The Chosen (Life of Christ Web Series) - Blu-ray Forum

The Mad Kiwi · 11-26-2019, 07:10 PM

I've been meaning to start a thread on this for some time, but now that all of season one is officially released to the public as of today, I figured now would be a good time to do it.

The Chosen is a crowd-financed web series about the life of Jesus Christ and actually broke the record for the biggest crowd-funded campaign (raising over $10 million). It originally started as a short church film about Christmas called "The Shepherd," and the response to it was so overwhelming that the short went viral, and people started requesting an entire Gospel series done in the same style.

Episodes 1-4 were released this past Easter to those in the know to spread the word grassroots-style, but now all 8 episodes of season one are available to the general public either via streaming or Blu-ray. Both "The Shepherd" pilot and the official episode one on YouTube for people to get a feel for the show. The rest are available via the official website and the app. The goal is for the series to go on for 7 seasons, and I really hope they do because the work here is absolutely incredible.

I've seen dozens of Jesus films and shows, and there are great many that are near and dear to my heart. Even so, none of those really captured how I imagined the Gospel events unfolding. Jesus is often so aloof, you can't understand how anyone could doubt His divinity (Jesus of Nazareth) or so human that He lacks the gravitas of His dual nature (The Visual Bible: Matthew). Also, because so many Jesus films follow the Gospels closely, they're quite episodic, just hopping along from miracle to miracle with no sense of continuity.

The Chosen uses artistic license to make the Biblical events act as payoffs. They're all embedded in a cause-and-effect narrative, and the characters are given time to develop and act like human beings with personalities, quirks, and aspirations. The most notable of these is Jesus Himself. Here, He's allowed to joke and act like one of the guys, emanating a charisma that makes you understand why people would be drawn to Him. At the same time, though, He's got real range, showing fear and anxiety at times, and authority and power at others - and always full of compassion and love for those around Him.

Simply put, it's a remarkable series and accomplishes everything I ever wanted in a life of Christ production - a warmth that's not saccharine, characters who are flawed and relatable, and a narrative with proper setups and payoffs that feels like it's heading somewhere.

Here's the trailer along with "The Shepherd" pilot and episode one:

The entire season can be viewed here:

http://www.thechosen.tv

They've also got a downloadable app that lets you cast it to different devices. It's free to watch, and they encourage a "pay it forward" campaign where a donation from you allows others to stream it, and you can download it to your device.

I'm waiting for my copy of the Blu-ray to arrive to create an entry for it here on the site as I don't know all of the specs of it yet.

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