tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7390190125340323607.post4321074793206484758..comments2024-01-20T10:59:05.037-05:00Comments on DRD's Movie Musings: Noah, & Bibically themed films; the new "go-to" for Hollywood?DAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09781924305051169635noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7390190125340323607.post-85084145495016801442015-03-23T14:41:16.028-04:002015-03-23T14:41:16.028-04:00I watched it this weekend. It wasn't as bad as...I watched it this weekend. It wasn't as bad as I was expecting, and I still have all my hair. Netflix gave it 1.x stars, but I would probably have given it a 2. I still kinda shrug at it, but I'm nevertheless glad you guys challenged me.<br /><br />Here's what I see as its major philosophical difference with the Biblical account. Reviewing it in my head, it seems that it portrays mankind's greatest sin as what it did to the environment. Ie: the Earth was "very good", and humanity wrecked it (by industry, no less). Now there is also the sin of murder show-cased frequently, but that doesn't ever seem to be treated as a major justification for the flood. There is also the sin of eating animals, which I suppose is an extension of the first (but I forgive it for this, because it matches with the Bible's only giving the permission to eat animals after the Flood). In fact, there is only ever one kind of sin on display in the movie, and it's that of people in power abusing what's under their control. The "bad guy" ironically references man's divinely given right of dominion as his justification.<br /><br />It is a very post-modern/secular view of ethics, where sin only exists if it causes harm. If you limit ethics to this view, the powerful will have the lions-share of guilt, because the powerless are less able to inflict arm. Yet Genesis 6:5 says "The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time." I believe this judgment was upon both the small and the great alike. A harm-based view of sin tends to overlook sins like lying, covetousness, and sexual immorality. Basically, it has no concept of a sin that feels good. Yet it only makes sense for God to send a flood if all were similarly/equally guilty, and in this respect Noah was the only one to stand apart. In other words, the punishment wasn't just the damage we'd done to the world (or to others), but what we did to ourselves.<br /><br />I already said that the movie treats the Earth as "very good" until humanity wrecked it. Genesis 1 only uses the term "very good" after the specific creation of humankind. Where the movie sees humanity as disposable, the Bible sees humanity as indispensable. This difference sets up a very different kind of conflict. Instead of people not listening to God, they actually believed Noah about the upcoming flood and so they fought him to get on the Ark! Noah even declined to bring wives for his two younger sons, because what's the point if the intent was to extinguish humanity? We don't read about anyone being denied entrance to the Ark in the Bible, so it's a very different kind of conflict.<br /><br />So in summary, it differs in its view of sin, and God's relationship with humankind. At least mercy is accommodated in its world view.Lancerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09606191437808217148noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7390190125340323607.post-29537417336308628752015-03-16T14:14:32.323-04:002015-03-16T14:14:32.323-04:00Wear a hat...! :-) Can't wait for your thoug...Wear a hat...! :-) Can't wait for your thoughts on it. There are a few things I really didn't understand, while a few I found pretty neat. DAhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09781924305051169635noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7390190125340323607.post-88381279950297114392015-03-13T14:35:43.457-04:002015-03-13T14:35:43.457-04:00"sanitized by antiquity" - I like that. ..."sanitized by antiquity" - I like that. While I don't think you can remove the juxtaposition of Noah to the rest of the world without losing the core meaning of the Flood story, some of the liberties that MW describes above sound very interesting. Maybe I'll check it out if it's on Netflix, but I may be more the type to pull out his hair due to Biblical stories that have been polluted by post-modernism.Lancerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09606191437808217148noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7390190125340323607.post-90100625222774981662015-03-09T17:05:44.646-04:002015-03-09T17:05:44.646-04:00Lancer, that's a fair prediction of how Noah w...Lancer, that's a fair prediction of how Noah was treated in this depiction. There was indeed poetic licence in how Noah was portrayed. <br /><br />I found the conflicts a tad modernistic/anachronistic; the melodrama injected into the story seems very unlikely to have been the case in the society of the time; however, as a modern interpretation of what it may actually have been like, it was a refreshing revisit of a period in history so far back that speculation between the lines of the Biblical narrative seems almost warranted, and brings to life characters that are otherwise sanitized by antiquity.<br /><br />DAhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09781924305051169635noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7390190125340323607.post-33356420051248681932015-03-09T12:44:17.591-04:002015-03-09T12:44:17.591-04:00Any comment on how it portrayed sin, vs the virtue...Any comment on how it portrayed sin, vs the virtue of Noah? I've avoided this movie because it seems like the gritty version of a Bible story, something that Hollywood seems inexorably drawn to do. The result is they always make the "hero" into an anti-hero, and I suspect that Noah in the end comes off not as the person God rescued because of his virtue, but just the guy who's willing to do whatever it takes to get something done.Lancerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09606191437808217148noreply@blogger.com