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geekwayne's review
2.0
'Noah' by Darran Aronofsky is the graphic novel adaptation of his retelling of the biblical story. Retelling is definitely safe because short of a few character names and events, the rest has been completely retold including a 'final solution' from Noah as to what should happen to save the earth.
Noah is a good man, bent on saving the world and it's ecology from men. When he sees a herd of beasts being slaughtered for their horns and left to rot, he mourns. He attempts to confront the men and is driven into isolation when they retaliate with violence. He hears or imagines a plan in which the earth is wiped out by a flood (it's never clear if Noah is divinely inspired or a bit of a loon, or a bit of both). He decides to build and ark, and he is helped by rock giants, which turn out to be cast out angels. When the violent men show up to get on board the ark, there is a big fight. Once the water has lifted the ark, Noah reveals his plan. Once the ark has settled on dry ground and all the animals are free, then he will just let man die off. That this plan doesn't go over so well with his wife and children is a pretty big understatement.
There are a couple puzzling aspects to this. If you don't like God or the Bible, why would you choose to tell this story when you could have made up a perfectly good one out of thin air. Don't even involve a story that many know so well. Secondly, if you are so opposed to the supernatural aspects of the original story, why invent new ones? The rock angels are just weird in this context. The only good people are Noah and his family, and I kind of even question that. Perhaps only the few women characters are actually worth saving out of this bunch.
The art by Niko Henrichon is the only reason this gets any stars. It's pretty good (although the eyes are a bit wide and crazy, but maybe that's the idea), and very detailed. The art is better than the story deserves. I want to see Niko do a vast SF story. His art has an otherworld quality that I really liked.
I know this movie got lots of great reviews, but based on this graphic novel, I'd say it's a gamble by a good director that falls a bit short in execution.
I was given a review copy of this graphic novel by Diamond Book Distributors and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.
Noah is a good man, bent on saving the world and it's ecology from men. When he sees a herd of beasts being slaughtered for their horns and left to rot, he mourns. He attempts to confront the men and is driven into isolation when they retaliate with violence. He hears or imagines a plan in which the earth is wiped out by a flood (it's never clear if Noah is divinely inspired or a bit of a loon, or a bit of both). He decides to build and ark, and he is helped by rock giants, which turn out to be cast out angels. When the violent men show up to get on board the ark, there is a big fight. Once the water has lifted the ark, Noah reveals his plan. Once the ark has settled on dry ground and all the animals are free, then he will just let man die off. That this plan doesn't go over so well with his wife and children is a pretty big understatement.
There are a couple puzzling aspects to this. If you don't like God or the Bible, why would you choose to tell this story when you could have made up a perfectly good one out of thin air. Don't even involve a story that many know so well. Secondly, if you are so opposed to the supernatural aspects of the original story, why invent new ones? The rock angels are just weird in this context. The only good people are Noah and his family, and I kind of even question that. Perhaps only the few women characters are actually worth saving out of this bunch.
The art by Niko Henrichon is the only reason this gets any stars. It's pretty good (although the eyes are a bit wide and crazy, but maybe that's the idea), and very detailed. The art is better than the story deserves. I want to see Niko do a vast SF story. His art has an otherworld quality that I really liked.
I know this movie got lots of great reviews, but based on this graphic novel, I'd say it's a gamble by a good director that falls a bit short in execution.
I was given a review copy of this graphic novel by Diamond Book Distributors and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.
kipahni's review
3.0
Great and interesting spin on the flood myths. Heavy handed in philosophy and the demise of humanity and religious fervor/madness. Enjoyed the art and story though far out had a very sci-fi feel to it. I have not seen the movie but if this book is based on it I think I might like it.
droar's review
3.0
This is a weird book. You know how we often take the myths of a dead religion or at least mostly dead religion, and re-tell them as we see fit (think Percy Jackson or Marvels Thor) Imagine is someone did that for the story of Noah. I actually quite enjoyed the weirdness of this, it's got a sci-fi/ Mad Max feel to it that worked for me. The art is quite lovely and lush as well. The story itself leaves a bit to be desired, but i still think it's worth peeking at if you get the chance.
mattgoldberg's review
4.0
It's an interesting read if for no other reason to see how it differs from the movie since Aronofsky wrote both. The plots are mostly the same, so the differences really leap out. The most notable is the design of the Watchers. They're as fantastical here as they are in the movie, so I'd be surprised if budgetary constraints forced them to look like rock monsters as opposed to how they appear in the graphic novel.
There's also a key plot point that's been changed, and it's actually darker in the movie, so it's not like Aronofsky toned it down for a wide audience.
There's also a key plot point that's been changed, and it's actually darker in the movie, so it's not like Aronofsky toned it down for a wide audience.
sizrobe's review
5.0
Gorgeously illustrated retelling of the biblical Noah story. There were a lot of artistic liberties taken, but it all works pretty well.
thedictator26's review
2.0
As a graphic novel, it deserves 5 stars but as an adaptation of the Genesis story, I can only give it two.
regalalgorithm's review
4.0
A quite imaginative expansion of the Noah story, full of grand imagery and grander moral considerations. A bit too dark and self-serious, but also aesthetically pleasing, fast moving, conceptually interesting, and at times exciting. Worth a read, if the concept seems intriguing to you.
globosdepensamiento's review against another edition
4.0
Last Friday, April 4, marked the theatrical release of a story of
bad omens, apocalyptic visions, floating corpses, and water, water, water…
Terrible dreams of death and destruction inhabit the mind of our protagonist. This is the story of NOAH, by Darren Aronofsky & Ari Handel.
____________________________________
Before we begin, I would like to point out that, despite being an atheist myself, neither will I get into religious issues here nor judge anyone’s beliefs. However, I will refer to this story as the myth of Noah. I hope no one takes this as an offense since, fortunately, in my (short) life I have never met a Christian with enough faith to accept the Old Testament as reality and/or History. The stories collected in it can be traced back to several centuries before the creation of the monotheistic religions and comprise a varied collage of African, Asian and Eastern European mythological tales from beyond Egypt to India.
But focusing on the adaptation of the text, director Darren Aronofsky and screenwriter (and neuroscientist) Ari Handel presented us the apocalyptic story
One of the main peculiarities that displays the reinvention of the myth is that the writers practice a double play around the contextualization of the story: we all know that the original text refers to a remote past, virtually linked to the origins of civilization, but this adaptation leaves open, very subtly, the possibility that we are witnessing an apocalyptic future where Humanity, having caused its virtual self-destruction, it’s been relegated to abandon technology and anything that departs from energies more advanced than the heat of the sun.
As I say, the references are subtle and may be overlooked, but from some constructions with steampunk touches, to the fact that we speak of a world where the rain stopped to pour so long ago (see the caption for the first picture), it invites us to think of a post-nuclear planet Earth. Thus, we could be talking about a subtext in which the writers denouncing wars and global warming —although, again, very subtle.
Another twist to the original myth introduced by Aronofsky and Handel, which would fall within what I have described as “fill in the gaps” of the biblical tale, refers to how could Noah and his family perform the titanic task of creating an ark which would fit all existing species of animals. And since the answer is not “With patience”, I recommend you to skip this and the next paragraph if you don’t want to read a SPOILER: it was with the help of fallen angels who, in their descent from heaven, lost their wings, burned upon entering in Earth’s atmosphere, and turned into some kind of six-armed golems.
Of course, these characters offer multiple mechanisms to delve into the world presented to us, to help explain further what became of the rest of the human beings as they watched Noah build his ark. The initial reason for the angels’ descent was to help men become better, to evolve (to bring them the fire, if we were talking about the Greek myth of Prometheus), but they applied their teachings for hunting and war, and ended up confronting them. In fact, apart from Noah’s family, humans are represented in constant conflicts and acts of violence, with the Flood precisely starting during a great battle. This approach emphasizes the idea of intentionality on the part of the writers to establish parallelisms with today’s world.
The second part of the book, corresponding to the third and fourth original volumes, sets a change of scenery as the Flood has already taken and the family is taking care of the animals while floating adrift in an endless sea. This is where, by reduction of their living space, the story lends itself to more reflection and the resolution of family issues and moral conflicts already seeded in previous episodes: the boundaries between faith and madness are diluted in Noah’s mind; we face extinction of the human species from a questionable point of view; a twist is planted on the possible role and importance of the protagonist’s family… All while the tension keeps growing inside the ark.
And if this script, as you have seen, is well developed and has multiple layers, the work of Niko Henrichon in the artistic section is equally brilliant. Firstly, we should forget minor details such as the difficulty to distinguish some characters by their faces (even if they are father and son), especially in the final stretch. Everything else is spectacular and appropriate to the tone proposed by the writers: the visions, the oneiric passages, the landscapes, the expressiveness of the characters, the level of detail in certain settings, the design of buildings, clothing and contextualising elements… Absolutely everything is exquisite in the art of Henrichon and he himself already justifies the reading of this book.
A remake of the myth of Noah that, a priori, did not appeal to me at all in its film adaptation but, thanks to an interesting creative work of its writers, this book ended up convincing me to knock at the door of the box office this weekend. The visuals will probably pale compared with Niko Henrichon pencils and colors, but all the subtext proposed by Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel is quite attractive, at least if they were allowed to take it to the end product of the film.
Be it through the pages of Henrichon or the frames of Aronofsky, Noah is a work of art that will not leave you indifferent.
[Originally published in Revering Comic Books]
bmurray153's review against another edition
3.0
An unconventional retelling of the biblical classic, "Noah" develops the rather simple story by adding characters, plot, and elements of fantasy and science fiction. Does it work? Yeah, kind of. Some of the inserted action feels a bit ridiculous. The dialogue and narration can at best meditative, but at worse clunky and awkward. But nonetheless, Aronofsky has some grand philosophical statements on the potential of humanity, illustrated by the breath taking artwork. It doesn't always have the best execution, but the creativity and development added to this rather short biblical tale makes it much more entertaining and thought provoking than it has even been.
itshamada's review against another edition
5.0
The Art was Divine.
The story had a lot more space here than the film, Since it did not have to adhere to the conventional Movie structure so this meant that Tubel-cain did not have to fight noah at the same time as Ila's birth, this meant that both chapters got more space and time than the film.
Thankful for that because I did not see the point in Tubel-Cain being there till the end in the movie Whiles here this plot ended in the perfect time, I always felt that Tubel-Cain is there to influence Ham, To show us that Ham is good and hurt. and his Story is my favorite here because he had a lot of Character Unlike Shem.
The story had a lot more space here than the film, Since it did not have to adhere to the conventional Movie structure so this meant that Tubel-cain did not have to fight noah at the same time as Ila's birth, this meant that both chapters got more space and time than the film.
Thankful for that because I did not see the point in Tubel-Cain being there till the end in the movie Whiles here this plot ended in the perfect time, I always felt that Tubel-Cain is there to influence Ham, To show us that Ham is good and hurt. and his Story is my favorite here because he had a lot of Character Unlike Shem.