Category: Literary

Too much violence, not enough sex

My wife Crystal asked me how I would do Noah differently. There are three vices a writer may choose: profanity, violence, and sex. It seems Aronofsky falls squarely into the violence camp. One thing I learned from writing my first novel (SuSAn) is that I much prefer sex.

Think about it! A small band of survivors need to repopulate the Earth. Noah is a beautiful opportunity for some very intense romances. I’m not talking about explicit depictions of humans mating on screen, simply people forming relationships and facing epic struggles to keep them. A very simple change would be to replace the last half of the movie with a series of dangerous raids on the camp of humanity to rescue some girls. The movie makes a half-hearted gesture towards this, then abandons it in favor of despair.

Rationally they should rescue as many girls as they can get their hands on. Patriarchal societies practiced polygamy. Packing the Ark with a harem would be much closer to the Biblical story than we get with the movie.

The movie dropped another incredibly interesting thread: this notion of an advanced pre-flood civilization. So how about a take on it that combines both ideas?

Noah & Sons is a junk-yard on the edge of town. Shem, Ham and Japheth go to the local school, where they are courting various girls. Society is on the brink of collapse due to resource depletion and climate change.

Speaking of climate change: for the first time in all of recorded history it is about to rain. Scientists don’t know what to make of it, but the Powers that Be say, “Party on dudes! Nothing to worry about.” Business as usual. Continue raping the Earth for resources. Blah, blah, blah.

Noah pursues his two favorite hobbies: botany and the brewing of fine ales. Then one day he smokes too many mushrooms and has a vision about the end of the world. His army of recycled robots dutifully help him build a giant floating box, and in his spare time he tries to convince everyone that trouble is coming. No-one listens, because of course modern civilization will continue as it always has. No changes necessary.

At first his sons are embarrassed to be associated with him. Kids at school make fun of them for having such a nut-case for a father. However, a few loyal girlfriends stand up for them. Tons of high-school drama. Eventually the sons become convinced that trouble is coming and join their father’s mission.

Animals show up. They take blood samples and sequence the genomes, but only keep one female from each major group to be surrogate mothers for the synthetic ova they will create later. They don’t take human samples because it is more fun for them to repopulate the old-fashioned way. Most of the room on the Ark is for food and all the people they hope to save.

Then the big day comes. The boys text their girlfriends, but service seems to be down. They make a mad dash through the city to find them while the first drops start falling. Car chases and mortal drama ensue as they try to make it back to the Ark in time.

Then a huge tsunami sweeps across the planet. They dive in the door at the last second and slam it shut, just as the water hits. (Phil Farrand calls this kind of scene “Dead In Exactly Two Seconds”.) They stare forlornly at the mostly empty boat and wish they could have saved more people.

The boat comes to rest and they follow through on the plan, but can’t rebuild technology. When the fusion reactor on the Ark finally gives out, Noah’s descendants revert to a primitive way of life. Stories of the flood pass into legend.

However, the remains of the ship and equipment are still sitting in an obscure crevasse somewhere in the mountains of Turkey. In 2014, a hiking expedition stumbles upon them, and finds Noah’s log book. This could be the framing story, which both opens and closes the movie.

Noah is an idiot!

I went with my wife to watch Noah this weekend. I really looked forward to the movie, because the trailers seemed to promise a grand epic and an interesting hero’s journey. Set free of Biblical constraints, they could weave in other ancient flood stories, all the apocalyptic genre (movies like Knowing and 2012), and really blow this thing out of the water!

What did we actually get? Well, there were a number of things that were just plain weird, but I could go with them:

  • The ancient world had an advanced industrial civilization which spanned the entire planet. — This is actually an intriguing scifi premise in its own right. Unfortunately the movie did nothing with it.
  • Fallen angels (which BTW are supposedly good, despite disobeying God) encased in chunks of rock. Everything, including how they talked, moved, and even some of their characterization, was like the Ents from the Lord of the Rings movies.
  • Noah’s family is vegetarian. It seems they live off lichens scraped from rocks. Not a very rich diet. Then one of his sons picks a flower because it is pretty, not because he is starved out of his mind. Noah gives him a lecture about only taking what you need.
  • All the animals, across all species on the planet, are put into dormancy for an entire year using knock-out smoke, which somehow has no effect on the humans who have their faces right in it.
  • A seed from the Garden of Eden produces an new river of life and an entire forest of trees … instantly! Next thing they do is cut them down to make the Ark. The work site looks like the lands surrounding Saruman’s tower. (Did I mention that this movie is a relentless LoTR wannabe?)
  • The skin of the serpent that tempted Eve is used in ceremonies passing the father’s blessing on to the child. On odd thing to cherish.

The thing the really threw me off was the development of Noah’s character. The movie repeatedly took a direction that I did not expect. Sometimes going in the unexpected direction is good art. It shows you a fresh point of view and keeps the story from being stale, but it only works if it has some good logic behind it.

As a foil for rapacious industrial civilization, Noah should be someone who loves life and balance with Nature. When he encounters three starving men who have just shot a animal for food, he should have ran (and let them have their meal, since the animal could not be saved anyway). But no. He fights and kills all three, despite one pleading for mercy. Then Noah and his sons make a funeral pyre for the animal. I guess the three men are left to rot on the ground. This lack of remorse for the loss of human life is contrary to both the Biblical concept of righteousness and most usual environmentalist philosophies. It was so jarring I couldn’t absorb it. I want to think of the hero as someone sharing something resembling my values.

Next we see him do everything he can to save his family, even to the point of sacrificing himself. He becomes a surrogate father to a young girl, and protects her like his own child. Good hero.

His sons complain that they have no wives, so they can’t reproduce like all the paired animals that show up. Noah says the Creator will provide. Then he goes on a mission to find some wives from the camp of humanity. He sees a young girl being dragged away and … traded for meat? I fully expected him to rescue her and bring her back for one of his sons. But no. He despairs of humanity and decides everyone must die, even his own family.

Here is where the character of Noah really flies off the tracks for me. The key driver for the rest of the movie is his decision whether humanity should repopulate or not.

First I expected him to close the door of the Ark and leave himself and his family outside. But no. He felt the Creator still needed them to take care of the animals.

They sit and listen to the screams of dying people outside. One family member suggest throwing them a line. I expected they might reel in a couple of girls for the sons. But no. Noah hardened his heart like Pharaoh.

When Ila reports herself pregnant, and therefore fertile, Noah’s first reaction should have been, “Oh, a miracle! The Creator wants us to repopulate after all!” But no. He decides the Creator’s will is for him to kill his own grandchild, particularly if it is a girl. He was clever enough to work out the Creator’s plan from a few dreams and visions, and they have a lot of time to sit around and think during those 9 months on the boat. This is absolute idiocy!

However, if Noah were logically consistent with his own idiocy, he would have immediately pitched Ila over the side and let her drown. But no. They wait to see what comes out. Twin girls! Exactly enough for his other sons. At this point Noah should connect the dots and understand the Creator’s implicit will in the miracle. Instead he goes through an agonizing scene where he almost kills the children.

There is little to say about the rest of the movie. Noah drinks away his sorrows, but finally reconciles with his family. He blesses life, the rainbow appears, credits roll. What is missing is that moment of revelation that he was completely wrong for the last half of the movie. He remains an idiot to the end, but perhaps a slightly redeemed idiot.