Tom Cruise may have been trying to keep himself to himself in order to rebuild his career as a non-mental filmstar lately, but it seems nobody told Germany – it's banned Tom Cruise from filming at military sites because he's a Scientologist.
Next year Tom Cruise will star in Valkyrie, a movie about a man trying to kill Adolf Hitler with a briefcase, but the German Ministry of Defence has thrown a spanner in the works by refusing to allow any filming in any of its military sites because Tom Cruise is a member of the Church Of Scientology, a group which the German government does not recognise as a church. The timing couldn't be worse – not only has this incident all at once reminded the world of what a kooky Scientologist Tom Cruise as well as potentially costing the production of Valkyrie millions of dollars, but it's also thrown the future of Tom Cruise's movie after that into doubt – the provisionally-entitled KClaus Nitschmann's Ginormous Wiener Schnitzel.
We haven't heard that much from Tom Cruise for a while, probably with good reason – what with the baby-hiding and the Beckham-luring and the disgusting three minute kiss at his wedding, people were beginning to only mention Tom Cruise so they could go "Arrghhhh, you wanker!" at him. But that's not to say that Tom Cruise's crazy little quirks have been forgotten about on a global scale.
Tom Cruise, you see, has temporarily passed on his 'bonkers Scientology nonsense-spewer' crown to John 'guns don't people, psychotropic drugs do' Travolta so that he can slowly and quietly use his new movie studio to make a bunch of films that'll stop people thinking that he's a placenta-scoffing divvy who is hated by all women. One of these films is Valkyrie, a Bryan Singer-directed thriller about Tom Cruise trying to blow up Hitler with some luggage. Being a film set in Germany about famous Germans like Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg doing things that are important parts of German history, you'd have expected that Tom Cruise would want Valkyrie to be shot in Germany, but the Germans aren't especially keen on that, as ABC reports:
Germany has barred the makers of a movie about a plot to kill Adolf Hitler from filming at German military sites because its star Tom Cruise is a Scientologist, the Defence Ministry said on Monday… Defence Ministry spokesman Harald Kammerbauer said the film makers "will not be allowed to film at German military sites if Count Stauffenberg is played by Tom Cruise, who has publicly professed to being a member of the Scientology cult".
What an insult – everyone worth their weight in Thetans knows that Tom Cruise is not a member of the Scientology cult. Tom Cruise is the Jesus of the Scientology cult, which is a big difference and gives Tom the ability to call up Xenu at any time and order him to drop an R6 implant into the heads of any pesky European defence chiefs he likes.
It's thought that this German ruling puts the skids on Tom Cruise filming scenes of Valkyrie in real-life locations like the Bendlerblock memorial inside the Berlin Defence Ministry complex, which is where Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg hatched the plan to kill Adolf Hitler with a bomb in a briefcase.
But what's this Kammerbauer chap worried about anyway? All movie depictions of real-life events have to go through some compromises to maintain coherent and dramatic structure, and we're sure that Tom Cruise wants to treat the story of Valkyrie with the utmost respect. So what if Claus von Stauffenberg's marriage ceremony to Nina Freiin von Lerchenfeld didn't contain the line "girls need clothes and food and tender happiness and frills, a pan, a comb, perhaps a cat," or if Claus didn't order Nina to be entirely silent throughout the births of their children Berthold, Heimeran, Franz-Ludwig, Valerie and Konstanze? And does it really matter if Tom Cruise decides to replace Claus von Stauffenberg's final words of "Long live our sacred Germany!" to a long rant about how prescription medicine is evil?
Of course not, these are all ribbons and bows around the main point of Valkyrie – and that point is that Tom Cruise running through the streets of Berlin with a bomb in a briefcase looks wicked cool. Or something.
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flash321 says
To the author: Please do your homework. Xenu is not a deity to Scientology. He is hated by the members of Scientology as the person responsible for killing many millions of aliens that were brought to Teegeeack (earth) for extermination. As a critic of Scientology myself, one must know what they are talking about to expose what this evil cult is all about. I do not blame Germany at all for their stance against Tom and his production company filming on their military sites.
Scientology is wrong and an evil cult that separates people from their money and from their families.
It is a ponzi scheme at best and an evil cult at worst.