MovieChat Forums > Evan Almighty (2007) Discussion > 2 of every animal for what?

2 of every animal for what?


The flood in this movie was contained in one small area. Why are there 2 of animals that aren't even from the area let alone america? Unless they ran away from a local zoo (which I'm pretty sure a rich suburban community wouldn't have, they're usually in major cities) how would they get there? Oh that's right! God! Well that's not good enough, they built the situation up like it was going to be so huge and in the end it was just about national parks and small suburban community with a faulty dam?
Talk about over hype, even katrina was much worse, let alone the alleged flood the movie is based on. What a let down.

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[deleted]

The 2 of each animal seen on the hillside was a symbolic gesture by God to show that Evan really was on a divine mission and not mentally ill. His family rejoins him to support him, but still unsure of his sanity until they see the animals, when his formerly doubting wife then exclaims, "Don't you dare tear down this ark!".
I think your problem with this film is that you're seeing it as a disaster movie, when it's actually about how God can work in mysterious ways (exaggerated for comic effect, of course). Evan arrives at a position of power (congressional seat) and prays that he might do some good with it. Although initially everything seems to work against this, in the end, he comes out on top and in a position to do just that, along with having a closer knit family.

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Well, the original ark story of the bible doesn't make more sense either. It's a comedy movie and it has a strong religeous theme - what do you exspect? You just cannot use logic on that. Logic and religeon are natural enemies ...

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the original ark story does perfectly make sense: the whole earth was being devastated by water, so the only way to preserve different species was to let them find a shelter into the ark.
In this picture though, there's no need for that, the flood happens to be only in a single town.

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Still doesn't make much sense since:
1) A ship big enough to hold a pair of EACH species would be EFFING HUGE. No, IMPOSSIBLY huge.
2) How would Noah be able to collect all those animals (in time)?
3) How can all these animal survive?
a) What do they eat? Drink?
b) How does the ark meet the different climate requirements?
c) How to prevent diseases to spread?
4) Reproducing entire species from just one couple each means incest from second generation and on. The entire planet would be full of retards.
5) How can Noah bring each animal back to it's original location in time?
6) Let's assume all of these problems are solved, animals are back. The two lions kill and eat the two antilopes because they are hungry - oops! Extinct!

Seriously, the original ark story does make even less sense then this one. Evan's ark did not have to contain EVERY animal, everything was just a local problem and he didn't need to keep the animals around for more than some days.

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The whole earth?

ok

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I was thinking the same thing, but the way I figure it is the animals were there to help build the ark, and to show that Evan wasn't just crazy. Them showing up was just another way of God showing him that what he was doing was right. Plus, how else would he have gotten it done in time without their help???

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This was a powerful symbolic gesture that accomplished many things. The animals turning up in pairs just like Noah's case gave an impression of divinity that would nullify claims of insanity that the unbelievers and faithless love to use. They also helped Evan finish the ark which obviously wouldn't have been possible if he had to depend on the help of the humans in the area. I believe this movie is better than Bruce Almighty because it has a strong message and is not about selfishness of one stupid guy. While Bruce had more comedy going, it was more about a chick flick kind romantic mush.

Here, the animals turn up from nowhere and return too. It is just showing the power of the Most High and Logic and religion are not enemies. The movie kept saying flood and God never said it would be through rain. This flood was man made and that's the whole theme of the movie. How selfishness and greed of man causes disaster. God chose Evan as a vessel to show the faithless the consequence of their action which would have resulted in loss of life but for divine intervention. Simple!

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Wouldn't it wreck the joke a little if he didn't have two of each animal, long patriarchal hair, and a huge boat of gopherwood?

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actually there is a deleted scene where his youngest kid prays for an animal of every kind as a pet so that's the explanation

I also think you missed the meaning of the whole film. It's not about god, It's about Evan and his family. The building of the ship was just a means for the family and their hood to fulfill the unraveling answers to their "prayers" or desires by themselves.

It's about him wanting to change the world and he learned how to do that through one act random kindness at a time, his wife wanting to bring the family closer together and she learned to do that through being more accepting/trusting/completely believing in her husband and themselves as a unit, the kid learned he can love all animals but only needs one (llama in this case) as a pet, Fred Flinstone in the reversed role of Cliff Vandercave realised that consequences catch up with your actions etc etc

god shows up for the right people at the right time but only to help them along with their own intuition and self fulfilling goals.

"Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other? "

Yes, you have to suspend belief in certain areas such as his hair growing or the animals managing to get in pairs and come from wherever or why it actually does rain momentarily in the middle of a drought on that day or how the ark managed to finish in exactly the right position to stop the bill. But even this question is sort of answered, god at the end explains that he "may" have given them "a little shove". Its up to YOU to believe that god actually did it or it was just a coincidence because *beep* just happens, sometimes good *beep* at the right time...eg he used to be so concerned with his appearance and it so happened that his appearance got him ridiculed which not only taught him that people who mattered would love him no matter what he looked like, so would he still be able to look after the people of his town which is what he became a congressman for in the first place. He was a low key newscaster in the previous film Bruce Almighty and it was this physical "transformation" into a noah figure that got him his desired media attention.

You make the claim that the film is based on Noah's Ark when it isn't, it uses the old story for Evan's story. It simply taps into the bible psyche that is engrained in almost all western humans, religious or not, as a fairytale at the very least. Evan is one of these western people and so is America at large where the film is based and will be viewed.

To illustrate this we can hear Joan of "Ark", his wife, make the point that the "flood" could mean awareness or knowledge or whatever else slightly less tangible than a real physical apocalyptic flood, suggesting that the original story is up for interpretation even from a family of Bible owners. This would apply to modern people and those in the time when the Bible was first disseminated. So for you to have so much vested in a (your) version of the original fairytale means that you are coming at the film with bias and inevitably are going to try to fit it into that box

We can also clearly see that the Dummies Instruction manual given by god himself enabled him to build a boat that was stretched to the limit even for the relatively measly purpose of saving the town from the dam break and nothing else. So again this is an indication that the original ark story couldnt be literal as this boat would never actually be up for the task of saving the world from the type of flood you hankered after.

Animals are naturally intuitive because they haven't, as an example, completely succumbed to the egocentric human aspect of Eve & Adam portrayed by the commission hungry estate agent who facilitated the destruction of nature as displayed by the time warp scene

the clue is in god's name...Free Man. Man can use a crutch like god or a bible or even his own clouded mind or anything but ultimately its only when he truly follows his own intuition that the world can come into alignment and his prayers are answered by himself.




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the beard and the robe for what!! they are just symbols. ever heard of the terms fiction and comedy!!

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