I would say that Darren Aronofsky is a very creative dude. He seems to have a VERY big imagination and uses the book of Genesis from the Old Testament as a spring board into his Lord-of-the-Rings-meets-Noah world. I myself have been fascinated with the conjecture about the world before the flood. It is a world that we know very little about. It was a very different world except for the fact that men were just as evil as they are now but, with no cops and Ten Commandment based Laws, evil went absolutely nuts.
The writers get the depravity of man and even point out that at his core, Noah was a man like any of us, who was fallen and could become as consumed by his inherent evil like the culture around him. Noah did have a righteous life by comparison to the culture around him due to the fact that he came from a line of men like Enoch and Methuselah who were men of the line of Seth and men who walked with God, but if he chose to cave in to the culture around him and the sin within him, Noah could be as evil as Tubal-Cain, the show's
bad guy (he is mentioned in Genesis 4:22).
Christians, who have a huge respect for Bible, are going to have a real hard time with this movie. We should be careful when completely condemning the director's efforts though when we remember that in movies like The Ten Commandments creative license has been taken. For instance, when Cecil B.Demille put Moses in a love triangle with Egyptian Princess Nephretiri and Rameses, his brother, even though they weren't brothers. Dreamworks did this again in 1998's Prince of Egypt. Mel Gibson had demon children and a woman Satan in Passion of the Christ. Although these creative licenses are much 'tamer' than Aronofsky's, if you take this to its logical conclusion we shouldn't watch any Bible-type movies that are not verse by verse like The Gospel of John - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug2cn71CDeE.
The director does take mighty big leaps of Lord-of-the-Rings-esque creativity with fallen angels when he turns them into Rock Giants who help Noah build the ark and protect him from evil men. I am guessing he is taking vague and sketchy clues which are given in Genesis like the Nephilim from Genesis 6:1-2 and turning them into these titans. As someone who has written his own Biblical History/time travel novel, I know the fun that it is to write a story speculating about Biblical history.
Christian Author, Ellen Gunderson Traylor, who has written a number of Biblically based fictional biographies, wrote an excellent novel called Noah where she incorporated the legends of Atlantis being a city that "fell into the sea" and wrote Poseidon and other "titans" into the story as half-angelic beings who ruled the world of evil that Noah found himself in. Interestingly, she too referred to these creatures as Watchers. As I watched Noah I wondered if Aronofsky had read her work. The big difference between the two of them is that Traylor is a Christian who knows that Jesus is the Ark of Salvation and I don't know if Aronofsky gets that.
The director does get depravity and the fact that we broke the world and that there must be justice. He shows us that the story of Noah isn't a children's story but that the horror of sin and its consequences destroys us and this is heard in the haunting screams of people clinging to dear life on mountains that are quickly being submerged in the deluge. He also shows that God is also merciful. Hermione Granger (oops, I mean Emma Watson) has a great speech on this mercy and love near the end of the movie.
Russell Crowe portrays a very human and loving Noah who kinda snaps under pressure and even turns to alcohol to deal with it all. This is in the Bible after the flood. The director does a good job trying to delve into the tension between Ham and Noah. I love the design of the Ark and the special effects are great as is the music. Jennifer Connelly makes a great wife for Noah and Anthony Hopkins is cool as Methuselah the old-wizard-Jedi-Master who lives in a cave and heals with his faith-power.
All in all I give Noah a 9 out of 10 for movie making and a 1.3 out of 10 for Biblical accuracy.
If you want a couple of good and very creative novels about Noah consider reading Noah by Ellen Gunderson Traylor and The Preservationist by David Maine-I enjoyed them both immensely.
NOAH - http://www.amazon.ca/Noah-Ellen-Gunderson-Traylor-ebook/dp/B007C8NFQ4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396241877&sr=8-1&keywords=noah+ellen+gunderson+traylor
THE PRESERVATIONIST - http://www.amazon.ca/Preservationist-David-Maine-ebook/dp/B003J48BOQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396241808&sr=8-1&keywords=the+preservationist
