Exodus- Ridley Scott film

Diogenesister

Hi all, any thoughts on the Ridley Scott film Exodus :Gods and Kings my people?
Generally, its more or less as I would envision it.
Love the representation of Gods spirit/angel as a child of ?10 - great age, they have not lost their innocence but are aware of the dark side of life, question everything are bitingly HONEST in their assesments and you can often have surprisingly adult conversations with them. Of course in all this they are often very very funny(I may be biased as my kids are this age!!!)
Love it when God makes Moses a cuppa as he chips away at the 10 commandment stones (hopes he remembers the one about not boiling a KID in its MOTHERS MILK!)
I like the dialogue between angel and Moses which begins with the angel noting that Moses often disagrees with God"and yet we are both still here " (moses : taps away at stones and nods sagely)This fits with the jewish perception of their "struggle"with God and that Satan is an 'employee'of God,
Angel/God gives him option not to continue with stones if he doesnt agree that he WILL (at some point )STUMBLE and stones will remain CONSTANT (do you hear that GB, ALL men are sometimes WRONG and cannot be relied on to LEAD ABSOLUTELY)
Like bit were sea is about to crash down on Ramses and Moses and he offers his hand to HIS BROTHER ..."come with us, you won't make it back" ie moses FORGIVES Ramses and wants to become an Isrealite..more realistic than the black and white GOOD /BAD you are light or dark thinking of GB and their ilk
LOVE Moses knocking on his Midianite missis door (hear that Phinehas you plonker ....) with the whole tribe outside ..,"Er..,brought some mates to stay s'alright innit?!! Would love to hear anyone else's take on't!??

Twitch

I liked it; a rather entertaining movie.

The bit with a spirit messenger being a child was reminiscent of "The Last Temptation of Christ" albeit in that one, the girl was supposedly Satan. In both cases, the protagonist was plagued and/or inspired by voices of "people" who weren't there. That bit is likely more true than any the story itself.

I can see how bible adherents would take offense to this and other narrative departures, but whatever, I thought it was good.

Diogenesister

Yes, thank you Twitch for replying, I think you are right there about the voices. I saw 'The last Temptation' but somehow I think Scott would have portrayed God/spirit as child regardless. I recently saw a film about Jesus 'Killing Jesus'(with arab cast complete with ululations!) again the faithfull getting their knickers in a twist about the lack of 'miricles'.Like Exodus naturalistic portrayal of these events made them look more realistic -(at least these types of film give the nod that these events may have actually taken place!) but this is not popular with the literal minded religous groups.

jws

I just bought this film last week and watched it for the first time today. I do not like putting money up for religious films and at least paying $8 or whatever it was is better than paying full price.

I'm mostly looking at it as a comparison. We have 3 famous versions of this, all made up. We have the written one in the bible and two famous film versions. The Ten Commmandments with Charton Heston seems the closest to the original story, though it also has it's faults which I can't remember at the moment. Two of which are the partial moon during passover and the ten commandments (for which the film is F'ing named) being the wrong ones.

I wonder what the reaction from the fundies is. This film didn't really stick to the original in MANY areas. Basically, in this one God just calls out the plagues and lets Moses watch. It's very unclear as to which plague is even happening or that one is now in effect. Unless I had all of the plagues memorized, I would have missed that some were even happening. And specifically stating them would have shown holes in them. Like for instance, when the livestock (including cattle and horses) die, then how can the firstborn of the cattle die in plague 10. And if the horses are all dead, how can pharaoh pursue them with his chariots at the end?

They did seem to be a little more scientific. At least as far as the advisers were concerned. Trying to come up with a natural explanation.

So they didn't announce the plagues. They didn't have Moses approaching Pharaoh repeatedly asking and being turned down. They didn't have God hardening pharaoh's heart every time he felt like giving in - like the bible says.

The portrayal of the spirit whatever that was acting on God's behalf seemed appropriate. An angry little child. Jealous, insecure, prone to displays of temper. That's all very similar to the god of the old testament himself. Something we've seen done before in Erik The Viking with the Norse gods.

Anything that might have given a hint of sexuality or nudity was in the deleted extras, which tells me they expected this to be a film for the religious. But then why depart from the story so much? IMO, let's face it, I think the standard movie for this story is the Ten Commandments. And when you start introducing characters like this spirit kid, it's going to cause a block where people don't like that part and start to get critical of the film.

I saw where Christian Bale called Moses a terrorist in an interview. A part which was totally added to this film version. And people got upset. But that is exactly what was portrayed. He wasn't lying. That was added. Moses went in and started to do terrorist acts. Burning down food supplies first. In some places, killing people along the way. No different from terrorist acts of today. I wonder if this was to re-imagine the character as to what a person might do. Or if it was to liken biblical characters to the terrorists of today's world.

There's an old rumor that Jews control Hollywood. And while I don't know how true that is, there are plenty of Jewish names about the biz. But both Noah and this film both come from the old testament and both seemed to have this weird non-biblical stuff in them. *IF* Jewish Hollywood moguls were that powerful, why do we get stories that are so different? Whereas it seems some of the fundies (Christians) tell a much more biblical tale. Maybe Hollywood has moved away from the "Ten Commandments" days into more entertainment driven plots.

This film, like Noah are completely forgettable in my opinion. And although I'm not religious, I will still be keeping the original 10 Commandments film. Something better about it, IMO. Like reading the book and deciding which movie portrayal is better.

Simon

I love bible films. When they show the bible stories it really highlights how UNREAL they are. It's often like watching some Marvel superhero movie. Yes, great story with the super-powers but of course you know it's not reality.

Saintbertholdt

Ridley Scott's Exodus - meh... so so...too much creative license. Its an interesting story but it contorts it too much. The movie doesn't feel like the Biblical Exodus.

The kid as God/Angel/Whatever was pretty well done. Interesting take.

Simon, I like Bible films as well:

My top five are:

The Passion of the Christ (Although the Film made Mel Gibson a Jew hating bigot)

Quo Vadis (1951)

The Ten commandments (Charlton Heston as Moses was pretty cool)

Jesus of Nazareth (1977 Mini series)

Year One (Its silly and stupid I know but the scenes with Adam (Harold Ramis), Cain, Abel, Seth and the Witch Doctor (Bill Hader) are pretty funny)

SecretSlaveClass

I watched it for pure entertainment and I was curious to see how well the plagues would be portrayed with CG effects. I did enjoy the mood of the movie and as JWS stated, using a spoiled brat kid as the manifestation of the desert god was classic.

I thought as entertainment value it was fairly decent.

jws

Simon wrote:

I love bible films. When they show the bible stories it really highlights how UNREAL they are. It's often like watching some Marvel superhero movie. Yes, great story with the super-powers but of course you know it's not reality.

I somewhat agree. But when they remove all the stuff that shows how goofy it really is, people can't make that connection. And when you add stuff that isn't in the written story, then it can always be defended as "well, I know that's goofy, but it's not in the bible". It becomes a different but similar tale.

There also wasn't a lot of "super" stuff. A lot more subtle. Some crocodiles go on a frenzy and kick off a chain reaction of possible natural events. Even the parting of the Red Sea was more of a low-sea level event. And the flood of the sea, possibly the way rain travels downstream and floods. The only real magic seemed to be when the firstborn died.

Vidiot

The Ten Plagues look f**king awesome in high-def 3D.

Vidiot

Simon - "I love bible films. When they show the bible stories it really highlights how UNREAL they are."

Ditto.

One of my daughters asked if she should become a JW like Grandma...

...I said to her, "you remember the movie Noah?"

"Yeah."

"Do you think the things in that movie really happened?"

(Incredulously) "No!"

"Grandma does. All JWs are required to believe (among many other things) that that story is real history."

This pic neatly sums up her response:

EDIT: Needless to say, I don't worry too much about them being susceptible to WT propaganda. :smirk:

Exodus- Ridley Scott film

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