Is Hollywood in need of scriptwriters? Can I quit my job and be a scriptwriter for Hollywood??

When one of the publicists for the movie, NOAH, contacted me last year, asking if I’d help promote this movie, I eagerly said YES! I thought the movie trailer looked AWESOME and the special effects looked utterly AMAZING!

BUT…I honestly thought I could’ve written a better script than the one I saw performed yesterday when I saw NOAH.

****SPOILER ALERT – I’m going to talk about the entire movie.

There was so much stuff in this movie that I hated that I don’t know where to begin! First off, only one of Noah’s sons had a wife. It was some girl they rescued in the barren, forsaken land. They found her amidst a bunch of dead people. She was wounded and and her injuries barred her from having children. So, fast forward about ten years and one of Noah’s sons has taken her as his mate. His other son (I believe it was Ham?) was jealous that his brother had a wife, his dad Noah has a wife…all of the animals are in twos…he’s like, Dad, what about me, where’s my mate? Noah’s response: the Creator’s given us all we need. So basically his son was supposed to be left without a mate??

The very least they could do was have the three sons to be married like in the Bible. Also, before the ark was built and when Noah receives his vision of the flood, he’s not sure what he’s supposed to do. He is going to visit his wise grandfather, Methuselah, when they find this barren girl (mentioned in the previous paragraph). The bad people come after Noah and his family. They run into the valley of the rock people. Yes, the rock people, people made out of rocks. The rock people throw Noah and his family, plus the barren girl into a pit to die.

A sympathetic rock person rescues Noah and his family and becomes their protector. The protector tells Noah that the rock people are fallen angels. These angels came down from heaven as beams of light, feeling sympathetic toward the plight of Adam and Eve. God didn’t appreciate their allegiance toward Adam’s and Eve’s plight, so, He changed them from beams of light into beams of mud – mud and rocks.

After finding his grandfather, Methuselah, and drinking some magical tea, Noah realizes he must build an ark! Meanwhile, the rock people want to seek forgiveness from the Creator. So, they decide to help Noah build the ark. So, while Noah and his family are building this ark, these rock creatures are helping them – it looks pretty ridiculous.

Then you have some guy named Tubal-Cain(sp?) who is the king of Cain’s descendents. This line of descendents are the bad people in the movie. Lots of evil lurking among these people. Ham finds himself sympathetic to Tubal Cain, since he feels that Noah has turned against him.

Tubal-Cain wants to get onto the ark once the flood waters come. He chops his way into the ark and is a stowaway. Yes, there’s a stowaway on the ark. Ham secretly gives Tubal-Cain nourishment since he’s still mad at Noah. Ham had met a girl among Tubal-Cain’s people, and he wanted to bring her onto the ark. While running amidst the rain to catch the ark before it left, her foot is caught in a trap. Ham tries to rescue her, but Noah refuses to help and the girl gets trampled to death.

Oh, the rock people. After the rain starts, the rock people help protect Noah and his family from the Tubal-Cain evil people who are trying to take over the ark. The rock people (the Watchers) are then granted forgiveness from the Creator and miraculously go back up into the sky as beams of light.

Meanwhile, after the rain has stopped, Noah now feels (or I believe the Creator has told him?) that all mankind must perish, including all of those on the ark.

The barren girl who Noah’s son has taken as a wife? Sometime before boarding the ark, Methuselah has healed her womb and she’s pregnant. Noah says since man is supposed to perish forever then, if she has a son, then he’ll be the last man to die on this earth – then mankind will be gone forever. If she births a girl, then Noah is supposed to kill her child, since a girl can give birth to babies. The girl (Noah’s son’s wife) tries to escape the ark, with her husband (Noah’s son). They build a raft (again, the rains have stopped by this time). Noah throws some fire onto their raft, burning it, preventing them from leaving so that he can kill the baby if she births a female. She gives birth to female twins. Noah is about to plunge a knife into one of the twins, but, he finds he can’t do it.

They finally land on solid earthly ground. Ham goes off by himself. I mean, he’s by himself since he has no mate, and he doesn’t want to stay with his family. I mean, come on, he has no mate. Maybe he should’ve stayed around and gotten together with one of the twins after they grew up??

Also, Noah blesses the twin grandchildren that he was about to kill awhile back. It appears he has snakeskin – I believe it was from the original snakeskin from the Garden of Eden? I might be wrong about that, though. He uses this snakeskin during his blessing ceremony.

A HUGE plot hole that I saw was – well, Noah wanted to kill his grandchildren because he thought all mankind was supposed to die. If he killed his grandchildren then, afterwards, maybe going into years later, each one of his family would die, his youngest son being the last one to die. Then, mankind would no longer exist??

Hello…Noah, what about your son, the one who’s married to the girl who just gave birth to twins??? Is it not possible for her to get pregnant, again, and have other children??? Would you continue killing each female birth??? I’d think that you have two sons who stayed behind, plus the previously barren mom, plus your wife. Can’t all of them overtake you, imprison you, prevent you from killing future kids from this human race???? Maybe something was referenced and explained about this, that I somehow missed it?? I was trying to remember so many things to reference in this blog post that it’s possible that I missed a few details.

Also, sending the bird out to see if there was land onto which they could dock their ark? Noah’s son sends this bird out instead of Noah. Noah’s wife is hoping the bird will come back with evidence of dry land so that her son and daughter-in-law can leave before she births her baby since Noah is determined to kill a female newborn infant.

Also, you don’t see the Lord speaking directly to Noah, like He does in the Bible. Noah receives these visions he must interpret. Something to do with a seed from the Garden of Eden.

Oh, another thing I hated, they would put the animals to sleep on the ark by waving around this smoky incense. It made the animals tired. Wonder why that smoke stuff doesn’t work on the humans? So dumb….

If you were going to write a script about Noah, how would you do it?

What would I have done?

I realize you’d have to use artistic license to write a Noah script since there’s only a few chapters in the Bible referencing this event. But, I would’ve filled in the blanks with things that could have happened instead of making up such off the wall stuff and changing the Biblical text. If you’re going to write a book (or script) based upon a Biblical event, at least put the correct facts in the Biblical text into the scripted event. Then, realistically, fill in the blanks.

1. I’d have all three of Noah’s sons to be married when the boarded the ark. In the movie, the youngest son is around ten or twelve?? Too young to be married and the middle son has no one – yes no one – which made this a terrible movie. I might even show the three sons falling in love in my version of this movie.

2. Instead of the stupid-looking rock people, I’d have the Nephilim in my script. The Nephilim (or giants) were part of the evilness in the world and are mentioned in the Bible so, it’d only be logical to make them a part of the story.

I’d show the sons of God lusting after the daughters of men and then show how the Nephilim were born.

3. I wouldn’t have anybody (outside of Noah’s family) helping Noah to build the ark. I highly doubt he had any help.

4. My conflict in my script? Well, the conflict would somehow be played out between the Sons of God, Daughters of Men, Nephilim, and all the other bad people living during that time. I’d think of something. But, I tell ya, I wouldn’t have a villain stowaway on my ark. And I wouldn’t have fallen angels made out of rocks, I wouldn’t have fallen angels made out of rocks, I wouldn’t have fallen angels made out of rocks….

5. In my version, Noah wouldn’t be acting a fool, trying to kill his grandchildren. His sons would be re-populating the earth with mankind, just as God intended.

Before you mention that the author of the NOAH movie is an atheist, I already know that. But, if you’re going to base a movie on a Biblical event, then you should at least show the key events as presented in the Bible. You can still have the freedom to write your story and fill in the blanks, but, do it in a manner that’s logical to the event that you’re referencing.

I  knew about most of these things in the movie before I went. Why’d I go? I’d mistakenly thought I’d wanted to see the special effects – after all they looked amazing in the movie trailer! But, the ridiculousness of the story soured the appeal of the amazing special effects. I didn’t care about the special effects after seeing the ridiculous story.

So, did you see this movie? If you haven’t, are you going to see it?

~Cecelia Dowdy~