Open Thread, November 15-22, 2013

drethelin

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

They're making a Noah film. It's got Russel Crowe, Emma Watson and Anthony Hopkins. From the trailer, I anticipate that this film will be an immense source of unfortunate implications and horrifying subtext. "You must trust that He will speak in a language you can understand"?! You know, after reading some resources that pattern-match God's behaviour with that of an abusive partner, I just can't unsee it...

Also, amusingly enough, it features a spherical Earth. And I have to wonder how they'll fit "one couple of every species of the Earth" in that ship, huge though it is, without involving Gallifreyan technology. And about all the water on Earth not being sufficient to actually flood everything; will they have God miraculously, spontaneously and temporarily generate water for that specific purpose, and then later remove it?

You know, I'd love to be chill about this stuff, to say it's "just a good story", that I should invoke the MST3K mantra and just relax, but I can't, because the story doesn't seem to be all that good in the first place. Jor El's story has a similar motif and looks better than this.

There is also a TV adaptation from 1999), where the chronology is a bit mixed-up because it presents the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as some sort of "prelude" to the Flood, whereas in the Bible the Sodom story is several hundred years after Noah. The reason why I'm bringing this up is that in that film, the destruction of Sodom is presented with fireballs/meteorites, which also feature in this linked trailer, so I'm lead to think this film will also distill the two stories together in some way (there is no fire-related destruction in the Bi... (read more)

3Nornagest12y

There's an interpretation of the Bible, or at least the Old Testament, that depicts its god and people as coevolving a workable set of ethics as successive attempts at top-down imposition fail. This isn't going to fly with the omni(potent|scient|benevolent) God that's standard in modern Christianity, of course, but from my admittedly atheistic standpoint it tallies a lot better with the story as depicted.

2WalterL12y

You know I've always wondered how the world would react to Modern-Day-Noah if someone demonstrated a miracle or two. Ze has marching orders from on High, power to protect zir autonomy/safety but not compel obedience. Justification is "God Says So" and task is onerous and of no obvious benefit. (Build a big temple/ark/pyramid/whatever). Seems like that could be a pretty cool movie.