"Noah" Struggles to Stay Afloat

Anyone who's been reading my blog for the past few months can pretty easily surmise that I'm a Christian. No surprise there. Being as such, I could easily trash Darren Aronofsky's interpretation of the story of Noah in the his new movie of the same name. But I'm not. Are there inconsistencies in it with what the Bible says in Genesis chapters 5-9? Sure, plenty of them. Here are just a few (spoiler alert below!):

• The "Watcher" angel-turned-rock creatures didn't exist and were added.
• Noah's sons, Shem, Japeth and Ham were much older than portrayed in the movie (Shem, the oldest was 100 when the flood occurred). Noah himself was 600 years old.
• Ham was Noah's youngest son, not Japeth.
• Although Tubal-Cain's name is mentioned in the book of Genesis, there is no further elaboration on him, thus there is no indication he led a revolt to get on the ark.
• All three sons had wives with them on the ark. Thus, there were eight people on the ark, not six (or seven, if you include Tubal-Cain).
• Shem had five sons and no daughters. He had twin daughters in the movie.
• As a result, the story line in the movie about Noah's family rescuing an infant girl and the two twin daughters she later had with Shem were added. And:
• The story line about Ham's failed attempt to bring a girl on the ark with him, and thus his blaming Noah and his eventual hatred for him was added.
• The entire story line about the Tubal-Cain character being a stowaway on the ark was added.
• There is no indication that Ham left the family upon arriving on land following the flood.
• God is basically portrayed as an impersonal, distant enmity, where in reality He spoke directly to Noah (and many other people throughout the Bible) several times, but this was never shown. The only "communication" he had with God was via a drug-induced hallucination.
• Following one of these hallucinations, Noah believed that God wanted to eliminate all humanity forever, and that his only role was to transport the animals in the ark to a post-flood "new world", and he and his family would then die a natural death, and humanity would be no more (which explains why Noah didn't want any 'pro-creating' women on the ark).  However, according to the Bible, God made it very clear to Noah before the ark was built that "Everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you", clearly indicating that He was going to use Noah and his family to re-establish the human race.
• Noah's story about the six day creation that he told his kids was a little out of order.
• The beginning of this story, which stated "In the beginning there was nothing" isn't quite right. What actually is said is "The earth was without form and void" (i.e. the earth existed, but was without form and void).

Darren Aronosky

So you get the point. This film is not a word-for-word interpretation of the Bible.  And Aronosky made it very clear from the get-go that it wasn't going to be. And he further proved it by not using the word "God" in the movie.  All such references were to "the Creator".  But in reality, the people of that day could have referred to God as "the Creator", as the word "God" didn't appear in text until Moses wrote the book of Genesis some years later.  Who knows for sure though. I'm hoping that was Aronosky's reasoning, and not that he was trying to make a point. It would really be unfortunate if he was. Regardless, I went into the movie fully prepared for all of this.  And believe it or not, I actually enjoyed a fair amount of it, and did take away some positive things.

Most notably:

• The importance of repentance:  the "Watchers", were returned to Heaven only after repenting to God (the Creator) that what they did earlier to doom them as rock creatures was wrong.
• The Tubal-Cain character shows, as does much of scripture, that it takes more than believing in God in your head to be redeemed. You must believe it in your heart. Tubal-Cain believed that "the Creator" existed, but not in his heart like Noah did. Thus he was doomed and Noah, because of his faith, was blessed.

The movie itself was a pretty wild visual.  After the first few seconds, I thought I was watching one of the "Lord of the Rings" movies.  Same look and feel.  The effects were decent, particularly the ark and flood sequences. The "Watchers" could have been made better though. Kind of cartoonish. I snickered when I first saw them, as they reminded me of Walter Brennan from the old John Wayne movies, who was frequently seen hobbling around. For the most part, the film did a pretty good job of representing the evil state humanity was in at the time, a state that convinced God to eliminate them via the flood. Ironically enough, the Bible says nothing about scores of villagers (or anyone) trying to hijack the ark as the rains began and water rose.  But it wouldn't be a stretch to think that could have actually happened.

Everything in the film that happened pre-flood I actually enjoyed for the most part. What really was a stretch to me was everything that happened on the ark post-flood.  Not to give too much away, but the whole story involving Tubal-Cain, Ham and Noah was really hard to fathom. It was obvious what Aronosky was doing though:  recreating both the Garden of Eden temptation and Cain/Abel murder scenes, with different results occurring this time. The Bible describes nothing that went on in the ark while at sea, but Aronosky's version of what might have is really out there.  Same with the other ship board story involving Shem, Ila, and their twins, and Noah's obsession to be faithful.

One final comment I had was about the ending. As the movie closed, Noah's current family consisted of himself, his wife, his sons Shem and Japeth, Shem's "mate" Ila, and their infant twin girls. Noah's other son Ham was long gone. Noah announced to the family to go and "'be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth". It wasn't clear however, if it was Noah telling that, or if God had told Noah to tell them that (it was God in the Bible). Regardless, I left wondering, how are they going to do that?  I could see Shem and Ila participating, but what about Japeth?  Did he wait until the two infants grew up?  Not sure what the protocol for cousins hooking up during that time was.  Ham was off by himself in a female-less country. Would he return and hitch up with the other twin?  It would have been a lot easier, and more feasible, if Aronosky would have stuck to the Biblical story line of all three sons having wives. Maybe he thought that would have been too boring!

The acting was pretty strong. Russell Crowe was very good, and Anthony Hopkins as Methuselah and Logan Lerman as Ham particularly stood out to me. Ray Winston was pretty menacing as Tubal-Cain.

In conclusion, the most important thing the movie is doing is stirring up conversation, which is a good opportunity for Christians and non-Christians to share something in common.  There hasn't been a Biblical-based movie made that hasn't suffered from some sort of Biblical inaccuracy. That includes the grand daddy of all Biblical epics, Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 "Ten Commandments". The ultimate hope, however, is that people who see these movies not familiar with the stories are intrigued enough to pick up a Bible and read them for themselves. That's my hope at least. As a result, I definitely encourage you to read the book of Genesis, or at least chapters 5-9, before or after you see "Noah"  Or read the book of Exodus before watching the "Ten Commandments again, for that matter!

Using my rating system (1= skip it, 2= rent it, 3= worth a matinee, 4= worth full price), I’d give it a “3” if you read the verses, a 2 if you don't!