The first trailer for Ridley Scott’s highly anticipated (at least by us here at NorvilleRogers) Exodus: Gods and Kings dropped yesterday, and it’s pretty spectacular. Ridley Scott is the guy who directed Gladiator, so he clearly knows how to give a film an epic feel, and EXODUS looks no different. It stars Christian Bale as Moses, Joel Edgerton (Warrior) as Ramses and Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad) as Joshua. Watch the trailer after the jump:
Let’s cut to the chase: the film looks really good. I’m not wild about three white guys casts as Hebrews and an Egyptian, but that’s certainly nothing new, especially in Biblical epics. We saw the basic beats of the Moses story: he was raised in Pharaoh’s palace since he was a baby. We saw the 10 plagues and the Red Sea crossing.
Exodus seems to be taking the Prince of Egypt approach of making Moses childhood friends with Rameses, who will be Pharaoh by the time Moses is Let-My-People-Go-ing. And, interestingly enough, it seems as though Moses stops Rameses from cutting off a Hebrew’s hand. Maybe this isn’t the incident that leads to his banishment (Moses obviously isn’t going to kill Rameses), or maybe Scott is taking some liberties with the story.
The big question is how Scott will deal with the supernatural elements of the film.
Despite all the controversy over Noah, I thoroughly enjoyed Aronofsky’s depiction of God. Will Scott take a similar path? In the Exodus trailer, Moses says,
I came here to tell you that something is coming that is out of my control.
Moses’ words seem to be the warning he gives Rameses concerning the first plague. So is the film depicting the plagues as a series of semi-natural disasters? Moses clearly has some sort of foreknowledge. And comments made by Joel Edgerton seem to indicate Scott is avoiding direct divine agency.
The Exodus story in the Bible is very much a showdown between YHWH, the god of the Hebrews, and the gods of the Egyptians.
Given Scott’s title, Exodus: Gods and Kings, he seems to be going for a similar theme, perhaps played out in the relationship between Ramses and Moses. If Scott gets this conflict, I’ll be forgiving of much in the film in the name of artistic license (plus it’ll give us an idea of what to expect from his next Biblical project, David). And as far as I can tell from this first trailer, it’s going to be a fantastic film.
YOUR TURN: Are you excited for Exodus? Are you a Ridley Scott fan?
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