"Testament" was filmed on a 50k budget. I love low-budget fantasy, so I thought I'd give it a shot. And interestingly, they made a good series of 5 shorts fit into a coherent whole. And there are enough characters in there to be a good series.
I hope the makers read this, because I intend it as positive feedback for their upcoming series:
We already live in the dystopian future painted in "Testament". If you want the upcoming series to 'hit hard' , do what "Black mirror" does, take a 'topic of the week' (like social media) and turn it up to 11 - to display the dangers it brings to our society (and to Faith in general). To work, a concept like this one can't go half-way. It needs to SLAP.
Testament is self-aware - "A good story can change a life" says a character. The parables ARE evidently good stories, but most people, including atheists, know them by heart (and sometimes dislike them for being so well, "known").
Therefore, whereas "the Chosen" goes courageously off-piste to bring an experience that doesn't feel like Sunday school, Testament ends up doing the opposite - taking a modern day setting to place existing story lines most know by heart - and now we're headed back to Sunday school... NOT enjoyable or bingeable television.
If you're reading this, know that I enjoyed the film and the concept, but I think if you want to be truly successful and go global, you need to:
A) drop the PG rating (The Bible would be rated R if put on film), completely. Opt to make a movie for adults or for children, but not both.
B) forgive the childish 'moral dilemmas of the lady hesitating to return the 20 pound note or becoming straight evil following her lottery winnings. Also, anti-world-government activists are not all nazis, in fact most hate nazis. Also, we're not children.
C) push the parables to their logical extreme to add an element of surprise while staying true to the "goals" of the material, NOT the material itself. I mean, a parable of a treasure is not a parable of a treasure if you know.. there's an actual 'pirate booty'-style treasure in it.
D) drop the black/white morality of it all. The Bible is a brilliant text because even in the book of Jobs it is said not to turn God's teachings into 'simple allegories'. And sadly, this falls into the 'too simple' category.
E) make the cops, cops. They aren't temple guards anymore, they're called 'police'. And to create a paramilitary wing of a non-descript 'authority' doesn't really feel 'modern'. A 'ministry of truth' would link orwellian concepts to the distopian present quite well, sprinkled with some 'brave new world' ignorant blissfulness.
As for 'the adversary', I REALLY liked the "Mr Smith" element of it, but it was let down by his lack of on-screen presence I'm afraid, which isn't helped by the the poor sound recording and make him feel well... not very 'threatening'.
5/10 - Good effort and I look forward to see where this is going next.
