everyone is fighting to do what they can to keep it on track as a ministry; but at the end of the day, it’s a business that was bought by a secular company, so there’s a real question about what it’s doing as a ministry.

Well, I would say that’s somewhat true of any ministry that turns into a business. They all experience those problems to some degree, because it’s not just about the ministry anymore. It’s also about paying the bills and salaries.

PV: And the churches, too—because they’re about ministry, but they’re also about “Oops! We can’t pay the mortgage anymore because giving has fallen off so far.” You know, like 1300 layoffs at Focus on the Family because after 9/11 people stopped giving. The issue is: Does an organization deliver content to people for the sake of making money from them, or for the sake of serving them? And you know, you can be “for profit” and exist to serve people. There are lots of companies that would say that’s their highest goal. Typically, once you go public, or once you’ve been bought by a larger company that exists just to generate profits, it’s hard to maintain your original intent—when you’re operating under the umbrella of a purely profit-motivated parent company. And that’s as much of issue for Zondervan and Word as it is for Big Idea now.

Well, I guess I’m glad to hear that you’ve got a realistic and philosophical attitude about that because, unfortunately, as with the issue of what makes a Christian film, people tend to lose sight of reality.

PV: Yes. Films will not save the world. No movie will result in a radical transformation of people’s thinking.

Too bad.

PV: It would be so easy! Then we wouldn’t have to meet our neighbors and witness to them! The only thing that can transform the world is the Church—and that’s through people living out the Gospel: being the hands and feet of God in their neighborhoods. And you can’t love a kid with a movie, at the end of the day.

Be sure to read Part One of Greg’s interview with Vischer, and check back next week for Greg’s review of The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything.