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Darren Aronofsky’s Noah (Spoilers for you to decide whether or not the movie's worth watching)
Red State ^ | 03/28/2014 | By: Erick Erickson

Posted on 03/28/2014 9:33:46 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

I don’t get all the claims of radical environmentalism in Noah. I saw it last night. I did not draw out of it the environmentalism. In the movie, Noah took the position that all mankind had corrupted the earth with sin and God intended to wipe them all out. Noah presumed God would wipe him and his family out too once all the animals were saved. Sure, Noah was a vegetarian and the bad guys are meat eaters who do to the earth what Saruman did, but I don’t really see the whacked out radical environmentalism. It’s more thematic of man’s sin polluting everything.

The film is a remarkable display of special effects. It is also one of the funniest comedies I have seen in a very long time. Aronofsky deserves a great deal of praise for turning a serious subject into a non-stop laugh fest of techno-electro music, orchestral scores, blasting special effects, and even rock monsters.

Therein lies my chief problem with the movie. The advertisement campaign tried to ease Christians’ nerves that all would be well, artistic license was taken, but the movie would be faithful to the story. If they hadn’t tried to con Christians into the movie, I wouldn’t have a problem. It was a pretty awesome sci-fi spectacle complete with Ent like rock monsters, a super powered Methuselah, glow in the dark space alien Adam and Eve, and Hermione Granger. “God” is never mentioned. He is referred to throughout as the “Creator”. I get that a director has to fill a two hour movie based off of a couple of chapters in the Bible, but holy cow!

The premise is pretty straight forward. Noah descends from the line of Seth. The serpent in the Garden of Eden shed its snake skin, which had magical properties that flowed from father to son. As Noah’s father was about to pass the magical powers off to Noah, Noah’s father is attacked by Cain’s descendent, killed, and Noah runs away. Cain’s descendent, soon to be King Cain, takes the snake skin unaware of its magical properties.

In flash back we see that Adam and Eve were glow in the dark space aliens who became fully flesh once Eve bit into the fruit.

I am not kidding.

Noah grows up and — herein is a problem — somehow in the barren wasteland in which he lives has found a wife and has three sons. He has a wicked cool dream that convinces him he must seek out his grandfather, Methuselah, who lives in a mountain, because the Creator is going to destroy the planet.

Noah and his family cross a Mad Max line wasteland of rubble, pipes, skulls, and destruction. They save Hermione Granger, but are attacked by Cain’s kinfolk.

Noah and family rush past a mountain of skulls and are attacked by giant rock monsters. The rock monsters hate people. Turns out they are fallen angles who decided to take care of Adam and Eve once the “Creator” cast them out of Eden. To punish them, the Creator covers them in lava making them rock monsters. They protected Cain’s folks until the people turned on them. Only Methuselah with his magical powers and flaming sword could protect the rock monsters from men. The rock monsters are rock like Ents, but behave like the green space aliens in Toy Story. They always look up and sing “the Creator” instead of “the Claw”

I am not kidding.

In any event, a good rock monster helps Noah and his family find Methuselah. There is no explanation for why Noah has left the green area of his grandfather for a harsh, volcanic desert. But there you have it. Anthony Hopkins … errrr … Methuselah lives in a cave up a mountain. He invites Noah to tea, giving Noah hallucinogenic tea. Noah learns he must build an ark in the barren wasteland that has no trees anywhere at all.

That’s okay because Anthony Hopkins … errrr … Methuselah has a magic seed from the Garden of Eden. Noah and the rock monster plant it.

I am not kidding.

The next day, the bad rock monsters show up to take the good rock monster away. But the magical seed sprouts a fountain in the middle of the ground. As the water flows from it, trees shoot up. Everywhere the water touches new green life sprouts. Noah realizes God has given him the trees to build the ark.

So the rock monsters build the ark.

It’s okay. They have multiple hands so they can strip branches with one set of hands while sawing and hammering with other hands.

I am not kidding.

Eventually, Ham gets horny and lusts after Hermione, who is in love with Shem. But Hermione is barren so she won’t sleep with anybody. Ham wants a wife for himself because he gets tired of spying on Shem and Hermione’s heavy petting in the forest.

When King Cain shows up to fight Noah for the Ark — attracted by all the trees and water — Ham goes in search of a wife of his own. Meanwhile, Anthony Hopkins … errrr … Methuselah uses his magical powers on Hermione to make her fertile. She in turn immediately chases after Shem, strips and rips off Harry Potter’s Shem’s clothes, and they have sex right there under the trees.

I am not kidding.

Ham finds his own girl in a mass grave. She’s still alive.

I am not kidding.

It starts to rain, everybody runs back to the Ark, King Cain decides to attack, Ham’s girl gets caught in a bear trap, Noah lets the girl die in a stampede of people, and the rock monsters start beating the hell out of the humans.

The humans overpower the rock monsters, each of whom explode in terrific fashion as their angelic fallen selves rocket back up to Heaven forgiven.

I am not kidding.

Water bursts forth from the ground, everybody drowns, but King Cain is able to climb the scaffolding, use an axe to hack into the Ark, and hide himself known only to Ham.

Everybody dies except the folks on the Ark. They have managed to get all the animals to sleep with incense that does not also put themselves to sleep. Noah then announces they too will die. Hermione announces she is pregnant. Noah announces he will kill her kids.

Noah has decided even his family must die because all mankind is sinful.

Shem builds a second ark/raft for himself and Hermione, but Noah has magical glowing rocks that he can turn into fire. He burns up the mini-Ark as Hermione goes into labor.

I am not kidding.

Ham and King Cain kill the unicorns on the boat, splatter the blood on Ham, and Ham runs up to his dad before Noah can kill his grandkids. Ham says the animals are awake eating each other. Noah runs downstairs, King Cain attacks Noah, Shem attacks Noah, Ham stands back watching them kill each other, and the boat hits a rock.

I am not kidding.

King Cain gets injured, Ham finishes him off, Shem is knocked out, and Noah races upstairs to kill his grandkids — twin girls.

Hermione Granger convinces Voldemort Noah she needs to sing the Weasley twins a lullaby to get them to stop crying before Noah spears them in the head. They go quiet, Hermione cries, the Noah decides to kiss the kids instead of killing them.

They all get off the boat, Noah moves out and retires to the beach, grows grapes, and gets drunk and naked in a beach cave. The oldest and youngest kids cover him up and Ham just glares, still bitter than Dad let his potential wife get stampeded over by Cain’s clan. Ham, it turns out, has taken the magic snake skin from King Cain, who had taken it from Noah’s dad way back when.

I am not kidding.

Ham packs up and leaves to be alone forever. Hermione convinces Noah that the Creator picked Noah so Noah could decided if man would die out or continue. Noah sobers up, heads up the mountain to play footsie with his wife in the dirt, then reactivates the magic in the snake skin and passes the magic on to his twin granddaughters.

A big rainbow bursts forth and the movie ends.

I am not kidding.

I laughed my butt off the whole way through. You probably just want to wait till it is in Netflix. Not sure it is worth it for anyone who takes the Bible seriously. I expect the left hail it as a breakthrough with a great new interpretation. Rachel Held Evans will probably hold repeat viewings of it to discuss the feminist implications of this Biblical account, which is no doubt more faithful than the original version.

If the producers had framed this movie as a “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” allegory, that’d be one thing. But to say it is faithful to the Book of Genesis is just pandering with a lie on the end.

I’d wait to see it if I were you. Also, we might should consider burning at the stake any Christian leader who endorses this movie. The book is always better.


TOPICS: History; Religion; Society; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: aronofsky; darrenaronofsk; movies; noah; noahmovie; noahreview
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1 posted on 03/28/2014 9:33:46 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Too bad they didn’t name it:

“Valley of the Nephalim”

Then they could have hollywooded all night long and into the next day


2 posted on 03/28/2014 9:36:01 AM PDT by xzins ( Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! Those who truly support our troops pray for victory!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Noah? Uh, no.


3 posted on 03/28/2014 9:38:02 AM PDT by Genoa (Starve the beast.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Thanks. I was curious but wasn’t going to waste money on it.


4 posted on 03/28/2014 9:40:59 AM PDT by BipolarBob
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To: SeekAndFind

Bill Cosby used to do a funny bit about Noah.


5 posted on 03/28/2014 9:43:27 AM PDT by dainbramaged (Don't tell me, I'll tell you.)
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To: SeekAndFind
A mere oversight in a movie about Noah ... “God” is never mentioned.
6 posted on 03/28/2014 9:44:05 AM PDT by shove_it (my real nickname is Otter)
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To: dainbramaged

Cosby:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bputeFGXEjA


7 posted on 03/28/2014 9:48:53 AM PDT by Rio (Proud resident of the State of Jefferson)
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To: SeekAndFind

Replaces sin according to God with sin according to Gaia and Al Gore. Trash. Also funny that they substituted God for Creator to appeal to other faiths.... then it was banned across the Muslim world. Fail.


8 posted on 03/28/2014 9:50:57 AM PDT by Viennacon
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To: dainbramaged

"It's the Lord, Noah!"

"*....Right."
9 posted on 03/28/2014 9:54:11 AM PDT by Bratch
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To: Bratch

“How long can you tread water?”


10 posted on 03/28/2014 9:54:53 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: SeekAndFind

Maybe when it comes on TV....


11 posted on 03/28/2014 9:56:25 AM PDT by onedoug
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To: xzins

I’m not going to waste my precious time, never mind my money.


12 posted on 03/28/2014 9:57:25 AM PDT by onyx (Please Support Free Republic - Donate Monthly! If you want on Sarah Palin's Ping List, Let Me know!)
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To: shove_it

>>A mere oversight in a movie about Noah ... “God” is never mentioned.

These were people who aren’t far removed from the originally created couple, Adam and Eve. It is not unreasonable to think that they would call God “Creator”, since that was a pretty big thing.


13 posted on 03/28/2014 9:58:44 AM PDT by Bryanw92 (Sic semper tyrannis)
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To: SeekAndFind

So basically, it’s a remake of Evan Almighty....All that’s missing is Morgan Freeman to play God.


14 posted on 03/28/2014 9:59:47 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: SeekAndFind

I don’t know who the author thinks “The Creator” is but, he is most certainly God.

Think about it: We owe a due reverance to our creato, God.

“The Great Architect” of the universe is God.

All of creation was of “The Master Planner”, God.

At the time Noah, I imagine, man was still very much in the beginning stage of the sciences, math and understanding of their existence and from whence they came.

God has come to be known by many and highly appropriate terms, all of which accurately describe our understanding of him, his creation and cause us to consider our spiritual place in his various plans, as well as our physical place and “why?” for our existence and “why?” we are here at this place, this time on the 3rd rock from the sun.

It is The Creator from whom all existence occurred and takes place.

All things have a mathematical formula for it’s being, its shape, its size and placement in the universe.

Why? We don’t kniw yet but, what we are learning is that math is the foundation for everythings existence.

Knowing that math explains a “why” and can prove with predictability, repeatadly, we are left to ask “Where did that formula come from?”.

We are only now learning that which “The Creator” always understood, understands and has left to us his legacy for curiosity, creating, understanding that which we create(as man) and proving its truth by a repeatable process.

It is “The Creator” and “Great Architect” of the universe who gave us all that we know and we are now discovering the mathematical formulas for explaining everything.

So who created the secrets of mathematical formulas?

“God, The Creator and Great Architect of the Universe”.

We owe reverance to our creator, much like we owe reverance to our parents.

When I bow my head and give thanks I thank my creator.

He had no reason to create me that I understand and none further for allowing me to exist today, yesterday or maybe tomorrow but, he did create me.

The Creator is our God, The One True God who created all that exists and we owe our due reverance to The Great Architect of the Universe, God, The Creator.

Not pithy but, maybe useful to someone...


15 posted on 03/28/2014 10:03:54 AM PDT by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously-you won't live through it anyway-Enjoy Yourself ala Louis Prima)
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To: onyx

I’ve always liked Russell Crowe’s committment to being in movies that have a decent message. In this one, though, the sales people snookered him. Like one article said, “don’t start a land war in Asia”. Next to it, “Don’t make a bible movie that bears zero resemblance to the bible.”


16 posted on 03/28/2014 10:04:39 AM PDT by xzins ( Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! Those who truly support our troops pray for victory!)
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To: SeekAndFind
They save Hermione Granger

This might have been the films redemption...

nah...

17 posted on 03/28/2014 10:11:05 AM PDT by rjsimmon (The Tree of Liberty Thirsts)
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To: dainbramaged

OMG!!!

My Dad has that record. I think it’s the one with Cosby and a Basketball.

“Noah!” Still funny and I’ll bet it’s on Youtube...

I’ll be if I ponder that album, I can repeat the story ala Cosby.

That was sometime in the 60’s. We lived in Reno when that came out and I remember it vividly.


18 posted on 03/28/2014 10:11:37 AM PDT by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously-you won't live through it anyway-Enjoy Yourself ala Louis Prima)
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To: SeekAndFind

Based on the spoilers presented here, I think the producers used some secondary sources including the book of Enoch, the work of scientists at the Institute for Creation Research, and from a fiction series by Vaughn Tepper (”The People of the Ark”, etc) just to name a few.

Obviously, this isn’t the children’s Sunday school version of the Flood, but that isn’t perfectly biblical either.

Although they did add a lot of extra-biblical stuff to the movie, I don’t think they took anything away from it. I’ll go see it, because I’ve read the book (and all those secondary sources as well) and I’m intrigued.


19 posted on 03/28/2014 10:14:01 AM PDT by Bryanw92 (Sic semper tyrannis)
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To: dfwgator

ROTFLMAO!!!!

Gawd, I can remember playing that album.

Soh funny, even today...


20 posted on 03/28/2014 10:18:20 AM PDT by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously-you won't live through it anyway-Enjoy Yourself ala Louis Prima)
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