Noah

I think I'll see this. Top notch actors and it will be interesting to see how they portray a mythological event and invent all of the dialog.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/rough-seas-noah-darren-aronofsky-679315

Yep, could be interesting.

The trailers show a flaming meteorite bombardment. That might be 'poetic license'.   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_flood_narrative

Can't find any flaming meteorite references.....  

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/noah-marketing-tweaked-at-urging-684305

How anyone could even look at just the trailers and not know it was a "creative interpretation" rather than a 'literal' depiction is beyond me.   And anyway, since there is no "dialog" to go by in the Biblical version, what are they supposed to do ? And any complaints about Noah's 'darkness' is goofy. Who knows what he was really like ? And not to put too fine a point on it, isn't this story an allegory for the results of "sin and wickedness" rather than a historical treatise ? Not that there haven't been big floods in antiquity. Very similar to the one in
Gilgamesh, and modern research has hypothesized how the Mediterranean and/or the Black Sea could have risen and broken through narrow "necks" flooding fairly large areas.......so....

http://www.isciencetimes.com/articles/6746/20140128/noahs-ark-round-mesopotamia-flood-cuneiform-instructions-mathematically-accurate.htm

http://www.religioustolerance.org/noah_com.htm

http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_noah.htm

....but still, I look forward to seeing this.



.....so I'm in a contentious mood today.  

I'm going to see this on Saturday so had to look at Genesis 6-9 to see what the basic "plot" is. Of the many biblical sites online, this one seemed the most "traditional" or at least not so "interpretive" as some are.

http://www.mechon-mamre.org/e/et/et0106.htm

Of course the movie has to be "interpretive", as Aronofsky says. Without any 'historic' dialog to go by they had to write everything. Also, as far as I can tell, Noah's wife is never named as she is in the movie (Jennifer Connelly) or his daughter-in-law (Emma Watson) so how did they come up with those names ?

So I guess the bottom line is that any biblical movie is going to cause controversy in some quarters no matter what, so the creators have to be ready for it and this one looks to be on track for some success.

a couple of reviews.

This one explains what the fireballs are, sort of goofy...

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/noah-2014



This one explains why some were complaining about the goofy climate change/vegetarian propaganda.

http://time.com/38365/noah-movie-darren-aronofsky-russell-crowe/


http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-noah-friday-matinees-691984

I finally saw it yesterday. It's hard to critique it even if I were a Biblical expert, but basically I can't agree that it's 'bad', Biblically speaking. Considering that the Bible story of Noah takes 40 verses, and the movie is 137 min. you might expect that they "made up" a lot of things but the overall "tone" is true to what the story was trying to convey.

It was filmed in Iceland and they sure found some spectacular scenery. Also, there were no actual animals used. They were all CGI. The director had told Russell Crowe that, "I would never put you in the Ark with two Giraffes." (the stereotype of what is often shown when illustrating Noah).

Crowe has a great performance, but I was most impressed by Emma Watsons' performance as the girl they rescued from the mob and took her aboard where she became the wife of Noah's eldest son but she was "barren", as they like to say in the Bible, and was humiliated that she couldn't give him children. But then a 'miracle' performed by Methuselah rendered her fertile and she gave birth to twin girls, who Noah wanted to kill but relented at the last minute. So through all those very intense scenes requiring screaming, crying, etc. she did a very creditable job.   

Noah wanted to kill 2 girl babies in a world that was soon to be de-populated? What was his thinking on that?

As far as I could tell from his earlier motivations, which I don't think were Biblically based,   , he felt that God had "authorized" only him and his immediate family to survive. He had earlier opposed rescuing Emma's character for the same reason, but his son had ignored him and rescued her. So since the twins were her's, his motivations remained the same. At least that's how I understood it. Someone else may have a more precise theologic explanation.   

Hers? As in a virgin birth? Thought she was the wife of his son? Guess I just don't "get" how the old Patriarchs saw things...or in this case, how Hollywood writers think they would see things. Sure it gave some dramatic "oomph" to an otherwise predictable plotline.

No, her husband was responsible, after she had been made fertile by Methuselah's miracle before the flood and after, when she boarded the Ark. The amount of time they were on the Ark was a lot longer than '40 days and 40 nights.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah