Luckily, I am on vacation with some pretty awesome friends and got to rant about it to them. They let me vent and together we came up with tons of reasons why we think the making of this movie is awesome. I am going to give you three of them and would love to hear your reasons in the comments below.
1. An Atheist found something so attractive about God's story that he decided it was worth the investment of his time and money. THAT IS A WIN!
We should be celebrating the fact that a big time "Atheist" Hollywood director found something so attractive in the story of Noah that he decided it was worth investing not only his time and money but also his career and reputation into making a movie about this short story. Just to give you a little perspective (and this is just based on a wikipedia search), The Passion of Christ had a $30 million budget. This film, Noah, had a $130-160 million budget.
What if Christians showed their support of Noah and sent the message to Hollywood that there actually is a market for these films. Maybe more directors, producers and actors would consider it worth investing their own resources. Maybe screenwriters would start reading The Bible in search of new content to write about.
2. For the first time, we can watch a movie based on The Bible with our non-Christian friends without making them feel like we are trying to trick them into salvation.
This isn't the first biblically based movie but it's by far the first film (I know of) with completely non-religious buy-in. The Passion, Son of God, God's Not Dead are all movies made for Christians. They are not movies I would ever feel comfortable inviting my non-Christian friends and family to. I know they wouldn't be interested and it would clearly come across as though I had a not-so-secret agenda of coercing them into getting saved. Doing that to them would be insulting.
Noah, however, opens up a completely different door. This movie was not made by Christians. It also wasn't made for Christians. It was made with a BIG time Hollywood budget, cast and crew. There is, for the first time, a chance that I could watch a biblical movie with friends of all faiths (and non-faiths) and even go out afterwards for coffee and discussion without it being weird or coming across as manipulative.
3. There are tons of movies based on books and they never get it right, that can be a good thing!
How many times have you read a book then gone and seen the movie? Let's assume I am not the only one to have done this tons of times. What's the first thing you do afterwards? No matter how good the movie was, you talk about all the ways it was different from the book (or true events it was based on).
"Why did they completely leave out Madge from The Hunger Games movies? Why didn't they have Aslan tell Peter he would have to lead without him in the battle of Narnia? Why didn't Dumbledore freeze Harry in that REALLY important scene in The Half Blood Prince?"Usually this is followed by passionate discussion and debate on whether or not these were necessary changes or omissions and often includes someone pulling out the book and rereading sections. If I've never read the book (and it was a good movie), I go out and get a copy or talk to people who have and ask them about it. For the integrity and popularity of the book, this is a good thing. It makes people curious. It opens up dialogue about both the book and the movie.
As much as we hate the differences, we love them because they give us something to talk about. Why should this be any different with Noah? Are Christians afraid to engage in dialogue about their faith with someone who may not agree or are we actually afraid we may not be able to pick up on the differences because we aren't as familiar with scripture as we like to think? Either way, our reasons are ridiculous.
Christians should be celebrating the fact that Hollywood is making a movie about an epic story in our Bible. We should be thrilled they are making God attractive in a way that we have failed to. We should be amazed that Hollywood is investing over 100 million dollars into a film that will open the door for us to talk about faith, God and spirituality with our friends. We should be challenged to read the story of Noah (Genesis 5-10). Most of all, before calling for boycotts and making fools of ourselves, we should be open to seeing if there is something God would like us to learn from this movie, from the scripture, and from our interactions with our friends and family.
What do you think? Will you go and watch Noah? What are your reasons for watching or not watching Noah?
