The end of the last great Ice Age occurred about 7,000 years ago, just about the time when recorded history began. Each of the great Mideastern religions, both pagan and biblical, has a great flood story that essentially starts the era of recorded human history. Geology shows the amount of ice that suddenly melted (no AGW then) was massive beyond belief. All that water had to go somewhere. Hence, the most logical explanation is that each of the great religions recorded its own version of the same historic and geological events.
I went and saw Noah last night. I fully expected the writer of the movie/director (whomever he is) to take literary license. I went for the entertainment value thinking, how bad could it be? There are many things I will set quietly and listen to, whether I agree with it or not. .......BUT......
I did run into trouble with this movie and it’s the first one I’ve ever walked out on, in the middle.
First, I really enjoyed the first half of the movie. It was OK with me that they added in the Watchers to assist man. I figured, OK, someone must have read the book of Enoch, and this IS entertainment, not intended to be totally factual.
AND, I thought it was kewl that they brought in Tubal-Cain. He’s a figure that doesn’t usually make an appearance in movies. Things were ‘’relatively close’’ to biblical, and no worse than some of the older biblical movies which really stunk back in the old days. They took literary license too in many cases.
I also liked the idea of the animals being put to sleep with herbs. I thought that was a kewl twist also.
But, I didn’t like that the sons didn’t have wives. And when Noah announced that if the child of his daughter-in-law was a girl, she would be killed immediately after birth...that humans were not intended to repopulate the earth, that the earth was designed for the animals only...That bothered me.
I didn’t like that he would allow the girl to die that Ham tried so valiantly to save, except for the fact that she was of the tribe of Tubal-Cain (an evil line of people) and I definitely didn’t like seeing Tubal-Cain had snuck onto the boat.
And of course Shem and his wife were about to debark on a little raft in order to save the life of their child from his murderous father..That spelled the end for me. And I never even addressed Methuselah. His character was played beautifully by Anthony Hopkins, but the writer did the character wrong.
None of the Patriarchs were perfect, but to seek to explain evil by drawing Tubal Cain onto the ship, while in the same breath making Noah look like a bumbling fool who was not clearly hearing the voice of YHVH...That sort of blasphemy was the undoing of the entire movie for me, and for my adult daughter. Neither of us could stomach any more. I have NO idea what happened after that part. I didn’t care to.
The original storyline is fantastic enough on it’s own, and even a little bit of literary license is fine, but I have to say that this author/director is a foolish buffoon. He made HIMSELF look like a dishonest idiot.
He got my ten bux, and when I finish this post I will go and memorize his name because I don’t intend to ever give him another penny. He’s done as far as I’m concerned.
Often times, the critiques of movies are totally outlandish and uncalled for, but this time around, they were correct.
If you really want to see this movie, don’t spend your money on it. It’ll show up for free somewhere. watch it then if you’re so inclined. But, your movie money is best spent on a different movie.
imho
I hate to say it, but this time around, even the muslims have my sympathies.
More to the point, many cultures preserved some kind of folkloric version of a great flood event (and the idea of this coming from the bursting of a great ice dam somewhere in Eurasia does seem most likely), and after many dozens of generations some of these flood stories wound up incorporated into much later, otherwise unrelated religions.