So because I know you want it (note sarcasm), here is my take on the movie Noah that I just saw (disclamier, spoilers ahead lol): Now first I must admit I am not the type of person that doesnt see a movie simply because some other Christian says I shouldnt. So yes I went to see Noah because it looked interesting. Sadly it was not. Now I say this not from a religious perspective but from a movie lovers perspective. While there are many problems with the movie (i.e. lack of depth in characters, lack of insight into their thinking, etc.) most of all the problems can be attributed to one main issue that plagues the entire story. Now we all know the story of Noah, man is evil and wicked so God decides to destroy the earth and Noah is tasked to build a boat to save it. The problem comes for this story and the movie on the definition of mans wickedness. Arnovsky (the writer and director) expresses mans overarching sin and evil as the destruction and raping of the world. Sin is an ecological issue. Man kills animals and plants and thus they are wicked. Here in lies the issue, to the writer of the story of Noah in the Bible this idea of ecological sin would have been completely foreign. To think that mans true sin would be how they treat the planet would never have entered the original writers mind. So now Arnofsky is forced to stretch the story in places it was never designed to go because it simply wasnt in the text to begin with. This is where the movie goes wrong. You see, Arnofsky had to create a device in the story that would account for the earths mass destruction and pillaging. Man simply wasnt capable of the level of destruction. They didnt have the technology or the numbers. So Arnofsky simply writes fallen angels into the script that help man create massive technological cities, and give them the tools necessary to mine and rape the earth. These fallen angels helped Adam and were cursed to earth and encased in rock. This is where the movie simply goes absurd. Had Arnofsky followed the original authors point that mans true sin was ultimately manifest in their killing of other humans, then we would have no need for these mythical creatures that are actually quite comical. These fallen angels or watchers as they are called then conveniently decide to help Noah build the ark, as it is plain to see that Arnofsky does not believe Noah could have done this huge task on his own. No problem, let rock encrusted angels do it. Then we move to the period on the ark. You see this ecological theme does not end there, but moves to Noah, who becomes a neurotic environmentalist who comes to believe that God never intended man to ultimately survive the flood, but only the innocent animals and plants. Noah comes to see that all humans including himself are wicked and must not procreate. Man is secondary now in Gods eyes to the earth and animals. They must be allowed to live. Again this would have been absolutely foreign to the writer of Genesis. Man wasnt secondary to animals in this story, man was the crux of this story. The apex of Gods creation was us! So this naturally places tension as now Noah is the decider of mankinds fate, not God. We see this clearly at the end. Noah feels he failed because he couldnt kill his family. He has doomed all these poor animals to their destruction because he selfishly chose himself. Ultimately man has learned nothing. This film suffered because it didnt stay true to the HEART of Noah the story as it is found in the Bible. It is one thing to take artistic liberties with a story, I have no problem with that as an art lover, it is another thing to gut the heart and soul of a story and change its essence completely. Noah the movie is guilty of reading our own westernized hyper-liberal environmental issue into it and placing it at the core of the story. This causes everything to fall apart because Noah was never ever about that. Now Im not arguing about whether or not environmentalism is wrong, Im arguing it simply had no place in this particular story and thus destroyed the heart of it. That is why Noah is a bad movie, not because it demeans Christians, far from it. This movie goes so far off the beaten path that it can truly do no harm to us. Its not the same story as in the Bible, because Arnofsky chose it not to be.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 22:49:45 +0000