MovieChat Forums > Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) Discussion > The first-born plague ruined this movie.

The first-born plague ruined this movie.


I'm a Jewish agnostic and I thought the agnostic approach to this story was absolutely brilliant, but the first-born plague, with absolutely no feasible alternative explanation, basically negated what seemed to be the entire premise of the movie. Very disappointing; this could have been an all-time classic.

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I feel where you're coming from. I'm an agnostic who tells everyone I'm atheist because I view agnosticism as fence straddling. I too enjoyed the "agnostic approach" (i.e. the logical explanations for certain aspects of the exodus story, one which was hinted at in Kingdom of Heaven), but gave the death of the first born a pass. My reasoning is simple. In spite of my personal beliefs which drew me from the church, I still sometimes wonder about God's existence when something happens that cannot be explained....which is basically what the death of the first born is: an event with no logical explanation.

But hey, to each their own.

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Even though, Riddley Scott is probably agnostic or atheist, this is supposed to be a movie about the book of Exodus.Not a scientific-historic interpretation of a holy book.

As an agnostic myself, i liked the fact that God is depicted in his true nature (vengeful, jealous) and his angel-messenger as a spoiled brat.

That is exactly why i also like his agnostic view in Kingdom of Heaven, which was a much better film than Exodus. Exodus was ok, but i think it was supposed to be more dramatic than this.

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Even if one were to discount the Moses/God interactions as Moses' own personal delusion, there were quite many supernatural elements that weren't accounted for within the film. Why would the crocodiles get all irritated in the first place to start the waters to blood-fish dying-frogs leaving-flies-boils sequence? Certainly the viceroy fella tries to explain it, and it was done in such a way that the audience can take it or leave it.
Along with the firstborn curse though, there is the hail, the locusts, and the meteor (with the resulting tsunami to explain the waters receding then coming back with a vengeance). Any of these might have just happened independently, but the timing is too convenient to be strictly natural.

Overall, I have to agree with most of your post, but given these other examples of the storyline that have "no feasible alternative explanation," I just don't think this was the main premise of the movie at all. I think that is just one interesting side-arc left for the watcher to interpret for himself according to his beliefs.

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Excellent

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I sell butane and potato accessories.

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WTF is an agnostic???

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I'm a big fan of the rumor that the shadow that took away the first born sons was actually the ship at the beginning of Prometheus. Which looks strangely like the ship in Arrival...directed by D. Villenueve...who is also directing Blade Runner 2. Extended Scott Free universe? Or am I really reaching here? Yup. I'm reaching. I know.

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Simple answer. There are millions of reasons why young children die. So you can find enough reasons for their deaths. You don't even have to find scientific reasons.

That's not more special than a meteor, a plage etc. in a that short amount of time.

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Simple answer. There are millions of reasons why young children die.


You're right. There are literally millions of reasons shadows loom over cities and only the first-born children, no matter the age, die.

Give me a break.



He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.

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