Sunday, April 6, 2014

"NOAH" - Freddy Krueger (Nightmare on Elm Street) and Jack Torrance (the Shining) rewrite the story of Noah according to Hollywood's values

I suffered all the way to a late evening ending with "Noah", the Aronofsky directed movie version,  with merely one consolation; I did not lose my birthday dinner.  Credit is due for the extraordinary, and still pathetic, attempt to contradict an important Biblical lesson from God the Creator with humanist fantasies from Hollywood fans of Freddy and Jack.  This important lesson is that God created humanity to be upright - to respect and care for His creation, to love justice and mercy,  to obey God's fair and reasonable natural laws, and to have confidence that God will reward and rescue even a few who love goodness over the powerful masses who love evil.   "Noah" the movie recasts Noah, the man who fears God instead of evil, in the image of  Freddy and Jack, the murderous hacks of horror genre, who fantasize and execute homicidal fantasies on victims oblivious to the miraculous power of God.  Even the official movie website portrays Noah (Russell Crowe) as a dark, brooding, ax wielding figure, far more fitting for a serial killer's still shot.  So, what does Aronofsky's movie have to do with the real Noah?  Well, nothing.  Here are a few takeaways I got:





1. The "watchers":  inspired by early Lego experiments recovered from the mostly burned playroom of a 4 year old, these talking meteorite hunks, like the rest of the movie characters, are either too confused or too stupid to be certain which side they're on, or why -- the Creator's side, or humanity's side.  In the Bible story, God gave Noah revelation detailing dimensions of the ship; did the "watchers" get their ship building inspiration from Freddy and Jack?  The Bible suggests "fallen angels", or demons, were evil spirits cast down from heaven because they had no interest in serving God; consequently their aim is to make war against God by tempting humanity into senseless, self destructive crimes against each other and their Creator.  So, what are the "watchers", other than bizarre distractions from the Biblical story?

2. In the real story, God the Creator was regretful that He created mankind because they had resorted to every kind of irrational rebellion and treachery against God's just laws.  Abuse of natural resources was (and still is) far less offensive to God that the shedding of innocent blood - anyone who bothers reading the Bible would know that because it's probably mentioned a hundred times.  Of course, it's not God, but "Tubal-cain", the evil thug-ocracy leader, who reminds us we should "subdue the earth".  The idea that nature should serve mankind, instead of the other way around, is heretical to political correctness - hence, we should embrace by theatrical suggestion that God's commandment is actually an organized criminal scheme.  How else could one justify Progressive power to usurp property rights -- that a "blind cave spider habitat" authorizes almighty bureaucrats and politicians to destroy the property wealth of their neighbor?  The movie makes the ludicrous assertion that God commanded Noah to rid the earth of humanity to save it for the innocent animals - and the blind spiders of course.

3. God's Noah was commanded to save pairs of animals, and the to chagrin of PETA, that included wives for his own sons, for the very purpose of replenishing the earth after the coming destruction.  Freddy and Jack have their own ideas for Noah -- why not cage up the lonely, frustrated young men with hopelessness, and the fear and dread that they've only been saved for deliberate destruction yet to come?  What better way to underscore that nightmare than by leaving a young girl to die in an animal trap while demanding parental authority to obey a godless command?  The screen play writers worked tirelessly creating a fictitious "creator" everyone but Freddy and Jack should hate, and they succeeded.

4. Aronofsky's Noah, after being afloat for 9 months instead of 40 days, instead of feeling awe and gratefulness at being spared, falls victim to criminal insanity in believing the Creator who miraculously saved him now wants him to murder his own grand daughters. In the most tragically comical climax of the movie hoax, Noah finally decides he's had enough with obedience to the Creator's commandment to kill - that he is, in fact, better than the screenwriter's "creator".  Who could argue that?  But wasn't Noah originally chosen to protect and save his own family so the world could be replenished?  Did Noah experience a regret at sea, like I experienced in the theater, realizing I had spent money and time on this piece of Hollywood trash - and wrongfully expanded our carbon footprint in rolling the film yet again for a mere handful of theater patrons?

Frankly, in the spirit of true tolerance, I was willing to stomach all this movie making crap until I read this on the official Noah movie website: "...We believe that this film is true to the essence, values and integrity of a story that is a cornerstone of faith for millions...".  Really?  I believe the film is a perversion of a true story so important it was recalled by no less than Jesus of Nazareth, at least according to those martyrs who not only made no money on their story, but lost their lives just testifying to it.  I believe this ridiculous movie completely corrupts the integrity of a courageous, obedient man, Noah, who bears no resemblance to the movie character.  

I believe the Noah film genesis is perhaps comprehensible in this way: its creators had just watched "Titanic" followed by sequels of "Nightmare on Elm Street", and imagined the Overlook hotels' Jack Torrance, freshly fallen from the drunk wagon, as crazed skipper of a rum-laden "Noah's ark"; the script was then created while the authors suffered through food poisoning among hoards of unkind, ungrateful strangers on an unsanitary, stranded cruise ship.