“The Lovely Bones” would seem to be an examination of how much more powerful/all seeing the Susie character might or might not be after death. Omniscience is a Jackson theme. Does Susie see that someone else’s number is up? That “The Lovely Bones” is a cathartic reworking of “the Frighteners” can’t only have occurred to me. The resonances are too strong.

On the theme of being more powerful after death, we move to the Obi-Wan Kenobi maelstrom of character development. Michael J. Fox is more powerful after death. Ann is more powerful after her ceremonial “death” offering to Kong. Indeed, the death of her character as it was powerfully occurs during the events on the island. Her attempt at the end of the film to demur to an ‘off-Broadway” existence is simply a mask.