Noah's Farce

I was really excited to see Darren Aronofsky's new movie. Now I don't know if I'd go if you paid me. The movie apparently bears little resemblance to the Biblical narrative. E.g.

Noah is not informed directly by God regarding the flood or his task of building the ark. Instead Noah has a troubling dream which inspires him to seek the counsel of his grandfather Methuselah, who gives a hallucinogen after what could only be regarded as as a vision quest Noah decides to build the ark.

In building the ark Noah is assisted by the Watchers. The watchers are depicted as giant stone creatures with six arms. Noah is informed by the watcher Og that he and his brethren were cast out of heaven because they defended the human race when God ordered their exile from the garden.

Only Noah's oldest son Shem has a wife.

Noah slaughters three men in defense of a buffalo.

Noah believes God does not wish to save his family they are merely stewards of the animals. To this end Noah informs his family that if Shem's wife ila (who is pregnant) gives birth to a girl he will kill the child.

When the flood begins the watchers engage in battle to protect the ark from Tubal-Cain and his followers. Overwhelmed the giants are killed. When they die they are shown ascending to heaven.

As the waters rise Tubal-Cain latches himself to the side of the ark. He proceeds to use his ax to chop through the ark becoming a stowaway, eating lizards which had been saved by Noah. He then plots with Ham to murder Noah. Ham however decides to kill Tubal-Cain.

ila gives birth to twin girls. Noah prays and becomes convinced God wishes for mankind to die off in order to save the animals who are are referred to as Innocents. At the last moment before stabbing a knife into one of the newborn's skull he decides he wont kill the child as despite God's supposed will. This causes him to feel that he has failed God.

During a cut scene showing the fall of man a snake slithers between Adam and Eve it sheds it's skin which is retrieved by Adam. It is used as a relic of great power throughout the film. Methuselah uses it to restore ila's womb which had been damaged as a child. It's used by Noah to bless his sons.

What really makes me mad is the way the movie trailer panders to those of us who share a faith in an Abrahamic religion. In particular the scene portion in which Tubal-Cain says "I stand with an army at my back; yet you stand alone and defy me." and Noah says "I'm not alone." This evokes a powerful emotion in me and I would assume in anyone else in the Abrahamic religions. It is a core belief that God is continually with us (even until the very end). Sadly and disappointingly Noah isn't talking about God in this scene but rather about the watchers.

I too was looking forward to the movie, and after hearing what it was REALLY about, I decided to not see it either.

It's a disgrace how they try to make it out to be "true to the bible" and don't even say God was the one responsible for Noah building the Ark.

reply to post by Josephus


Keep in mind that the movie used the Book of Enoch and other texts as source material. They didn't just stick with the "official" story.

You would think it would be well received by ATS members since we seem to question every other official story...

reply to post by PsychoEmperor


You were smarter than me saving $15. This movie made my wife ill for hours afterward. This movie was absurd in all repesects if they wanted to compare even 1% to a "Biblical movie"......nothing could be farther from the truth. This is simply another sick and putrid movie tht hollywouldnt slithers around in............

Get a grip guys, ITS A FRICKEN MOVIE!!!!

It was made by Hollywood not the Vatican, its meant to be entertaining not a perfect version of another fictional (or at least highly edited and exaggerated) Book.

See it to be entertained and forget the blasphemy angle

EDIT: May wanna include SPOILER in the title, I was gonna watch it anyway but you gave away stuff that is technically spoilers for thoise of us who arent completely aware of the full biblical story.
That said, a movie set in ancient times about a bad ass extremist animal rights activist with some 6 armed stone giants thrown in sounds fricken Awesome

IkNOwSTuff
Get a grip guys, ITS A FRICKEN MOVIE!!!!

It was made by Hollywood not the Vatican, its meant to be entertaining not a perfect version of another fictional (or at least highly edited and exaggerated) Book.

See it to be entertained and forget the blasphemy angle

true, it is a Hollywood movie, but they mislead people to believe it based on the story of Noah. when In actuality the movie is completely opposite of the story in almost every aspect.

I wont be spending money to watch this, ill wait until its free on tv and I have nothing else to watch

How about a spoiler warning before you just throw the whole plot at us?

Have no interest in seeing that movie based on a fairy tale, unless they show what the lions and other predators ate on the ark, all the deviations to drop off animals that only exist in specific areas, having higly specialized habitats and diets for the animals needing it, etc, etc, etc. Let us face it, the whole Noah story is just a fairy tale....

I saw a couple of commercials for the movie and a few questions popped up.
1. When did Noah start dressing like a Viking?
2. When did Noah get a flaming sword or whatever that weapon he used to make the wall of flame?
3. What's with the geysers of water? According to the bible all the water came from rain.

Hellhound604
Have no interest in seeing that movie based on a fairy tale, unless they show what the lions and other predators ate on the ark, all the deviations to drop off animals that only exist in specific areas, having higly specialized habitats and diets for the animals needing it, etc, etc, etc. Let us face it, the whole Noah story is just a fairy tale....

Did this movie, at any point, attempt to impress upon its prospective audience that the following tale was an interpretation of real events? Or is that a preconception likely to have been carried in on the shoulders of viewers attending for precisely that reason?

AfterInfinity
How about a spoiler warning before you just throw the whole plot at us?

How could you not know the plot already? A man builds a boat loads up a bunch of animals the place floods and off they go. It's like going to watch the Titanic. A big boat tries to cross the ocean hit an iceberg and sinks not much of a story to it.

I cant help but laugh at all the fools out there whining "thats not how it really happened"....

It's a movie. Big deal. It does not reflect reality. Neither does the Biblical story of Noah. That's as fanciful as the movie; it's just written in text instead of film. BOTH have agendas and both have roughly the same message. In the Bible God kills everyone but Noah and his crew because people were so evil. In the movie the "Earth" kills everyone but Noah and his crew because people have "caused an environmental disaster." They are both politically correct for their times.

The Biblical story is very old mythology that recounts a flood in ancient times, similar to lots of mythological flood stories around the world. It probably reflects a real "flood" along the seacoast, but it did not cover the earth and it did not kill everyone but Noah, who is unlikely to have existed at all. If Noah DID exist, he grabbed some chickens and goats and ran onto the nearest fishing boat to escape the rising water. The idea that all species were on the ark is fanciful nonsense. The idea that "God did it" is human interpretation of rising sea water caused by melting ice. It wasn't mysterious at all, if it happened at all.

The movie is typical Hollywood leftist propaganda, but hey! It's a great adventure story, too! It doesn't follow the fanciful Biblical script, but no movie ever does. Both are fiction anyway. Watch any movie derived from a novel and note the many differences. Crichton's excellent book "Timeline" was made into an awful movie that changed the characters and the story. "Jaws" changed who survived in Peter Benchley's book of the same name. The series "Lovejoy" on BBC cuts out all the affairs in the books to make it palatable for TV, but then, it's an old series that could have left them in today. In all the Robin Hood movies the directors can't seem to decide whether King Richard lived to return to England or died in France on the way back. Throughout the film-making industry source material is used for inspiration, but rarely must directors blindly follow the script of the book.

Objections that "Noah" is "not authentic" are touted largely by OCD fundamentalists under the delusion that the Bible is the actual Word of God. They're likely reincarnated monks who worked in a Scriptorium making illustrated copies of the Bible their whole lives. For them to say "Noah" is "fantasy" is worth a good laugh. So go to the movie and enjoy it, gritting your teeth at the parts you can't fathom, or don't go. Nobody cares but the Box Office, and the Box Office Has Spoken with $44 million on the first weekend, which makes it on target for the biggest movie of the year. It's just a movie. It's fictional entertainment. At least they're honest about it.

captaintyinknots
I cant help but laugh at all the fools out there whining "thats not how it really happened"....

Fools?

your not so very tolerant of peoples believes, that includes story's from the Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Mesopotamians, Hindus, ancient pacific islanders and native American tales, ancient African tribe tales, ancient Japanese/ Chinese's tales of the great flood, so on and so forth.

there all fools right, the world is a fool?

buster2010

AfterInfinity
How about a spoiler warning before you just throw the whole plot at us?

How could you not know the plot already? A man builds a boat loads up a bunch of animals the place floods and off they go. It's like going to watch the Titanic. A big boat tries to cross the ocean hit an iceberg and sinks not much of a story to it.

The OP made it clear that the movie didn't exactly stick to the material from which it was taken. Which means there is NEW stuff in it. Stone giants with six arms? Never heard of that being in the story. And that's the stuff I wouldn't want spoiled for me. Common sense. Especially given that you yourself were evidently surprised by some of the content:

buster2010
I saw a couple of commercials for the movie and a few questions popped up.
1. When did Noah start dressing like a Viking?
2. When did Noah get a flaming sword or whatever that weapon he used to make the wall of flame?
3. What's with the geysers of water? According to the bible all the water came from rain.

Clearly, you don't know the plot of the movie either. At least, not all of it.

I thought this was funny, just for today:

camaro68ss

captaintyinknots
I cant help but laugh at all the fools out there whining "thats not how it really happened"....

Fools?

your not so very tolerant of peoples believes, that includes story's from the Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Mesopotamians, Hindus, ancient pacific islanders and native American tales, ancient African tribe tales, ancient Japanese/ Chinese's tales of the great flood, so on and so forth.

there all fools right, the world is a fool?

If you claim to know how it happened, or that it definitively did happen, yes, you are a fool.

Getting upset about an artist's interpretation of a fable is certainly a fool's errand.

I can honestly say I haven't seen any trailer or heard from any where else that this is the literal translation of Noah, and for one I'll say thank God for that. I'm sick or all that dogmatic self grandising crap. Watch one of the other million crappy "'re-tellings" with absolutely no imagination in it.

Big stoney six arm giant nephelim? Cool!
Big stoney Noah drug trip 're-interpretation' of being told by God? Cool! (God speaks to me this way to)
The 'badguy' doing what he can to stay alive cape fear style? We'll, that works for me too!

Plus I'm pretty sure in the flood myth that as well as the rain coming down, earth waters rise from out of the ground too? Or did that come from some other flood myth?

I guess it comes down to how hard you hold on to the dogma.
I feel the same way about the comic book movies...

Aronofsky is one of the best, most interesting directors working today and I will see this movie.
I have no interest in the Bible really, I'm not religious but I definitely want to see this film.
I LOVE that it's annoying people and It's causing discussion and debate.

I also like that he has put things in that DO appear in the bible but people like to gloss over, Like drunken Noah..
It's also already been banned in many countries, that's no surprise though.


An Interesting interview from today here

www.independent.co.uk...

In the end, Aronofsky’s Noah is akin to his other obsessive characters. From the numerology-searching mathematician in Pi to Natalie Portman’s ballerina striving for perfection in Black Swan, they all teeter on the brink of madness for what they believe in.

“I like that kind of tightrope walk between sanity and insanity. I think that often demonstrates what’s sane – seeing when people go slightly over the edge. You can look back and see everything that’s come before you.”

And that's what Aronofsky does well for me... I have no interest in The Bible... but then neither did I in Wrestling, Ballet or Number Theory... and I liked those films just fine.
I also LOVED The Fountain...

My problem with it is that Aronofsky took themes he considered sacred - environmentalism, humans are evil, industrialization is bad, etc. - and ripped out the Biblical themes about human wickedness and sin toward each other except in passing and as side effects of the themes he found more important. In not mentioning God, which is fine as there are faith groups who do not speak His name, and them using the environmental themes he did, God sort of become Gaia.

So in the end what we wound up with is a Biblical skin installed over sacred environmentalist screed, not actually anything related to the Bible or its account of Noah at all except on the surface.

This isn't going to bother people who don't feel that the Bible has anything sacred to it.