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<\/a>Let\u2019s keep this one brief.<\/p>\nThe big Noah<\/a><\/i> news today, of course, is that three books<\/a> based on the film are now available for purchase: a regular novelization<\/a> of the movie, a junior novelization<\/a> that focuses on Noah\u2019s daughter-in-law Ila, and a graphic novel<\/a> that is based on an early draft of the script and is thus somewhat different from the movie<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you can\u2019t wait for the movie to learn all its spoilers, or if you want to study how the script evolved from the version that produced the graphic novel to the version that produced the novelizations, well, you\u2019ve now got plenty of reading material to work with!<\/p>\n To help you get started, MTV has posted an excerpt<\/a> from the junior novelization, Ila\u2019s Story<\/i>, which introduces the character as a wounded and orphaned little girl<\/a>; it also introduces those fallen angels known as the Watchers. No pictures, alas.<\/p>\n For its part, Comic Book Resources has posted an interview<\/a> with Ari Handel and Niko Henrichon, the co-writer and artist, respectively, who worked on the graphic novel. (Handel also co-wrote and co-produced the film.) A sampling of their quotes:<\/p>\n Henrichon:<\/b> That\u2019s what we discussed early on while working on the first pages of the project. As I understood it, we were almost aiming for something close to science fiction, both post-apocalyptic and pre-apocalyptic science fiction. That\u2019s why we see all of these metal structures from previous generations, something that may have been there for thousands of years. We wanted to put these things around the story, not specifically explaining why they are there but just to give the atmosphere of a world that has seen many, many generations of civilizations but is crumbling apart when the flood came.<\/p>\n Handel:<\/b> It had to feel like a complete and prior world that was coming to an end. We also wanted to be true to the text in the Bible by breaking people\u2019s expectations of what they think the story is as they look at it again because those elements that are in the Bible, that are more mythical somehow, didn\u2019t make into the cultural consciousness of what we think that world was when we imagine it. We wanted to shake that up so there is science fiction and fantasy elements in the world that Niko designed but they\u2019re not there randomly. They are there in some way to elucidate the feeling that we were feeling from the text. . . .<\/p>\n Finally, in the story, there is a great comparison of the ark to a seed, which is a tough outer layer that protects the life growing inside. Can you talk about that comparison and how it played into how you designed the ark because again, it\u2019s not the house boast that I have always envisioned?<\/b><\/p>\n Handel: Hope is very central to this story and the Noah story. And so is hopelessness. The Creator isn\u2019t going to wipe out all of these things that he made unless he really felt that they were beyond redemption and yet, he saved this small spark. It is both hope and hopelessness together.<\/p>\n In the same way, the ark becomes this tiny, tiny, tiny little capsule of life in what\u2019s essentially a completely dead world of rain and ocean. It\u2019s the tiniest thing that survives. We wanted the ark to feel like that. Even though it\u2019s massive, we wanted it to feel like a speck in the sea.<\/p>\n If you know what a seed does, you know that it is a plant\u2019s way of continuing life onto the next generation but it does it in a way that it can lie dormant for years and years and years and years \u2014 they\u2019ve even been able to germinate seeds from thousands of years ago. It\u2019s life frozen or static for a moment. And the ark goes through that same experience. All the life in the world gets held in this shell and until rains stop and the waters recede, it doesn\u2019t know when it is going to be able to grow again. It very much had that feeling of being the seed of life. . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Henrichon also reveals that he hasn\u2019t even seen the film for himself yet, so he has no idea exactly how<\/i> different it is from the graphic novel that he worked on!<\/p>\n In other news, it turns out the film has a rating in the United States now, though it does not yet appear on the MPAA\u2019s official websites. It does, however, appear on the movie\u2019s website<\/a> and, as expected, it\u2019s a PG-13 \u2014 with a cautionary note about \u201cviolence, disturbing images and brief suggestive content\u201d.<\/p>\n It will be interesting to see how those corners of the religious community that have complained about the film sight-unseen will respond to that last warning, in particular. Violence itself is easily excused \u2014 witness the popularity of not just The Passion of the Christ<\/a><\/i>, but also everything from Braveheart<\/a><\/i> to Gladiator<\/a><\/i> to The Lord of the Rings<\/a><\/i> (and all but one of those films got R<\/i> ratings for their violence!) \u2014 but \u201cbrief suggestive content\u201d might get the alarm bells going, for some.<\/p>\n For what it\u2019s worth, I\u2019ve seen the film, so I know what the rating is referring to, and honestly? I\u2019ve seen worse in PG-rated films. If you can handle a James Bond film \u2014 and many Christians can \u2014 then you can certainly handle this. (And in this case, the \u201cbrief suggestive content\u201d involves a married couple! Or at least, as married as they can be in a world that has no churches or priests or ceremonies that we see.)<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Brian Godawa<\/a> has written the first in a series of articles for The Christian Post<\/i> on the subject of \u2018The Noah Movie: To See or Not to See?\u2019 Godawa wrote a critique<\/a> of an early draft of the Noah<\/i> screenplay two years ago, and it has since been picked up by many reporters and would-be critics of the film.<\/p>\n