Noah and the Flood

Hey guys!  It's been a while haha xD  School is killer.  I'll try to post more consistently now, but we'll see.

This will be a post about the non-biblical biblical film Noah.  If you haven't seen it, then there ARE SPOILERS ahead.  But if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend that you never see it.  Yeah.  It's that bad.

Anyway, here we go.

Since one of my favorite stories in the Bible is about Noah and the Flood, imagine my excitement when I see that there is a movie called Noah that is being made.

Imagine then my excitement when I discover that Noah is about Noah and the ark.  

Imagine my excitement when I find that Russell Crowe (who proved he can act really well in 2012's Les Miserables) was starring in it.

After all that hype and all that excitement building up, try to imagine my immense disappointment when I realize that the 140-minute movie has nothing in common with the Biblical account other than there was a man named Noah, there was a Flood, and there were animals on said ark.

First we'll begin with why Noah built the ark.  In actuality, the Bible makes it clear that God made known His intentions to Noah through direct conversation. Noah knew what he was doing and why.  In the movie, God "spoke" to Noah through unclear visions that left Noah guessing as to what he was being instructed to do.  There was no real communication between Noah and God, and Noah is made out to look like a crazy man who has no idea what he's doing.  Even his family believes that he's crazy.  While I'd understand if the other people in the world thought he was crazy (and they must have -- they had never heard of 'rain' before) his family, I believe, would've stood by him the whole time.

There's this one scene in the trailer where Tubel-Cain and his army are confronting Noah and his family about the ark, and Tubel-Cain says to Noah, "I have an army at my back, and you alone defy me?"  At that point, I thought Noah was talking about God to which I was thinking "Yes!" But in the movie, Noah is actually talking about these massive stone giant things.  Not God. 

Bummer.

And the stone giants raise questions as well.  But for that we'll need to go back to the Creation story.  Remember how one-third of heaven's angels fell with Lucifer in the beginning?  Well, apparently in the film, they fell because they wished to help Adam and Eve and had no real connection to Lucifer at all.  And when they fell, they became encased with the rock and mud of this world so that they would stay down here.

Bam.  Now we have stone giants.

They elect to help Noah, believing that if they do so they'll redeem themselves and be found worthy once more to enter heaven.  And, when they die by Tubel-Cain's men, little golden spirit things do indeed go up into the sky back to heaven.  Curious.

Tubel-Cain also had rocket-launchers.  I mean, the Bible says that he made iron swords and everything... but rocket-launchers?  No way.

A couple paragraphs ago I mentioned the Creation story, which is another thing about the film.  Early on, Noah tells his kids the account of Creation.  His words and the visuals accompanying the dialogue implied that God created some animals and that those animals evolved into other animals, which seemed to eventually evolve into man.  

And after that, we come a certain man you've probably heard of named Methuselah.  Great name.  He's made out in the film to be some sort of wizard-guy-person who can do  nearly everything.  He makes Noah's son Japheth (more on him later) fall asleep with a touch on the forehead and he can make Noah's son Shem's wife (more on her later as well) not barren with a single touch.  And the film does nothing to suggest that this power comes from God.  It seems to be the work of a magician.

In the biblical account, Noah's sons are all old enough to help Noah build the ark during the century that Noah spends building.  In the film, however, Japheth seems to be barely older than ten or twelve, even after the century of building (which probably didn't take a century since they had the helpful stone giants pitching a hand).  And the biblical story clearly states that Noah's three sons all had wives... but in the film, two of them (Ham and Japheth) didn't, and Shem's wife (Ila or something like that) was unable to have children.

But that doesn't matter.  She wishes to have a child, so she sees Methuselah just before the flood waters hit, and he makes her able to give birth and stuff.  

Now the Flood waters hit.  There are about five people on the ark right now.  Noah's wife (the film calls her Naamah), Ham, Shem, Japheth, and Ila.  Where's the film's titular character you ask?  Well, he's literally hanging onto a rope that's tied to the ark.

And he keeps hanging on even after the tsunami-like waves hit... makes you wonder why the other people couldn't have done the same thing.

Eventually Noah gets inside the ark, so there are six people on the ark now.  But then we find out that Tubel-Cain had managed to stow away on the ark, so now we have seven!  Or, rather, eight, because Shem and Ila find out that she's pregnant with a child.  

Noah's immensely displeased by this.  Why?

Well, in this film, since Noah was never clearly told why he's building an ark to escape the floodwaters, he thinks that God's trying to wipe out all of mankind, and just intends to save the animals.  Noah feels that people should no longer exist.  He says that if the child is a boy, then he can be the last surviving person.  If the child is female, however, Noah will have to kill her.

What?!  My impression of Noah when I read of him in the Bible was always a kind grandfatherly character... not this raving madman who threatens to kill kids.  But wait.  It gets better.

Sooner or later, Noah discovers that Tubel-Cain is on the ark, so he confronts him in an epic swordfight.  Ham joins in, fighting against Noah because he's bummed that Noah wouldn't let him have a wife.  Eventually Tubel-Cain gives Ham the chance to kill Noah, but Ham takes this opportunity to instead kill Tubel-Cain.

Now we're down to six people on the ark again.

Oh wait, there's more.  Apparently Ila gives birth to twins!  So now we're at eight, the number of people that should have been on the ark to begin with.  Unfortunately, the twins are both girls, so there's a couple of minutes of Noah raving and ranting like a lunatic as he scours the ark looking for Ila and the girls.  Eventually he finds them and is about to kill the girls but decides not to.

Eventually the flood is over, the people and animals get off, and all seems to be well with the world.  Except Noah's living now thinking that he failed God because the human race is not extinct.  So he gets drunk and lies naked in a cave.  Ham finds him, and then Shem and Japheth (who still looks pretty young) cover him up.  When Noah wakes, he curses Ham and Ham leaves to try and find a wife in a world that was just covered in flood waters.

I don't think he'll succeed.

----

In summary, I rarely find a movie that I will call a complete waste of my time, but there are some (Transformers... Divergent...)  And now Noah.  

And now there's even a movie called Exodus: Gods and Kings out!  Starring Christian Bale as Moses.  Now, I'm not a big fan of the Dark Knight trilogy (yeah I know, heresy or whatever) but Christian Bale was good in that, so he could probably be good as Moses.  But when I heard that God was cast as an 11-year-old kid and there was no talking burning bush, I decided that I will probably never watch it, because then I will probably have a fourth movie that was a complete waste of time.

Honestly, Hollywood, if you're going to make a Bible movie, make it accurate. Make it good.  Please.

So who cares about Exodus: Gods and Kings.  If I want a good movie based on Moses, I'll go watch The Prince of Egypt.

Myth: the "Panda With a Pencil"