Noah (2014)

[seanotron 2307]

I saw this with my mom and sister, who are faithful Mormons. They were kind of put off by the changes to the story and how ruthless Noah is. I'd hardly call them fundamentalists, so I imagine the hardcore ones would be infuriated.

 

Personally, I'm not sure it'd make a great HDTGM. The "rock ents" (or, as I've been calling them on Facebook for a while now, the giant six-armed angels) are probably the one really crazy thing, and the story is well-known enough that you can't really call it a WTF.

 

Probably true. I just sat there trying to figure out who the movie is meant to appeal to. I mean, it clearly won't appeal to fundies, but I don't really see how it could appeal to non-religious people, either. The 'hero' of the movie is a raving lunatic.

 

I did laugh at Gladiator Noah slicing people's throats. Oh, and then there's Methuselah and his magical ability to make women fertile and horny. The eco message was pretty muddled too, especially when Noah (who we see previously had reprimanded his son for just picking one flower) proceeds to clear cut the magical forest to build his ark.

 

I don't know, the more I think about it this movie actually had a quite a few WTF moments totally separate from the basic framing story.

 

On the positive side, I did think the story of creation was absolutely gorgeous. It just felt like it came from a different movie.

[Lando 2019]

You can read the story of the flood in about 5 minutes if you have a reading disability. It spans Genesis 6 through 9 and there's very little detail in it (at least in the Christian Bible. I'm not even close to a Bible expert I just know how to use Google). Nobody should be surprised that a 138 minute movie takes liberties with the story.

[sillstaw 414]

Probably true. I just sat there trying to figure out who the movie is meant to appeal to. I mean, it clearly won't appeal to fundies, but I don't really see how it could appeal to non-religious people, either. The 'hero' of the movie is a raving lunatic.

 

After the movie, I kind of rationalized it as, "Well, Darren Aronofsky's movies are all kind of about people who go over the edge for something." So in that case, it's meant for people who like his movies, and look for auteurist themes running throughout a career (although I doubt there are enough of such people that it was worth spending $130 million to cater to them).

 

The eco message was pretty muddled too, especially when Noah (who we see previously had reprimanded his son for just picking one flower) proceeds to clear cut the magical forest to build his ark.

 

Even as something of a pro-environment guy myself, I didn't really think the movie had any kind of environmental message (beyond the vegetarianism). Really, isn't flooding the world kind of detrimental to the environment? You could also make the argument that the forest was planted especially to build the ark, but I'm not interested in defending that position.

 

And I'm sure lots of red-staters will be mad at the whole "only bad guys eat meat" thing, but I thought it was kind of clever. As they pointed out in the film, if they ate any of the animals onboard, it means the whole species will go extinct. Whether that works in conjunction with Noah's "we are the last people on earth, humans shall die off" philosophy for much of the film, I'll leave for others to decide.

 

You can read the story of the flood in about 5 minutes if you have a reading disability. It spans Genesis 6 through 9 and there's very little detail in it (at least in the Christian Bible. I'm not even close to a Bible expert I just know how to use Google). Nobody should be surprised that a 138 minute movie takes liberties with the story.

 

Exactly. My thinking is that the Bible doesn't describe how long the table used at the Last Supper was, or who was seated where, yet nobody has a problem with Leonardo da Vinci's painting of it crowding everybody on one side so we can see their faces. It's just that, in this case, the liberties taken are a little more controversial. (I'm not being negative; I don't think the controversial changes are inherently bad. The movie is an interpretation, not the canonical story.)

[seanotron 2307]

 

Even as something of a pro-environment guy myself, I didn't really think the movie had any kind of environmental message (beyond the vegetarianism).

 

 

Really? Jeez, I thought he couldn't have beat the audience over the head with it any harder. The evil king is a strip-mining meat-eater who constantly goes on about how he has every right to the resources of the Earth. Honestly, he went so far with it that at times I thought I was watching some kind of parody.

[sillstaw 414]

Really? Jeez, I thought he couldn't have beat the audience over the head with it any harder. The evil king is a strip-mining meat-eater who constantly goes on about how he has every right to the resources of the Earth. Honestly, he went so far with it that at times I thought I was watching some kind of parody.

 

I guess I missed the strip-mining and "every right to the resources of the Earth" stuff.

[seanotron 2307]

You can read the story of the flood in about 5 minutes if you have a reading disability. It spans Genesis 6 through 9 and there's very little detail in it (at least in the Christian Bible. I'm not even close to a Bible expert I just know how to use Google). Nobody should be surprised that a 138 minute movie takes liberties with the story.

 

I dunno, we aren't really surprised when comic fans complain about alterations like The Mandarin in Iron Man 3 or Electro not wearing a green suit with a lightning bolt cap in The Amazing Spider-man, are we?

[seanotron 2307]

I guess I missed the strip-mining and "every right to the resources of the Earth" stuff.

 

When they go on the trip to see crazy old grandpa Methuselah and his cave of wonders they pass by a mine and Russell Crowe delivers a little sermon about how they ran out of the minerals because they overmined, then Beowful...er, Tubal-Cain is shown using that same unobtainium to forge weapons, etc. And he mentions several times that the Earth is there for him to use, because HE IS A MAN, blah blah blah. I'm not saying it's a terrible message, it just wasn't a subtle one.

[Bolognas 32]

I'd hate to turn this into a religious discussion, I'm kidding, that's exactly what I'm going to do.

 

I'm not a biblical scholar or anything, so I'm talking half way out my ass here, but the Old Testament is not the love your fellow man, God loves you, feel good story that the New Testament kind of is. It's full of brutality and incest, God is often sadistic and genocidal (although is still described as absolutely good), and it's populated by a number of protagonists that a modern audience would definitely not consider "good guys."

 

I don't remember anything about Noah being a psychopath, but hey, it's the Bible, it's open to interpretation. The bible is pretty explicit that man has "dominion" over animals and should "subdue" the land though.

 

(I'm obviously not the biggest fan of the Bible. A more devout person might defend God's actions as necessary, or by arguing that his motives are beyond human understanding, or maybe even something better. I just want to be clear that I'm giving a one-sided view)

[seanotron 2307]

I'm not religious, so my issues with the movie are more as a fan of movies than anything else. I do have a theology studies background, so I guess you could say I noticed 'continuity errors'.

 

 

But mostly - rock ents, unobtanium, environmental themes that made Avatar seem subtle, etc.

[RyanSz 3140]

I'm still waiting for the Jesus and Moses team-up film as predicted by Family Guy, now seems like the perfect time to release it.

[dlo burns 129]

environmental themes that made Avatar seem subtle, etc.

 

That bad, huh?

[Lando 2019]

These descriptions of the environmentalism angle are reminding me a lot of the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still for some reason.

[jarrycanada 2483]

I'm still waiting for the Jesus and Moses team-up film as predicted by Family Guy, now seems like the perfect time to release it.

 

This reminds me of a episode of this amarican life, episode 498

37 min mark.

[JohnHay 0]

Pleaseeeeee do an episode on the movie "Noah" with Russell Crowe. Omg that movie was hilariously awful, PLEASE do it.

[Maximilian 99]

On the positive side, I did think the story of creation was absolutely gorgeous. It just felt like it came from a different movie.

 

That was the only part of the film that I actually enjoyed.

 

The movie, for me, was long enough that I almost forgot about the Rock Angels or Rock Ents. I'm glad I was able to read through the comments today to reinforce just how crazy the movie is. I have no idea how the critics gave it such high scores.