Russell Crowe’s ‘Noah’ is a Vegan, Animal-Loving, Environmentalist

from Ecorazzi:

We already knew Darren Aronofsky was planning on approaching the biblical tale of Noah’s Ark from an ecological perspective, but based on an early script review, it looks like this one could trump even the heavy green message in “Avatar.”

Brian Godawa of Godawa’s Movie Blog says Aronoksky’s version of Noah paints him as an “environmental wacko” – a “vegan hippy-like gatherer of herbs,” with a family that avoids crowds and lives off the land.

“Noah explains that his family ‘studies the world,’ ‘healing it as best we can,’ like a kind of environmentalist scientist,” writes Godawa. “But he also mysteriously has the fighting skills of an ancient Near Eastern Ninja.”

Ninja Noah? Fantastic. But there’s more. Apparently, this version of Noah also runs an animal hospital, taking in the wounded or those that survive “evil poachers.”

Godawa runs through the rest of the script which includes a magic seed, 18-foot-tall banished angel warriors, the whole ark and flood, etc. Naturally, Godawa and some other Christians are disappointed that the tale of Noah is receiving the Hollywood treatment rather than a Sunday school angle, but Aronofsky from the start never intended to go down that road.

“I don’t think it’s a very religious story,” he said earlier this year. “I think it’s a great fable that’s part of so many different religions and spiritual practices. I just think it’s a great story that’s never been on film. I want to make a big event film, and I think it can be that.”

As for Godawa’s labeling of Noah as an “environmental wacko,” it’s not that he has a problem with the vegan, animal rights, or sustainability themes – but more what happens later that troubles him. In the version of the script he reviewed, after all are safely aboard the boat, Noah goes dark in the mind and decides that this should be humanity’s final voyage. None in his family are allowed to have any more children – and should that be disobeyed, any girls born will be killed.

“Noah deduces that God’s only reason for his family on the boat is to shepherd the animals to safety,” writes Godawa, “and then ‘mankind disappears. It would be a better world.’”

You can jump over to the review to see how it all ends, but this is certainly all adding up to be one hell of a movie when it hits in 2014. Said Aronofsky to SlashFilm:

“I think it’s really timely because it’s about environmental apocalypse which is the biggest theme, for me, right now for what’s going on on this planet. So I think it’s got these big, big themes that connect with us. Noah was the first environmentalist.”