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<\/a>Dear Ridley Scott,<\/p>\n
My name is Aaron. I\u2019m the brother of Moses.<\/p>\n
In the Holy Scriptures, when Moses balks at God\u2019s call for him to go and free the Israelites from Egyptian slavery, claiming a lack of eloquence, God gets aggravated and assigns me to travel with him, to face Pharaoh, and to act as Moses\u2019 translator.<\/p>\n
\u201cMoses and Aaron.\u201d To anyone of any religion who has grown up valuing this story, my name has belonged beside my brother\u2019s like Jacob and Esau. Like chocolate and peanut butter. Like Mulder and Scully. Like Winnie the Pooh and Piglet. Like Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch. Frankly\u2026 the Bible doesn\u2019t get into this\u2026 but I wasn\u2019t my brother\u2019s biggest fan, but he was gifted and I had to work with him, so maybe I should say \u201clike Siskel and Ebert<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t a fun mission \u2014 delivering God\u2019s message to that tyrant. It was brutal. I, like my brother,\u00a0risked my life. I, like my brother, left my family and responsibilities behind in order to provoke the most powerful in our world, trusting that God would come through on the threats we were delivering.<\/p>\n Now, now\u2026 don\u2019t get defensive. Yes, I\u2019ve seen your movie, Exodus: Gods and Kings,\u00a0<\/em>but\u00a0I\u2019m not here to plague you with complaints about reducing my role in this story from \u201cMajor Character\u201d to \u201cPractically an Extra.\u201d<\/p>\n No, I\u2019l let I AM THAT I AM\u00a0be the judge of your decisions. And that\u2019s good news for you, by the way. Because A) \u00a0I think the Almighty\u2019s a big fan of Alien<\/em> and Blade Runner<\/em>, so he\u2019ll probably go easy on you. And B) while we believed our God to be\u00a0a harsh legalist back then; we hadn\u2019t yet seen the fulness of his glory. We hadn\u2019t yet learned just how much he enjoys showing mercy and love. I\u2019ll say more about that later.<\/p>\n For now, I\u2019ll try to be merciful.<\/p>\n Believe it or not, I respect the fact that\u00a0filmmakers who adapt stories from literary sources must often make major alterations. What works in literature is different than what works on the screen, and movies\u00a0that stick too closely to the source material are often terrible. Revisions that honor the spirit of the source material are to be praised:\u00a0Tolstoy\u2019s Anna Karenina \u2014 <\/em>a book as grand as a mountain range, and considered by many to be \u201cun-film-able\u201d \u2014 was paraphrased with near-miraculous imagination and majesty by Joe Wright. Revisions that dishonor<\/em> the source often fall far short of their source material: Consider those increasingly lamentable Middle-Earth films by Peter Jackson, which have dismantled the heart of Tolkien\u2019s storytelling by an increasingly brazen and sophomoric preoccupation with violence and mayhem.<\/p>\n There are exceptions of course:\u00a0The movie Children of Men<\/em>, by Alfonso Cuaron, and the book Children of Men,<\/em> by P.D. James, barely have anything in common, but they\u2019re both spectacular works of art.<\/p>\n While your movie may not be a great work of art \u2014 it\u2019s more a work of decent entertainment \u2014 it does honor the heart of the Old Testament story, and it gives God the last word, as any respectable version of this story should. Exodus: Gods and Kings\u00a0<\/em>bears little resemblance to the story that my brother and I lived. But in its fictions, in its technical execution, and in its visual artistry, it has some admirable qualities.<\/p>\n I\u2019m particularly fond of how you\u2019ve brought our \u201cOld Testament\u201d world to life. (I hate that term: Old Testament. Everybody assumes I deserve a senior discount because I\u2019m from the Old Testament.) Anyway, you honored us \u2014 the Israelites \u2014 by depicting the way we suffered in slavery at the hands of the Egyptians \u2014 the endless, heavy labor; the hiding; the intimidation; the public executions. We spent hundreds of years staring at the sky above the Pharaoh\u2019s statues; now I know what the place looked like from an eagle\u2019s vantage point.<\/p>\n And the plagues \u2014 wow! I couldn\u2019t watch those locust swarms: The 3-D made it all come rushing, creeping, and crawling back. Special effects have improved so much since I was a kid.\u00a0Nice work, by the way, coming up with some rational ideas about God\u2019s methods for\u00a0turning rivers to blood \u2014 I\u2019ve always wondered how he did that, and your speculation is fascinating. (Although I must say, the more that the plagues unfolded, the less I felt that I was watching one of history\u2019s great dramas, and the more I felt I was visiting an amusement park.)<\/p>\n I also applaud the casting of Christian Bale as my brother. I\u2019ve loved him since his first \u2014 and best \u2014 leading performance \u2014 Spielberg\u2019s Empire of the Sun \u2014\u00a0<\/em>so it\u2019s great to see him once again trying to help a suffering \u201cprison camp\u201d in this, the \u201cEmpire of the Sun God.\u201d<\/p>\n Little Mo was something of a wild man in those days \u2014 ambitious, muscular, intelligent, capable in halls of power and capable in the wild. As he watched your movie about him, I saw him get teary-eyed during certain scenes, like the one in which he learns his own origin story. But he howled with laughter during those corny love scenes you gave him here. You realize, don\u2019t you, that the \u201csweet nothing\u201d you have him and Zipporah whispering to each other \u2014 \u201cProceed!\u201d \u2014 \u00a0is going to end up in memes and mash-ups with Captain Picard\u2019s \u201cEngage!\u201d and \u201cMake it so!\u201d<\/p>\n To be frank,\u00a0the dialogue was, um, plagued<\/em> by clumsy writing. The audience actually laughed when Ramses said, \u201cFrom an economic standpoint, what you\u2019re asking is problematic at least.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And speaking of Ramses: Joel Edgerton looks very silly in all that makeup. Then again, that\u2019s actually rather true to life. He was an odd one, with his penchant for makeup, for rash decisions, and for sulking like an 8-year-old.<\/p>\n But did you really need to fill in the gaps with so many recognizable actors? It became distracting. Why invite Sigourney Weaver into your movie and then give her so little to do? That\u00a0jars the audience out of their suspension of disbelief and turns the film into a \u201cHey, is that Sigourney Weaver? Ben Kingsley? Aaron Paul from Breaking Bad<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m afraid the film has just as many stumbles and lapses as it does strengths. At so many points, you seem to have taken the Peter Jackson route \u2014 throwing out storytelling richness so that you can make things more sensational. When we encounter God as a burning bush, for example\u2026 what better opportunity could you ask for to go beyond 3-D thrills to something like holy ground? Instead, you go for burying Moses up to his face in a mudslide for some kind of baptism imagery that ended up reminding me, quite unfortunately, of a moment in the film\u00a0What Dreams May Come.<\/em><\/p>\n What\u2019s more: I don\u2019t recognize the accents. The people are strangely fair-skinned. Again, I\u2019m not here to complain \u2014 merely to point out that such details become somewhat distracting.<\/p>\n And by the way \u2014 my brother wants me to say (Oh, how I used to get tired of prefacing statements with \u201cMy brother wants me to say\u2026<\/em>\u201c) that he\u00a0is quite appalled to find a grumpy pre-adolescent moping about as an avatar of the Almighty.<\/p>\n When God appeared to Little Mo, it was in such a way as to make him drop to his knees in terror and worship. This kid looks like he needs to attend an after-school program.<\/p>\n But seriously \u2014 in this,\u00a0the age of True Detective<\/em>, did you give no thought to the dramatic possibilities of depicting the brotherhood who stood before Pharaoh? Think about it. Pharaoh looked down at Moses, the brother he thought<\/em> he had, only to discover that Moses had claimed a more authoritative kind of brotherhood \u2014 the brotherhood of the family that had been stolen from him. Ramses might have reached out and accepted my hand, and we could all have become brothers! He might have seen the sin of slavery in that moment. But no, he did not.\u00a0He chose\u00a0to act as a tyrant instead of a brother, as a false god who stands alone\u00a0instead of admitting that he was only one of many children of God. That\u2019s<\/em> drama, if you ask me.<\/p>\n I think it\u2019s a pity that you passed over (no pun intended) that possibility.<\/p>\n What really blows my mind, though, is that you became so preoccupied with the brotherly bond between Moses and Ramses that you allowed Moses to behave in a way that seems preposterous to me during the climactic moments of the film. Mo and I were never close growing up, but our experiences during Plague-o-pocalypse bonded us in a way that few brothers will understand unless they\u2019ve fought together in battle. Even so, if I looked back and saw my brother \u2026 well, for the sake of avoiding spoilers, let\u2019s just say that if I saw him falling into an abyss, I would not jump into the abyss in some doomed attempt to save him, because I do not have wings<\/em>. What your Moses does in these moments is equally ridiculous, and it\u2019s included for the sake of\u2026 what? Drama? It doesn\u2019t work. I think almost every moviegoer is going to watch Moses\u2019 behavior at the closing of the Red Sea and say \u201cWhat was he thinking?\u201d<\/p>\n Anyway \u2014\u00a0your movie is made, and it is probably going to be the last attempt at portraying these events on the big screen for a long time to come. While I appreciate that you respected Mo\u2019s relationship with the Almighty; that you included allowed my sister Miriam at least one important scene (and\u00a0invited an excellent actress to portray her); and that you brought the plagues to life with such passionate attention to detail\u2026 I remain perplexed as to why you saw fit to perpetuate Hollywood\u2019s erasure of my contribution to the proceedings.\u00a0But in the grand scheme of things, it doesn\u2019t matter much.\u00a0The source material \u2014 the story of I AM THAT I AM, the story\u00a0which is still unfolding \u2014 will bury all big-screen Bible epics like the\u00a0Red Sea closing over that misguided Egyptian \u201cdirector.\u201d<\/p>\n Our questions about God\u2019s nature continue to this day \u2014 everybody, even my own people, have conflicting ideas about his mind and methods.\u00a0Me, I\u2019ve always sensed that the plagues were something God hoped to\u00a0prevent: Pharaoh\u2019s abuses of God\u2019s creation were going to bound to bring heavy consequences for all. You can\u2019t neglect your garden and them blame God when everything rots. God did everything he could \u2014 even sending Moses (and me!) with warnings, hoping to awaken Ramses\u2019 conscience and bring him to his senses. Ultimately, I believe God decided to let Ramses sleep in the bed he\u2019d made, the way a heartbroken parent sometimes realizes that there\u2019s no talking sense into a rebellious child.<\/p>\n Later, the Christ would would come \u2014 and he would show us how much we underestimated the Almighty: He is\u00a0love, and he\u2019s desiring our redemption even when we do our worst. But that\u2019s another story.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>