Guns N’ Roses*

Apostrophes N' Asterisks...

In 1988 my favorite band was Def Leppard. I have this thing where if I don’t like a vocalist’s voice, I just can’t get into the band regardless of the music. Guns N’ Roses came out in high school, and that was my initial response to Axl Rose and GN’R when Appetite for Destruction hit it big. A fateful high school study event changed all that. A friend and I weren’t doing that well in math class, so we decided to pull an all-nighter at his family’s house to complete homework and cram for a test. He was really into the new GN’R Lies at the time, and he literally played it all night, just flipping the tape over after every side ended to keep it going. By morning, I somehow had no further issues with the sound of Axl’s voice, and I was transformed into a GN’R fan. A while after everyone else, I went back and got into Appetite for Destruction, which I appreciated way more than Lies. With Appetite alone, I could say I loved GN’R. A lot of my friends rode the wave of Appetite with me, late bloomer rockers the lot of us. 

The Use Your Illusion albums were released in college. I absolutely loved the pre-release single, "You Could Be Mine." I was pledging my fraternity when the albums came out, but before the release date a pledge brother had gotten ahold of an advance bootleg of one of them and we listened to some of it when we were supposed to be studying. We weren’t allowed to leave campus during pledging, but on the release day my big brother smuggled me off campus and drove me to a record store in a nearby city where I bought the cassettes. The first opportunity I got in my pledge schedule, I rocked out to both albums and was blown away by how great they were. No filler; these were both full-tilt epic rock albums like Appetite. GN’R quickly became my favorite band. I was sad when Izzy left but absolutely loved his first solo album he released the following year, Izzy Stradlin and the Ju Ju Hounds.

I have always felt the band isn’t truly Guns N’ Roses without Izzy Stradlin, the heart and soul of the band. But I did enjoy the cover material of “The Spaghetti Incident?” album (and “Sympathy with the Devil”), but the post-UYI-era of the band with Slash and Duff was always “Guns N’ Roses*” (yes asterisk) at most. I also enjoyed the early solo/side project material of Slash, Duff, and Gilby Clarke (Izzy’s first replacement), but none of them nearly as much as Izzy Stradlin who became my favorite solo artist. After Slash (and Duff) left GN’R, the band was “Axls N' Roses” in my mind. I listened to Chinese Democracy twice, and I mean really listened to it. I just could not get into it. Not a single song. I listened to the first Velvet Revolver album and had a similar reaction. To my mind, Izzy Stradlin’s ample and underrated solo discography is the true creative legacy of GN’R.

I’ve been to over 100 concerts over the decades, but I had never seen any incarnation of GN’R live. Stradlin doesn’t tour. I did see Slash’s Snakepit (with Gilby Clarke) in 1995, which was cool (except for the permanent loss of hearing); Slash jumped out on an amp right beside me for a solo. I never had any interest in seeing Axl with Buckethead or whomever was playing in his band at the time, so never tried. When Slash and Duff rejoined Axl’s band to tour it raised an eyebrow, but Izzy declined participation and there was still the nagging concern of Axl’s volatile nature of cancelling shows and causing riots. (But in 175 shows of the first tour lasting three and a half years, there wasn’t a single riot.) Then the pandemic happened and my already slowing pace of live music shows in recent years came to a complete standstill. 

When tickets for the Columbus Guns N’ Roses* show went on sale, I bought tickets on an impulse. I’d heard that as a vocalist, Axl was a shadow of his former self, but I love most of the music they would play so I was expecting a good cover band version of GN’R. Tickets were outrageously priced, so I got third level tickets. Going to a concert in a pandemic doesn’t make much sense, but I am fully vaccinated (and my son who stayed home would be fully vaccinated before the show). And not that it was strictly enforced, but there was a mask mandate in place for this show. I had an aisle seat with an empty seat beside me. I took a little bottle of hand sanitizer and kept my mask on.

I found myself excited to be there. I only saw a bit of the live debut of Mammoth, the opening band lead by Eddie Van Halen’s son. But I could hear their set as I spent most of it standing in line to buy an overpriced t-shirt, only to finally find out they were sold out of my size of all GN’R t-shirts. But I wanted to commemorate the show somehow and didn’t want another poster, so I bought the only t-shirt they had of the next size up (hopefully I can shrink it).

Here is the setlist, and below that are my reactions to the September 23, 2021 Guns N’ Roses show at Value City Arena.

1. It's So Easy

2. Mr. Brownstone

3. <Chinese Democracy BS>

4. <Velvet Revolver song>

5. Double Talkin' Jive (w/ long jam)

6. Welcome to the Jungle (w/ Link Wray's "Rumble" intro)

7. <Chinese Democracy BS>

8. Estranged

9. Live and Let Die (Wings cover)

10. You’re Crazy

11. Rocket Queen (epic long jam version)

12. Shadow of Your Love (tour debut)

13. You Could Be Mine

14. I Wanna Be Your Dog (The Stooges cover, Duff on lead vocals)

15. Absurd (new single, old song idea rewritten by Axl, Slash, Duff & Dizzy – I kinda like it)

16. Civil War (Jimi Hendrix's "Machine Gun" outro, with band introductions)

17. Slash Blues Guitar Solo ("You Shook Me", "Mannish Boy", "You Gotta Move")

18. Sweet Child o' Mine

19. November Rain (w/ Axl on a piano they rolled out onto stage just for this song, of course)

20. Wichita Lineman (Jimmy Webb cover, instrumental)

21. Patience

22. Coma (tour debut)

23. Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Bob Dylan cover w/ Alice Cooper's "Only Women Bleed" intro)

24. Nightrain (Axl sings the Addams Family theme as he leaves the stage)

Encore:

25. <Chinese Democracy BS>

26. Don't Cry

27. The Seeker (The Who cover)

28. Paradise City

I don’t know why they played three Chinese Democracy songs, and I felt a little bad for Slash and Duff for having to do three of them. I didn’t care for those or the Velvet Revolver song they played, but the rest of the show was great! My expectations were blown away! 

They played for about three hours with only a very short break between the end of the main set and the encore. They played all the singles except “Yesterdays” and the two from Spaghetti. (They didn’t play “Sympathy for the Devil” or any songs from Spaghetti at this show.) I did not expect to hear “Rocket Queen,” especially such an epic version of it. “Coma” was also unexpected and really rocked. They played my favorite B-side, “Shadow of Your Love.” After that, Axl spoke this lead-in about the next song showing their soft, tender, and loving side, and then the band tore into my favorite GN’R song since 1991, “You Could Be Mine.” It really rocked and I was overwhelmed with emotion. 

Axl can’t quite live up to his former glory, but I was amazed that he could still pull off some vocal heroics, showing off that he still has it, to some extent. Fat Axl of the memes was gone. He looked healthy, in great shape for 59. He didn’t have the explosive energy of his youth, but he still did his swaying and little footwork during songs. There was no indication of the egomaniacal Axl of the past. Whenever he wasn’t singing, he ducked back into the shadows, letting everyone else have their moments in the spotlights. He seemed to be in a good place mentally. He sometimes made little jokes to the crowd in between songs.

The sound quality of the show was excellent. Unsurprisingly, Axl and the guitars were at the top of the mix. I thought the drums were a tad bit too high in the mix and the bass was a tad bit too low, but I could still hear Duff and he sounded great. (Side note: Duff has the Prince symbol on his base.) Frank Ferrer, dummer since 2006, is every bit as good of a drummer as Matt Sorum. In addition to the second longest band member Dizzy Reed on keyboards (and bongos), there was bonus female keyboardist Melissa Reese who joined the band when Slash and Duff rejoined in 2016. Thankfully, the keyboards were down in the mix and unobtrusive.

Guitarist Richard Fortus has been with the band since 2002. With prejudice I only used to refer to him as “Fake Izzy,” but he was actually great. He is an amazing guitarist, maybe even just as good as Izzy. The highlight performer of the show was Slash. He is a guitar god, and it was so awesome to see him play a lot of GN’R songs I love, and blistering solos. I doubt he gets it, but Slash really deserves the same cut of the take as Axl. All rock fans need to see Slash play, but I’m biased because I love the music at GN’R shows.

Izzy left GN’R 30 years ago. I realized at this show that Izzy was the heart and soul of GN’R for his songwriting and creative contribution to the sound of the band more than anything else. Izzy wasn’t at this show physically, but he was present in spirit, in the music he wrote and cowrote. This revelation allowed me to fully appreciate the band as it is now. I had an awesome time at this show. I’m so happy I got to see Guns N’ Roses*.

*Guns N’ Roses without Izzy Stradlin, but still great.

Ragnarok and Marvel's Norse Mythology

Marvelous Mythology?

I don't normally analyze movie trailers in advance of a film's release, but Thor: Ragnarok is a special exception for me.  From the day in my childhood that I first learned of the existence of non-biblical mythologies, I was fascinated with them, primarily Classical, Egyptian and Norse mythologies.  Later I was naturally attracted to Marvel's comic book The Mighty Thor featuring the adventures of the superhero version of the Norse thunder god who Thursday is named after.

At my local library, I discovered and fell in love with The Norse Myths by Kevin Crossley-Holland, which I read in junior high and again in high school.  Now I have my own copy and it still is my favorite mythology book of any mythology.  

Although they aren't my favorite MCU movies, I did enjoy first two Thor films.  Elements of mythology from the first film include Yggdrasil, Bifrost/Rainbow Bridge, and the Nine Worlds. Marvel's "Nine Realms" are Asgard, Jotunheim, Vanaheim, Svartalfheim, Niflheim, Muspelheim, Nidavellir, Alfheim, and of course Midgard (although not all realms are shown). In addition to Thor himself, we have Odin, Frigg, Loki, Heimdallr, Sif and Laufey (although the last two are significantly different than in mythology). Buri and Bor, Odin's grandfather and father, are mentioned. Peoples included in the film are the Jötnar (frost giants in the movie), the Vanir, the Æsir (Asgardians), and the Einherjar (Asgardian army). Odin's animals are Sleipnir, Huginn and Muninn. The weapons Mjölnir, Gungnir, and Hǫfuð are present. Thor the Dark World shows Bor, and it adds Tyr, Eir, and the Svartálfar. Hel is mentioned (as a region of Niflheim). Now, below is the new trailer for the third Thor film...

In Norse Mythology, Ragnarök (the doom of the gods) is the prophesied climactic clash of the gods with the giants, an army of the dead, and several terrible monsters.  Ragnarok is an epic tale where the Nine Worlds are destroyed and recreated.  I've had my reservations about Marvel's version of the story beyond Mjölnir being destroyed and reports of the film's comedy level.  Of course I've never expected a version of the tale that would be significantly faithful to mythology but I still want Marvel to take the original source material seriously.  The new trailer has alleviated some of my concerns...

We see more of Hela, the new mythological character based on Hel the goddess of death. Hela also happens to be the first female major villain of the MCU.

Here we seem to have the army of Hel. 

Here we have a version of the Valkyries lead by Brynhildr.

The lead Valkyrie seems to join Thor's "team" against Hela.

Here we seem to have the giant wolf Fenrir.  In mythology this monster kills Odin.  

This is undoubtedly Surt the fire giant.  In mythology he sets fire to Asgard destroying almost everything in the Nine Worlds.

Notably missing from the trailers is the monster Jormungand, a giant sea serpent and Thor's arch enemy in mythology.  In the final battle of Ragnarok, Thor slays Jormungand but gets sprayed by its venom and dies.  They obviously aren't going to kill off Thor but I hope the film has the world serpent and they are just saving it so it remains unspoiled.

What else?  I'm not a big fan of Hulk, but he isn't getting his own sequels and he logically wasn't in Captain America: Civil War, so I'm ok with Hulk being in Thor: Ragnarok.  He seems more appropriate for an epic clash with monsters and giants.  And from watching this trailer I learned that the versatile Karl Urban is in this film and he is always good.  I'm still worried about Mjölnir's apparent destruction.  It just can't be gone!  I'd love to see a dramatic moment in the movie when Thor calls the broken pieces to his hand and reforges it with lightning.

Thor: Ragnarok opens on November 3, 2017.

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (Extended Cut)

Brief Recap Of The Superman Movie Franchise

First appearing in 1938, Superman is the first superhero.  He's where we get the term "superhero" from.  Superman is an icon.

I've been a DC fan since I was a little kid in the 70s.  The Super Friends cartoon was my favorite TV show.  It featured the Justice League of America with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Robin, Flash and other heroes.  I also liked the live action Shazam! and Wonder Woman TV shows.  As a kid I loved Superman: The Movie (with Lex Luthor as the main villain).  I also enjoyed Superman II (with General Zod as the main villain), but even as a kid I viewed it as more of a comedy.  Superman III and IV were horrible.

To adults, Superman II is just plain silly, and the director's cut is much worse than the original version so I'm sure it was a good thing to fire Richard Donner from that film.  Superman Returns (the modern sequel to II that ignores III and IV) was about equal to II thus making Returns tied for the best of the five sequels to the first Superman film, but that isn't saying much.  The original Superman movie still has a nostalgic charm, a classic in a way (with an excellent John Williams score).  But as an adult nerd I'm just not into Superman that much as a character.

Despite it being a modern (and first complete) reboot of the Superman movie franchise, I didn't have high hopes for Man of Steel because it's still Superman.  But this is a whole new era of superhero movies, and there really is no comparison of Man of Steel to the old franchise.  Man of Steel is superior to the 1978 movie in virtually every way except for the score (Hans Zimmer is no John Williams).  The war on Krypton was cool, and naturally sets up the conflict of General Zod and the son of Jor-El on Earth.  It was an ok movie.  But the best thing about Man of Steel is that it ended up becoming the basis for a shared DC "Justice League" Universe.

Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice (Extended Cut)

[Spoilers only if you haven't seen the theatrical version]

The prior series of Batman films had just ended in 2012 and had started with a new Batman origin movie in 2005, so we really didn't need another Batman solo film anytime soon (especially a new origin movie).  Bringing Batman and Superman together is really a no brainer.  Giving us brief retellings of Batman's origin in flashbacks in the extended cut is just enough to establish him in this new universe.  I don't feel there was too little or too much of this character in the extended cut.  Well, the shirtless Affleck training montage seems a bit extraneous in light of the fact that it was the armor and Kryptonite that even made it possible for Batman to fight Superman.

Batman and Superman in the same movie wasn't the only cinematic first.  This movie brought the DC Holy Trinity together by including Wonder Woman.  Before her heroic appearance for the final battle, I liked how Diana Prince was completely a part of Bruce Wayne's side of the story. (I especially got a kick out of Bruce and Diana e-mailing each other.)  I would have loved to have gotten more Wonder Woman but it's already a three-hour movie as it is, so we just get a cinematic introduction of her and most of it is action.  Without being able to take more time to delve into her character, what's there is really just enough for this movie.  (We will get a proper Wonder Woman origin prequel film next year and I can't wait.)  The icing on the cake in Batman v Superman are the brief cinematic introductions of Flash and the characters who will become Aquaman and Cyborg.

So did the extended version save Batman v Superman?  I feel it does.  The extended version is the real movie.  Now it is more clear that Luthor's actions were being guided by an otherworldly being.  With all the cut material restored, the movie makes a lot more sense now (except the Flash-from-the-future message but I strongly suspect that's there for the sake of a sequel).  The flow and pacing of this movie's story seem more natural.  Only a little of the restored footage is action so the extended cut is still not the most action-packed movie, but there's no way around the fact that this complex plot was just meant to be a three-hour film.  The action that's there is pretty cool.  I really don't think this movie could be improved much from the extended cut - The only way we could have gotten a better movie is if they had made a different movie.

Although the extended cut if the film resolves the issues of natural flow/pacing and it making sense, it still doesn't eliminate some of the criticisms I've heard from some fans.  Batman relents from his crusade to kill the alien Superman when forced to consider his humanity by learning their mothers share the same name.  Lex Luthor figured out the secret identities of Superman and Batman, as well as learning that Diana Prince, Arthur Curry, Barry Allen, Victor Stone are metahumans.  Under the influence of an alien, Luthor is an absolute genius mastermind nutjob with probably the most complicated evil plot ever hatched by a villain including the creation of a supermonster.  Either you can accept it all and move on, or you can't.  The fanboy "controversies" of these interpretations of Superman and Batman being different than the comics and Batman sometimes using lethal force are non-issues for me.  These movies are a different medium - They're only inspired by comics and not meant to be exact adaptations.  And even in the comics, over the course of over 75 years there have been literally dozens of reinterpretations of these characters, and Batman has killed before.  But haters gonna hate.

So how do you make a better movie in the Superman franchise?  Add two of my favorite superheroes and kill Superman!  I understand it is a temporary death and he'll be back, but it still helps this Superman movie.  Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince watching Clark Kent's Smallville funeral from a distance and discussing recruiting the metahumans for the future Justice League gave me goosebumps.  (I also loved that Luthor is going to Arkham Asylum.)  All in all, I feel the extended cut of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is roughly equal to the average range MCU movies.  It's no The Avengers or Civil War, but it's way better than The Incredible Hulk.  Maybe through the Justice League movie I'll be able to fully accept a cinematic Superman when he is a part of a team of live action "Super Friends".

Comments or questions?  Please reply below or on whichever site you got to this blog post through.  Thank you.

Noah ("spoiler" alert)*

Noah is the 2014 Biblical epic directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone and Anthony Hopkins.  My wife was interested in it due to it also starring Emma Watson, who plays Hermione of Harry Potter fame.  My brother said Noah was a bad movie after it was already on the way to me from Netflix, and although my brother and I have a very similar interest in movies, he hated Avatar so we don't agree on everything.  And I am fascinated by religion and mythology, so after a DVD copy arrived in the mail there was really no way I could resist seeing for myself.  Genesis is one of my favorite books of the Bible.

Everyone raised in an Abrahamic tradition has heard of the Noah's ark and the great flood.  (Beyond that, the Flood Myth exist in virtually every world mythology.)  In the Bible, the flood narrative occurs in Genesis 6-9.  That's only a couple mere pages of text, so there was no question that the screenplay of Noah would have to fill-in and expand the story.  Some mythology-inspired films are grounded in historical research and attempt to tell the story of what could have really happened as a basis for the legend, like Troy.  I can appreciate those films for what they are, but other mythological films keep the fantastic elements (or "miracles" if you prefer) which I can also enjoy.

In the beginning (see what I did there), the film shows the titular character as a child.  Noah's father Lamech hands down a shed snake skin as apparently is the father/eldest-son tradition in the line of Seth, right before the film's main antagonist, Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone), shows up and kills Noah's father with Noah watching in hiding.  The biblical Tubal-Cain is the last name in the  seemingly pointless genealogy of Cain (Genesis 4:22) which is what I would have done if I had made this film.  Both characters' name directly references Cain, the first murderer, and in the film Tubal-Cain is logically the leader of a population of Cain's descendants.  However, in the Bible, Noah's father lived 595 years after the birth of Noah, so this is film is more realistic... so far.

To get it out of the way, I'll comment on the snake skin here.  The authors of Genesis villainized the serpent because the snake's ability to shed its skin and seem renewed is a common symbol of fertility in world mythologies including in ancient Canaan.  The Canaanite religions surrounding the Israelites were a constant temptation to lead people astray from "the one true God" of their own people (so snake = bad).  Knowing what snake skin shedding really means, I thought that maybe the filmmakers were going for Noah being instrumental in the story of the renewal of the Earth, despite the fact that would be incorrect from a historical perspective.  So I looked up some interviews with the writers, and no.  They said the snake in the Garden of Eden equals sin, and the shed skin is the innocence left behind.  So at least they are keeping the symbolism within the context of the original work.

Years later, the adult Noah (Russell Crowe) has a wife and two of his three biblical sons, Shem and Ham.  Noah's wife (Jennifer Connelly) was not named in the scripture, but in the movie her name is Naameh, the name that Jewish tradition has given her (a nice touch).  However Connelly's character is largely forgettable in this film so I will just refer to her as "Noah's wife" from here on out.  Noah's young family happens upon a village that has recently been marauded by Tubal-Cain's men, and all are dead except a young girl named Ila who is horrifically slashed across an ovary.  They rescue her, mend her and adopt her.  More years later, the character has grown up to be Emma Watson and her character is romantically attached to Shem.  Ila views Noah as a father figure, and she is clearly the lead female role in this film.  Shem's wife is also not named in the Bible, and my research has not been able to determine how the film-makers came up with this name, so they may have just made it up.  I will just refer to her character as "Hermione" from here on out.  The story's advance to its primary time frame also brings Noah's third son Japheth (still only a boy though).

The film is infused with modern ecological value which I certainly do appreciate in general, but it just seems out of place in a story based on a book that has God telling mankind to subdue the earth and take dominion over all living things.  In the Bible, God favored Abel's animal offering over Cain's vegetable one, but in the film, Cain's descendants are meat-eaters while Noah's clan are vegetarians.  The film's Noah is the steward of the Earth that chastises his son for unnecessarily picking a flower.  The antediluvian world is portrayed in the film as a desolate wasteland where plantlife is rare and the land has been overmined to near-ruin by Tubal-Cain's people.  Noah's family is hounded by Tubal-Cain's hoards so they are on the run, and Noah is haunted by vivid dreams of the destruction of the Earth by a flood.  He seeks out the counsel of Methuselah.

On the way to Methuselah's mountain, Noah's family encounters... giant rock monsters!  They despise the wickedness that humanity has become, but explain that they were angels who had defied God's orders by attempting to help the early humans who had been cast out of Eden, so God had punished them by trapping their divine essence in the bodies of giant rock creatures bound to Earth.  This seems to be influenced by the Bible's cryptic reference to the daughters of men having children by the sons of God at the beginning of the flood narrative (Genesis 6:4) and perhaps other references to giants in the Bible, but one thing was clear - this film is now firmly in the realm of fantasy/the miraculous.  In the film these bizarre creatures go by the angelic name of Watchers, but I will refer to them as the "rock monsters" from here on out.

Noah reaches the mountain of his grandfather Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins), whom Noah has heard of but apparently never met.  They attempt to interpret Noah's dreams, and Methuselah gives Noah a seed from the Garden of Eden. Cool!  When Noah plants the seed, it quickly grows into an an entire forest surrounding them!  Awesome!  (Good thing Adam and Eve didn't eat any fruit with that seed in it!)  Now they have wood to build an ark.  The rock monsters see this miracle and commit to helping Noah build the ark in an attempt to redeem themselves to God.

Build it, and they will come.  Before the ark is even finished, the birds and then later the land animals all come to the ark, apparently guided by the unseen and unheard hand of God.  Noah's family has magic incense that not only puts all the animals to sleep (but not humans), it is a magical sleep that the animals cannot wake up from until woken up, and they are perfectly in suspended animation so they do not hunger or thirst while asleep.  We later see that these effects last the better part of a year!

Tubal-Cain harasses Noah during the building of the ark, jealous that God hasn't picked him to survive, but backs off because of the giant rock monsters. After demanding a response from God as to why he wasn't chosen to survive and not getting one (cursing at the sky), he resolves to attack Noah and take the ark.  Tubal-Cain and his men are shown making weapons out of bronze and iron, a reference to the biblical Tubal-Cain being a metalworker in Genesis 4:22.  Nice.

As the ark nears completion, Noah sneaks into a village of Tubal-Cain's people at night to search for wives for Ham and Japheth, but is disgusted by their wickedness so gives up.  Imagining that the few flood survivors will have to reseed the Earth with humanity, Hermione despairs over her infertility making her an unsuitable mate for Shem, while Ham is miffed that he doesn't get a mate at all.  Ham runs off in a huff, and Hermione, feeling sorry for him, runs after him.

While searching for Ham, Hermione stumbles across old Methuselah who is completely unconcerned about the coming flood, foraging for berries on the ground in the forest which is apparently one of the last things to do on his bucket list.  In the spirit of multiple similar miracles elsewhere in the Bible, Methuselah blesses the union of Hermione to his great-grandson Shem which results in her immediately becoming fertile, then he goes back to hunting for the berries.  Meanwhile Noah sends Shem to retrieve Ham and Hermione.  When Shem finds her first, she immediately jumps on him and they do it right there on the ground of the forest in celebration of her newfound fertility, both of them completely forgetting about Ham.  Seriously!

Meanwhile Ham finds a single living (traumatized) girl in a trench loaded with dead bodies, and there they fall in love.  Seriously!  Her name is Na'el, which is a shortening of a name Jewish tradition assigned to Ham's wife (nice touch).  He finally convinces her to come back to the ark with him, but Tubal-Cain's army is quickly approaching for their assault on the ark.  As they run for it, Na'el's foot gets caught in an animal trap and Ham can't get her out.  Noah suddenly shows up and urges Ham to go back to the ship, as if he is going to free her, and then he leaves just her to get trampled to death!

As it rains, there is an epicish battle outside the ark: Noah and the giant rock monsters vs. Tubal-Cain's army.  Tubal-Cain figures out the monsters have weak spots in the crevices of their rock bodies, and jamming a spear into their inner molten core causes them to explode.  As each one explodes, their inner angelic light-bodies are shown to be released from their rock-monster form and fly strait up to Heaven, finally forgiven for helping humans (by helping humans).  Thanks to the sacrifice of all the rock monsters, Noah wins the battle and gets the ark closed-up, but unbeknownst to Noah's family, a wounded Tubal-Cain sneaks aboard the ship and hides with some of the sleeping animals.  Ham finds him but Tubal-Cain convinces Ham to keep his presence secret from the others, and to betray his father for letting his girl die and denying him a mate.  Noah's wife uses another miracle herb as an ancient pregnancy test which confirms that Shem and Emma Watson have conceived a child earlier that day.  This trouble's Noah.

After the flood waters rise and everyone outside the ship dies, Noah tells the tale of Creation from Genesis to his family while the film presents imagery based on the modern scientific understanding of the the Big Bang and planetary formation (even showing Theia impacting the Earth to form the Moon).  I love science, but what was the point of all that?  This film is clearly a fantasy based on ancient scripture written by people who believed the Earth was flat.  And there are angel/rock monsters, prey and predator marching side-by-side in peace, magic suspended animation incense and a magic seed that instantly grow into a huge forest.  There was absolutely no need try to shoehorn any science into this film, which is like trying to jam a square peg into a round hole.  Over 2000 years after it was written by Israelite priests, Genesis still has a lot of literary value, but the cosmology described can't be taken literally by rational people today.  Showing real science while saying something else only destroys the disbelief suspension needed to enjoy a movie like this.  But that's not the worst thing about this film.

During the flood, Noah informs his family that God's intentions are for them to save the animals, but for the humans all to live the rest of their lives without reproducing.  Humans have ruined God's perfect Earth, so they must just die off.  Furthermore, if Hermione's child is a boy, he can live out his years and be the last man alive instead of Japheth.  If it is born a girl, she must be immediately killed upon birth.  WTH?!?!  So the drama of the film is boiled down to whether the title character will murder his own grandchild or not!  Jennifer Connelly's acting chops come in when Noah's wife is pleading with Noah not to be nutball and kill his grandchild.

During the months that the ship is floating on the flood, Tubal-Cain's wound is healed, and he lives off sleeping animals which he eats raw.  Shem and Hermione have prepared a small boat with supplies so they can escape the ark and save the baby, but Noah discovers it and destroys the life raft.  Hermione goes into labor, but while Noah waits outside the room with a knife, Ham comes and tells his father that some animals have woken up and started eating each other.  Of course this is a trap to lure Noah back where Tubal-Cain can ambush and kill him.  A brawl breaks out and Shem joins the brawl against his father.  Ham is standing there watching with a knife, not sure who he should help. Ham ends up stabbing Tubal-Cain and the ark crashes into a mountain which flings Tubal-Cain near the edge so Noah kicks him off to his death.  NOW only the "righteous" are left.

Hermione gives birth to twin girls, and Noah goes back to kill them both.  Pleading with him to allow her to at least calm them first, she does and he holds the knife over the first one.  Hermione tells him to do it quick so they don't suffer... but he finally decides he can't do it.  This recalls another Genesis patriarch, Noah's biblical descendant Abraham, who was told by God to sacrifice his son as a test, but told him not to at the last second.  So, in the film, the future of humanity is saved by Noah.  Later on the mountain, Noah gets drunk on wine but thankfully Ham is not cursed.  Ham goes off on his own and Noah cries.   Noah has a conversation with Hermione and she explains the meaning of the film.  God put the fate of the human race in Noah's hands, leaving it up to him.  Back on the ark, Noah had had a moment very similar to Tubal-Cain's earlier one, yelling at the sky demanding a direct response from God that also never came.

I can understand this idea because I know the Bible is not the infallible word of God handed down to mankind already spelled out on a stone.  The Bible is a compilation of many different books written over the course of several hundred years by many different authors who each interpret God and experience divine inspiration in their own ways.  In the Bible's version of the story, God speaks directly to Noah, explicitly telling him to build the ark (even providing very specific dimensions) because Noah and his family are righteous.  The biblical Noah just did exactly what he was told to do.  There were no dreams to interpret and NO question that God wanted Noah and his family to to repopulate the human race on Earth.

Noah taking God's place in the decision of his own righteousness is another attempt by this film to modernize the story to make it more relatable to the audience.  In real life, the divine essence usually does not speak directly and clearly as God does to the patriarchs in the Bible.  We have to interpret the meaning of things the best we can and let the divine work through our own hearts.  In that respect, I can really appreciate the intended message of the film.

However, I don't feel the same way about the vehicle for this message.  Noah's earlier misinterpretation of God's intentions are what caused the problem in the first place.  Noah not getting a direct answer from God so coming to his own determination that God wants him to kill babies is insanity.  How many wacko cult leaders do the same thing and kill their followers?  How many people in history have killed others in the name of God, because that is how THEY interpret God's intention?

In this film, Noah is full-blown psychopath!  In the Bible, Abraham is a blind-faith robot, a despicable human being who was actually going to kill his son just because he was told to.  (If any god told me to kill my son, I'd find a new god!)  However the biblical Abraham was told directly by God to murder a child, which is not quite as bad as the cinematic Noah who comes to that sick conclusion on his own.

My brother was right.  While there a few interesting things here and there, overall this movie was horrible.  I pray that Ridley Scott and Christian Bale's Moses movie is better.  Exodus: Gods and Kings comes out 12/12/14.

* The term "spoiler" assumes that the movie could be ruined by learning plot points before seeing it.  When the movie sucks like this one, you're better off reading this review than seeing the movie.

The Adventures of Will?

Hello there!

Most who know me personally or even through an online presence know that I occasionally post movie reviews, and that I can also get in-depth about some other subjects I'm interested in.

I recently watched the movie Noah, and several days later I found that I kept thinking about the film in movie-review terms, which signaled to me that I just had to write about it to stop thinking about it (and if I take the time to write about something, I might as well share it).

The website that I have previously posted movie reviews on (then a link to it on Facebook) is a low-traffic roleplaying game bulletin board, and I thought that writing about Noah would not only be outside of its primary purpose (like most of the other reviews), but also might be too much of a religiously-sensitive subject matter for that forum. I'll post the Noah review here in a few days.

So I thought it would make sense to create a blog for these things.  I do not have time to be a regular "blogger", so followers of this blog will not be inundated with updates.  Thanks for reading!