I have seen Terry Gilliam’s film Time Bandits (1981) about a hundred times. I first saw it when I was in grade school and it just sort of stuck with me. About a week ago I sat down to re-watch it with a new set of eyes and my godson next to me who is a near expert in film analysis. What took place was amazing.

WARNING, THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS! So if you haven’t seen the film, you can see it here first

Gilliam’s film was before its time. He pits the classic forces of good vs. evil against each other in a British, Monty Python sort of way. Time Bandits illustrates the classical issues of:

q Questions to God in regards to death, pain, and suffering of “innocent” people

q Evil that takes shape in odd forms

q The power of greed and wealth

q Fortune, fame, and money as a form of happiness

The film depicts an imaginative child Kevin (played by Craig Warnock), who goes on a time-travelling adventure with a bunch of treasure-hunting little people, who have "borrowed" a map to the Universe's time holes from The Supreme Being—i.e. God. Kevin’s wardrobe contains a time hole in it and through this hole an assortment of little people come while escaping from the Supreme Being. They take Kevin with them on their adventures through time from Napoleonic times, the Middle Ages, the early 1900s, the time of Legends and the Fortress of Ultimate Darkness where they confront Evil.[1]

But the thing that makes this film unique begins with the opening scene. Gilliam begins his film with a commercial for appliances. Kevin’s parents are zoned in on the television and anxiously awaiting the new item so that they can purchase it in order to keep up with their neighbors. Kevin, while in the same room, does not seemed to be phased by this and lets his parents know that in Roman times people had to know multiple ways to kill a person. His father replies, “Well at least we got an automatic hedge cutter.” This is very similar to the growing “nothingness” that George Ritzer describes.[2] It is as if life is filled with the nothingness. The nothing can include ATM’s, automated answering services, faceless systems that interface with us everyday, and branded commercials that attempt to sell us something we really don’t need, but if we do get it, we’re told, our lives will be better off.

The nothing, as Ritzer would put it, is a social form that is generally centrally conceived/ controlled and comparatively devoid of distinctive substantive content; like fast food restaurants that are around as a social form in many communities. While these restaurants are apart of a community, they are conceived and controlled from a far off location. Making them, in essence, disconnected because they are still controlled by a “central unit” rather than being organically produced. While this is not all “Bad” it does give way for some Mcdonaldization which occurs when things are produced efficiently, calculated, predicted, and controlled.[3] Moreover, it is what “Evil” (The presumed Devil in the film) is embracing and consumed with. At several points Evil makes reference to how he would have started human kind with “…lasers, day 1!” It is part of this “nothing” that helps to shape a theme throughout the film, Evil even uses the lure of material nothing to lure the band of little people so that he can steal the map and control the earth.

Kevin’s parents are consumed with materialism as well. A screen shot of their place reveals that their entire home is filled with the latest and greatest appliances, televisions, furniture, and home amenities—yet they are still not happy. Kevin’s mom is constantly comparing their lives to the neighbors and wanting more. Kevin’s father has disconnected with Kevin and only engages with him for disciplinary action and or punishment. Both Kevin’s parent’s interaction with him is shallow and stale. Kevin knows this too, and when presented with an opportunity to stay with a real family or go back, he chooses the new family.

After Kevin’s experience with a knight coming through his closet, he is prepared the following night to take pictures and investigate this apparent phenomenon. Kevin’s adventure begins with an abrupt visit from the Supreme Being who is strongly recommending that they give up the map—the guide to finding time holes in the universe. It’s interesting to note that even from the beginning, God is giving warnings to give back the map, because He already knows what the map can do to people—sort of what the symbolic ring does to people in the Lord of The Rings trilogy.

This particular issue touches on the whole subject of “pure sin” and “original evil” and what it does to us. Gilliam puts that at our front door step and insists that we deal with it. How do we handle power? How do we handle fame? How do we handle wealth? How do these things affect our authentic self and the interrelations with others? Just like the Lord of The Rings and Star Wars we see that “sin” and “evil” creep up on us and gently take over us, all the while we think we’re in control when we’re actually not. God knew this and tried to warn Kevin’s friends about the perils of the map. But, as often we all do, they did not listen and went off pursing riches and fame.

Gilliam also places another serious question to his audience. What do we do when we’re not validated? Randall begins regaling Kevin with a brief bio of their crew. He tells Kevin how they made all of the trees, shrubs, bushes, and “all of this that you see…but did we get any credit for it?” Randall and his crew want the “credit” for what they’ve done. Randall feels God hasn’t given him much recognition, so in return they’ve “borrowed” the map to make up for God’s obvious error. This get’s into all of my mess. How do I feel when I’ve done a “Great Job” but get no pats on the back? How do I deal with people who don’t externally validate me? How do we deal with God when He doesn’t do something we expected Him to do? Moreover, how do we react in situations when we’ve known we’ve done “good” but get no credit or recognition for it by our peers? These are all important questions that are not simple to answer. Randall reveals deep human questions regarding the “Supreme Being.” Randall even states, “…creation was a botch job, we only had 7 days to do it” and so Randall, along with his crew, continue feeling justified in “borrowing” God’s property. How many times do we just “justify” away our own actions and behaviors in response to being improperly validated?

Kevin, a boy, is one of the only ones that has any type of real wisdom. At one point, Evil even asks who Kevin is, Evil states, “He’s stronger than the rest of them.” Kevin’s “innocence” comes out and wonders why if you possess such a powerful tool, would you waste it on simply “getting rich?” Sounds a lot like the parable of the talents, Jesus’ own interaction with the rich young ruler, and the thematic tones of young people serving God throughout the Bible—Kevin embodies a lot of this throughout the film.

Gilliam also plays on the whole money, power, and sex theme a bit—in a PG sort of way. Gilliam portrays Napoleon as an insecure leader regarding his power and physical stature. Robin Hood turns out to be someone who had really missed the point in regards to helping the poor. Michael Palin’s characters all had issues that subtlety focused around sexual disorders. Even Sean Connery’s character’s—the only one that actually had some integrity and veracity—struggled with the queen for power and position. This is no different in our society today. Money, power, and sex continue to be quick sand for many.

Evil, interestingly enough, does not show up until almost the middle of the film. Evil is pleasured by the bandit crew fighting and arguing. Evil begins to question how God could allow such “imbeciles” take the map. “What sort of Supreme Being created such riff-raft, is it not the workings of a complete incompetent!” Evil proclaims. But just as Evil is asking that question, he himself is questioned from one of his demons. “But he created you evil one… so he can’t be totally wrong…” (Then Evil blows him up for questioning him like that). Evil is also caught in a paradox. He hates God, but he is also created by God and controlled by God. Evil wants to believe that he created himself, but even his demons are cautiously questioning his existence and why they are trapped in the fortress of ultimate darkness. It kind of makes you wonder what goes on in the mind of Evil. How does Evil deal with a God that not only created him, but also allows him to do the things that he does. Evil is filled with rage because he still has to answer to the Supreme Being. Evil even questions why God created “slugs” Evil does not understand their purpose. What do they do? Evil is a contemporary Evil and wants to start with lasers, computers, and technology from the beginning. Evil seems to be a capitalist—an interesting note indeed. Evil is also consumed with materialism, commercialism, and will use it to get his way.

Job’s theme arises at the end of the film when Evil and God clash in a cathartic ending. God shows up in a lack luster 3-piece suit, He’s old, has white hair, is White with an English accent (no surprise), and appears to be a bit out of sorts and out of touch. Still, He admits to having a plan to all of the chaos and knowledge of what was happening---which He contends is part of “His plan.” Kevin asks the films most important question, “If you knew what was going on, why did all of these people have to die?” That is the billion dollar question. Job himself wondered why he had to go through all of the crap he did. God even allowed him to complain for quite sometime before even showing up. The paradox that arises in Job, and from Kevin’s question, is that God knew and allowed all of the “bad things” to happen—people died, chaos abounded for a while, Evil seemed to prevail and it all fell into “God’s plan.” Kevin is perplexed by this. Kevin seems to be upset at God and concerned that God doesn’t really care for humans. Kevin questions God, and God replies, “…it has something to do with free will.” What a message! So you mean we can actually choose what “side” we’re on? Still, Kevin, along with myself, is perplexed by The Supreme Being’s decision making process, Kevin is left in Evil’s fortress and is not allowed to go “back to creation” with the rest of the crew.

In the end, Kevin wakes to his home being on fire. Kevin’s parents are already outside and really only concerned with their material goods that were burned. When Kevin does finally make it out of the burning house, he notices that his parents are holding the apparent appliance that caused the fire, upon further notice he sees a part of concentrated evil that remains nestled inside the appliance. Kevin quickly yells to his parents, “Don’t touch it, its evil!” His parents quickly gaze at him then simultaneously back to the appliance and touch Evil—instantly they are burned up and all that remains of them are smoldering holes; kind of similar to Lot’s wife. The film ends with Sean Connery winking to Kevin who is still in a state of shock. Gilliam leaves the audience wondering what is going to happen to Kevin and how will he reconstruct his life.

Still, Kevin was left with an admonishment from God: “You must stay here and carry on the fight.” A good word indeed, but it still leaves you wondering.

All in all Time Bandits is an excellent film for Bible study and it raises essential and fundamental questions regarding good and evil, suffering and pain, God and the Devil, and “the good fight.” Gilliam leaves the door wide open by having you question whether or not Kevin dreamt all of this or actually experienced it. Gilliam has that dreamer quality in his films, Time Bandits is about the young dreamer, Brazil (1985) is about the dreamer in middle age, and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) is about the dreamer in old age. That is the power of abstract art and the uniqueness of Gilliam’s postmodern film style. Time Bandits is a timeless Biblical film that humorously pushes us to better understand ourselves, God, and the Evil that exists within us all when fully revealed!