Missed the edit, but I meant to say ‘pondering’ not ‘ponderous’ as The Fountain. Though, of course, YMMV.
I’m surprised that there have been no protests from the Ancient Babylonians, it was their story after all. I’m willing to bet though that they will boycott the movie and Hollywood can expect zero profits from Babylon and Ur of the Chaldees.
In the original story, Noah didn’t refuse to let anyone on the boat. No one else wanted on the boat, since no one but his family believed him. And, based on the reviews I’ve seen (including the one linked in this thread) that is pretty much what shows the problems with this movie.
There’s very little story to start with, and you go and change the parts that are there? And not some small part, but one of the main points of the story? And you do so as to make the hero appear villainous? This is like a making a movie called Beowulf and making it about how Beowulf was killing a defenseless animal because it looked different.
It’s no wonder Muslims, Christians, and Jewish people didn’t like it. It took an important story from their religion and changed it to where the hero is a horrible person. That’s a fundamental change beyond any other Hollywood bastardization that I’ve ever seen.
I was wondering why you guys seemed to like it, but my sister’s first words in response to questions about the movie wer “it was a terrible movie.” They named the movie Noah, clearly an attempt to draw the religious in by the source material, but then completely disrespected the original story.
Is it just about the word “God” or about how the character is (not) shown in the film? From what I’ve read, God’s voice was changed to a hallucination from a drug trip–and this is on the sites that think the movie was good.
I must admit, mixing Noah’s Ark with The Shining did seem like a slightly strange angle to choose.
Ended up not a bad movie, but gordamn, Noah’s Ark is such a cheesy foundation for a serious film.
Don’t forget the ill-will from all the neighbors whose driveways Noah blocked with the Ark. Made all of those people late for work, y’know. 
*C’mon, you know I don’t work like that!
*
One of the messages I got from the film was: People that claim to hear the creator talking don’t always make good decisions. Maybe it is entropy at work.
Saw it yesterday. Noah was angrier and stabbier than I expected. The Watchers were absolutely laughable. I said to my son, “How did anyone come up with that idea and think it was any good?”
He replied, “Well they obviously changed there minds after it was too late, because I don’t recall any hint of them in the trailers.” And he was right.
That could explain why the religious right is so down on it. Humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time, donchaknow?
:dubious:
Sorry, but I just reread the original story, and I see nothing to support that. God decides to destroy the earth, he tells Noah to build an ark and take his family and the animals aboard, and the Flood starts. There is no hint that anyone else was allowed on board. It really doesn’t say anything about anyone else, except that “the evil of man was great on the earth,” but it’s hard to believe that EVERYBODY was evil, including little kids.
And although it doesn’t say it, common sense tells you that once the water started rising, people would have tried to get on, just like in all the movies where people roll their eyes at the guys with fallout shelters, but then try to get in when the bombs start falling. Obviously, Noah would have had to fight them off.
I haven’t seen the movie, but the ads make it look like they were fighting over the ark before the Flood started. Although that’s less certain, it’s not contradicted by anything in the Bible, and it’s plausible that either somebody did believe him, or they simply wanted to steal the ark for the same reasons that people steal cars today.
The people I saw (on Hannity) were explicitly objecting to the use of the term “Creator” rather than “God,” so it seems to be just about the word. An hallucination does not create the universe.
Now that you mention it, they were also upset that the film made Noah look like some kind of hippie who was outraged that people were eating meat, which they interpreted as an environmentalist agenda. But that actually is Biblical; the Bible says that God didn’t allow meat-eating until after the Flood.
Contrary to most critics ( seemingly ) I rather enjoyed the Neil Gaiman/Roger Avary re-imagining of Beowulf as a very tough but boastful, not exceptionally bright and rather morally weak character. Grendel in their take isn’t exactly defenseless or innocent, but he IS pitiable, while Hrothgar and Beowulf emerge as selfish and deeply flawed. A much more realistic and human take on the classic hero trope.
If somebody steals a car, that car is either a) on a street or b) adjacent to a street. Stealing a ship that is nowhere near water, might not be seaworthy, and might not be able to support its own weight if you remove it from its scaffold to move it is nothing like stealing a car. It is more like stealing a house.
You’re right, it was a bad example, since cars are often very convenient to steal. But people go to all kinds of trouble to steal other things – digging tunnels under banks, etc. People even fight wars to steal all but useless desert land.
I do believe that the reason Aronofsky made the film was out of a hippie/environmentalist/vegetarian mindset, but all of the arguments made in the film along that angle were perfectly valid Jewish/Christian theology.
I continually find it amusing that the “Christian” party is the Republicans, when all Christian teaching is far more Democratic/Socialist.
Well, here’s one guy’s theory:
(it’s a cartoon parody of Noah, trying to inventory the animals,–sorting a board full of sticky notes, trying to keep the various predators apart from each other, etc. Fun to watch! 
).
Maybe I read different critics, but I thought many liked it. At any rate, I was pleasantly surprised by that film, too, and thoroughly enjoyed it-- even though I watched it at home, and not in 3-D iMAX as was supposedly the best way to see it. Which is exactly how I will eventually see Noah, too.
That is funny, the tone and delivery reminds me a bit of Ricky Gervais’ standup shows. “No wonder I’m going to be a hopeless alcoholic when this is all over.”
I enjoyed the first half, weird CGI and all. There were some epic moments but the second half didn’t do much for me. Ray Winstone was a really good bad guy–I liked the part where he bites the head off a lizard.:eek:
So has the movie.