Sunday School Musical hopes to catch the High School Musical crowd

If you compare the other stuff this company puts out (e.g. Nat'l Lampoon sex-oriented comedies and assorted prurient fare - in addition to squeaky-clean stuff like 'Charles in Charge'), it looks more like simple, non-Christian-related business. Just a way for people who aren't primarily concerned about others' souls to make money off of unsuspecting (and perhaps undiscerning) people who feel they must have a "Christian" element to every medium they consume. Honestly, isn't HSM harmless? Why do we need an alternative? I don't think it really matters if SSM has any QUALITY as its own movie; it will just be perceived - as it is even now - as 'just another one of those poor imitations Christians make,' regardless of quality, those involved or their motivations. I don't think we'll bother to stock it at our Christian book store. Even if there turns out to be a demand, we refuse to carry a lot of cheap imitations of "the world's" stuff (e.g. t-shirts with "christianized" slogans).

Great article and great comments.
Of course, the answer is to create great art from within the Church (and I use that term to mean the Body of Christ rather than the concept of the local church serving as a patron of individual artists, although that's not a bad idea either). While there is more than enough copy-cat art being foisted on the world in the name of Christ, there is also a tremendous amount of viable, cutting edge, downright awesome art being created by believers which earns them a place at the table of ideas in the marketplace.
I could point to singer/songwriters like Derek Webb, Jason Gray, Andrew Peterson, and Sara Groves. I could point to visual artists like painter Vicki McCall or sculptress Tracy Sugg. I could point to theatre companies like Cornerstone Theater in Ft. Worth, TX or Lamplighter's Theatre in Smyrna, TN. I could point to authors like Charles Martin, Tosca Lee, and Melanie Wells. The list could go on, but you get the idea.
For what ever its worth, the world has a tremendous amount of its own copycats. Our pool is just a little smaller, so it seems much more pronounced.
Just my thoughts.

Two homeschooled families who love HSM sat down tonight to watch this very fun-looking HSM take-off flick. We didn’t mind it was a copy of HSM but were looking forward to it!

As we watched the movie, I heard our 13 year olds remark of the bad attitudes all these kids had during most of the movie. The movie begins with bad attitudes and hearts as 2 choirs compete and the better choir brags and puts down the other team. Then when the main character learned he has to move, his ‘best friend’ and him get in a fight and again need attitudes adjustments. The two main characters also get mad at their parents for something that is out of their control - which is moving in with an Aunt because of a lay-off and the previous death of the mother. My kids noticed that the parents apologize but the teens don’t. These are only a few examples

And the music isn’t as catchy as HSM. It’s more old style beat boxing rap with both traditional and gospel choirs type music

But I still gave it 2 stars because there were a few shining moments. The main character speaks about trusting God, though all along it didn’t seem that way. He grows in grace. Then he brings the two rival groups together and shows compassion. The ending song makes up for some of the songs that needed their lyrics given attitudes adjustments.

But for the most-part we were very disappointed with the movie and it is mediocre at best. There’s little talk of God, but a lot of “God stuff” You know, the fluff of Christianity but no backbone – until the main character hears a sermon and from that point on, I liked the rest of the movie. But I’m not planning on seeing it anytime soon. I mean, how good is it when even my kids were picking up bad attitude, the lack of Godliness in it and at the end said, “The teens in the original HSM series treated each other better than those in this move!” For the most part, I have to agree.