To the Talented Mr. Ridley

When I first saw the trailer for Exodus: Gods and Kings, I thought that, perhaps, this would be a film that told the true story of the Exodus. It looks to be a fantastic masterpiece, with stunning visual effects, impressive performances and most of all a movie that would bring the awesome power of God to the big screen,

We get it. Its hard to portray a Bible story to great magnitude. But you seem to have forgotten that it was a Bible story you were portraying in the first place.

You did well on some points. The detail and majesty of the sets and costumes overwhelmed me with the feeling of Ancient Egypt. Ramses was the best I've seen in a while; believable and pitiable, but also as easy to hate as the proud king in the Old Testament. You slipped up a bit historically - Ramses the Conqueror, he was called, and you made him look like an incapable military commander - but its simple to overlook that. His sweet family dynamic caused me to cry like a baby when the tenth plague came to fruition, and his chilling scene of "I am God" was one of the more memorable points in the film.

Speaking of the plagues, you did them well too. I felt heart-wrenching pity for the Egyptians; a line in the best Moses movie ever made came to mind as I watched the people suffering from the boils:

All this pain and devastation, how it tortures me inside

All the innocent who suffer from your stubbornness and pride!

Truth be told, I was tempted to fall on my knees in the face of the might power of God portrayed so stunningly. There were, however, drawbacks. One would think that if crocodiles eating people had been the cause for the Nile turning to blood, it would have been mentioned in the Bible. The explanation of natural clay was starting to look very appealing after such a gruesome slaughter. Nevertheless, I was impressed by how you pulled off the plagues. 

These high points being explained, I have a few questions for you: When was the last time you opened a Bible and actually read the story of the Exodus? With such rich content, did you really need to leave so much out and add so much in? Don't you know that the fundamental purpose of the Bible is to explain that God became human in the New Testament? Are you really happy with the way that you portrayed Him? With the way that you portrayed Moses? What about Miriam and Aaron? 

Though I am a Catholic who is familiar with the story, this is not a critique of your theological methods. I am going to be pointing out only what is clearly said in the Bible.

Let's tackle these questions. Either you've never read the book of Exodus or you chose to ignore some of the most fundamental basics. You mixed up the motives for the slaughter of the innocents in the gospels and the motive for the Egyptians. You just had to drag in prophecy, decades before the prophets even existed. Miriam's mother raised Moses, not Miriam herself. She never became Egyptian, and she most certainly did not stay in the city while her people left. You ignored one of the most important people in Moses' life, and instead gave us Joshua. While this was an interesting tidbit, in the original books Joshua is not even mentioned until Moses is already dead. You also gave Aaron a wee role as Moses' left hand man. What you (and for some reason most other directors of Moses films) have also neglected to tell is the story of Moses' inability to "speak well" and God tasking Aaron to be the spokesperson to Ramses. It is such a rich detail that could bring Aaron's character into the light. Instead, you have chosen to let Moses come into greater character detail, which really didn't help the character at all.

Since when did Moses abandoned his family so that he could go to Egypt and perhaps never see them again? And going by that standard, since when did he blame God for abandoning them, and since when did God throw the blame right back at Moses? It all could have been avoided in this very simple Bible verse: Exodus chapter 4 verse 20: "And Moses took his wife and sons and set them upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt; and Moses took the rod of God in his hand." Did you just want the drama of it all? You could have spent longer on their courtship if more romance was what you wanted. As my friends and I talked after seeing the movie, one of them mentioned the scene by saying "and suddenly, four seconds later he's marrying Zipporah." 

Speaking of time passing quickly and Moses' staff, here is the list of main things you removed:

- The Staff turning into a snake and devouring the snakes of the high priests

 - Moses raising his staff to perform miracles

-Aaron's part (already discussed)

- The pillars of cloud and fire to lead the Israelites

- The pillar of fire attacking the Egyptians

 - The songs of praise of the Israelite women (led by the neglected Miriam)

-Moses killing the Egyptian slave driver (the original reason he got exiled, by the way)

Such amazing visuals these could have made! The richness that they could have added to the story! Instead, you added parts that were unnecessary and most of which were certainly not in the Bible:

-Ramses almost cutting off Miriam's arm

-A prophecy about a leader that tensed things in a totally random fight with the Hittites 

-Guerrilla Warfare and Sabotage

-Hanging of families

-Moses hiding 

-Half of Ramses' army falling off of a cliff

-Moses getting lost

-The significance of an Egyptian sword; the significance of which no one understood

- The Golden Calf, the Ten Commandments and Moses dying

- Pessimistic Moses

Presumably the reason for the Israelites' attempts at warfare was because you just wanted to blow something up. Shoving 40 years of wandering without explaining it into the last five minutes of an already too-long movie, was that your idea of finishing the story? It would have done far better to have it end with Ramses' skeptical, forlorn murmur of "Ramses the Great?", seeing as Ramses was the best character anyway. Instead, we got treated to Moses bringing up a problem of disunity between tribes, a problem that didn't even come to fruition until circa 922, after the death of Solomon, and a very grouchy paraphrase of "if we ever get to the promised land", a sentence that you did not care to explain led to 40 years in the desert. Perhaps you thought we already knew the story. I think it was just more obvious that you didn't. I was actually surprised that you added the burning bush, because it had taken so long for it to appear. Not, however, so surprised and more importantly deeply annoyed at the way that you brought God into it. 

We understand, Mr. Scott. Its a great challenge to portray God. You probably didn't want to do just a voice out of nowhere (though that is how it is in the Bible) because you wanted to be different. Understandable, but nonetheless vastly preferable to a bratty 8 year old with a British accent, building rock castles and grinning devilishly. You portrayed God as a child who 1) Doesn't seem to know who Moses is and talks to him as a mentor to his student at best, like an old friend at worst 2) Likes to serve tea Chinese guru fashion and acts like a human, something that, as I already mentioned, doesn't happen until the New Testament 3) Is a kid in the first place - when God appears in the Old Testament, they say how he appears. A pot, a flame, a voice. But never as a child. 4) Someone without love who wanted revenge on the Egyptians. A child killer, just as Ramses said. 

I have heard that the child was meant to be represented as the angel of the Lord that is spoken about in the Bible, a representative of God, and that Moses proves this by calling him messenger. The only difference between God and his messenger, however, is the person who says the lines. The word are still God's, the intent is still God's, and they still come from the mouth of a child you can't act. It only throws the character of God deeper into a pit by having such a silly, practically demonic little cretin at his service.   

I won't get into theology with you. Maybe you believe that God is cruel and merciless and a very rude little boy. Maybe you wanted to pander to wider crowds by combining Buddha, God and Eustace Clarence Scrubb. But here is what I have to say:

You decided that you wanted to make a movie about the Exodus. And when you do that, please, make a movie about the Exodus. Few people like to see any book adaption messed up, but no one wants to see it in a Bible story unless they are anti-Christianity or never read the book. I'm sorry if the story you chose is a Christian one, but I think that this movie is an obvious attempt to show off your plague of locusts ability rather than bringing one of the most timeless stories to life in this modern era. I should have known as soon as I saw the marker BCE after that date. You put in a few Christian elements instead of revolving the story around its core. 

I won't go into the script, and how everyone talked like 1800's British people. I'll try to ignore all of the minor things you ignored, like Zipporah's circumcision of the boy and how she obviously has stronger faith than one she would give up to keep Moses. I'll forget that I caught several repeats of Gladiator, a brilliant movie. Its a shame you couldn't have done better with this, it truly is. You are a talented man and you could have made this wonderful, and not just for Christians. 

Here is my advice to you: Next time you decide to make a Christian movie, read the source material.