Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Religious Music & Entertainment
Exodus: Gods and Kings: lots of new photos and new plot details as the studio previews up to 45 minutes of footage

Exodus: Gods and Kings: lots of new photos and new plot details as the studio previews up to 45 minutes of footage

Last updated on: October 17, 2014 at 11:52 pm by Peter T. Chattaway

Exodus: Gods and Kings: lots of new photos and new plot details as the studio previews up to 45 minutes of footage 2014-10-17T23:52:28-07:00 Peter T. Chattaway

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The publicity campaign for Exodus: Gods and Kings is stepping up, just a month and a half before the film opens overseas (click here for the release dates).

20th Century Fox, which already screened about half-an-hour of footage for the media two weeks ago, screened even more footage for reporters in New York and Los Angeles yesterday, and plans to do the same in Washington DC next week. The footage may have also screened in Toronto, to go by a report that appeared in the Toronto Sun on Wednesday.

Various details have leaked out from those screenings, and the studio has added to the new information by releasing some new pictures, including photos of actors we had not yet seen in any of the official press materials. Check ’em out below the jump.

By far the most detailed reports on the footage that I’ve seen so far are the ones posted by io9, Coming Soon and We Got This Covered. Among their revelations:

The Egyptian princess Bithiah adopted not just Moses, but his “sister” as well, and then “lied about their sibling relation”. It seems that Bithiah adopted Miriam, or took her in as a servant, and told everyone Miriam wasn’t Moses’ sister.
Moses and Ramses grew up as “cousins” — which makes sense, if Bithiah is sister to the Pharaoh Seti and both she and Seti are the offspring of the previous Pharaoh, who would have ordered the death of the Hebrew newborns.
Even though Ramses is Seti’s son, and even though Ramses seems to be close to Moses (as he was in The Prince of Egypt), Seti “still prefers Moses” (just as he did in The Ten Commandments). This supports my theory that one of the reasons Seti will die earlier in this movie than he does in most Moses movies is because his wife Tuya, who reportedly has ambitions for Ramses, bumps off her husband somehow (similar to how Commodus killed Marcus Aurelius, when he discovered his father was going to make Maximus the new emperor, in Gladiator).
The opening battle with the Hittites is preceded by a visit to an oracle — possibly the Egyptian high priestess — who kills a chicken, studies its blood, and declares that “a leader will be saved and his savior will become leader”.
Moses saves Ramses’ life during the battle sequence, thus fulfilling the first half of the prophecy — and stoking Ramses’ paranoia about the second half.
Moses confronts Hegep, a “librarian or banker” played by Ben Mendelsohn, about his excessively luxurious lifestyle, and Hegep “seems to make a sexual pass at Moses to try to keep him from taking away his accumulated wealth.”
A slave — Joshua? — is smiling when Moses sees the taskmaster whipping him.
Moses interrogates Joshua’s father Nun regarding rumours that the Hebrews may be planning some sort of “uprising”. Moses and Nun discuss the concept of God, and Moses says he doesn’t believe in any higher powers.
Ramses’ spies overhear the pivotal meeting between Moses and Nun, in which Nun reveals Moses’ true origins. When word gets back to Ramses, he threatens to cut off Miriam’s hand if she keeps denying she is Moses’ sister.
Moses is exiled from Egypt, apparently by Ramses, just as he was in The Ten Commandments. It is not clear whether Moses will kill an Egyptian taskmaster first, which is the reason the Bible gives for why Moses fled into the desert.
Bithiah addresses Moses by the Hebrew version of his name, Moshe.
The high priestess is confident that she can cleanse the Nile after it turns to blood, but it turns out she can’t. This is an interesting difference from the biblical account, where a couple of male magicians replicated the transformation of water to blood, to show that their gods were just as powerful as Moses’ God.
The plagues look “really, really gross.”
Ramses sends assassins to kill Moses’ family. This, too, parallels an element in The Ten Commandments, where it is Ramses’ idea to kill all the Hebrew firstborn children — including Moses’ own son — and this becomes the basis for God’s decision to kill all the Egyptian firstborn in the tenth and final plague.
When Ramses and his chariots go in pursuit of the newly freed Hebrews, a large number of his charioteers are killed by an avalanche.
Ramses is “batshit crazy” for much of the film, while Moses, after he becomes a prophet, “has a huge beard and the look of an insane person.”

The Christian Post adds one other interesting detail:

Moses urges Ramses to “accept God before his firstborn child is killed and Egypt is destroyed.” Does Moses try to convert Ramses to the Hebrew faith, then?

Regarding the “sexual pass” that Hegep makes, Vulture reported two weeks ago:

I noticed, too, that the more eyeliner a character wore, the more fey and villainous they were telegraphed to be. It’s set in Egypt, and everyone is dressed pretty eccentrically — “These are people who lived as gods, and therefore there is a reputation to uphold and a beauty to convey,” said Bale — but Edgerton’s glittery go-go god is a coward in battle, and Ben Mendelsohn’s venal character, clad in the most eye makeup out of anyone, comes onto Bale the first chance he gets. “Have I displeased you?” he minces. “And if so, is there any way I could please you?” Cue the downward glance.

Fey villains are nothing new in Ridley Scott films, alas. See, for example, the Knights Templar in Kingdom of Heaven, especially the one played by Marton Csokas.

Meanwhile, the Italian website Bad Taste has posted a few new items from their visit to the movie’s set, including interviews with production designer Arthur Max, who makes this interesting comment (as translated by Google):

We were also in a gold mine, a cave that serves as a base camp hidden Moses when he begins to do this sort of guerilla against the Egyptians.

Is this “guerrilla” campaign tied to the flaming arrows we saw in the recent trailer?

Bad Taste has also posted interviews with Aaron Paul, who plays Joshua (and who refuses to disclose whether the film will show Joshua arriving in the Promised Land), and costume designer Janty Yates (who says the Hittite armour was inspired by Mongolian and samurai armour to distinguish it from the Egyptian armour, which historically would have looked very similar; she also repeats Ridley Scott’s odd error of saying the film takes place in “3000 BC”, rather than 3,000 years ago).

And now for the pictures and videos.

The Tumblr page Subground of Mine posted two batches of mostly new photos today, including the picture at the top of this post, which gives us our best look yet at John Turturro as Seti (with Sigourney Weaver as Tuya behind him, to his right).

Another photo gives us our first look at Indira Varma as… well, the IMDb says she’s playing Miriam, but she doesn’t look like the Miriam whose arm Ramses almost chops off, and the movie’s official website says Varma is playing the “High Priestess” (possibly the same one that Ramses executes when she can’t stop the plagues?):

Then there’s our first look at Ben Mendelsohn as Hegep:

Plus we get our best look yet at Dar Salim as Ramses’ general Khyan:

And then there’s this picture of Golshifteh Farahani as Ramses’ wife Nefertari:

Here’s a shot of Ben Kingsley as Nun (with that anachronistic symbol behind him):

And here’s Aaron Paul as Joshua:

Here’s a picture of Sigourney Weaver as Seti’s wife (and Ramses’ mother) Tuya that we’ve seen before, but cropped differently (and somewhat oddly, I’d say):

Here’s a picture of Maria Valverde as Moses’ wife Zipporah that we’ve seen before, but cropped just a little less tightly:

Here are pictures of Christian Bale as Moses and Joel Edgerton as Ramses that resemble many pictures we have already seen, though I can’t tell at this point whether we’ve seen these exact shots before (it’s all becoming a blur…):

And here’s a shot of director Ridley Scott directing:

In addition to all these new pictures, the website PR Syria has this picture of Ghassan Massoud in costume as the Pharaohs’ adviser:

Finally, the film’s Facebook page has posted a series of photos and GIFs and ultra-brief video interviews over the past two weeks. Here’s a different version of the picture of Bale as Moses that I posted just a few images ago:

And then there are these:

The Facebook page also posted the following GIFs based on the second trailer:

The Facebook page also posted two “videos” that are really just glorified GIFs — again, using brief clips from the second trailer:

Post by Exodus: Gods and Kings.

And finally, the Facebook page posted two micro-interview clips. Here are 14 seconds of Christian Bale describing how Ramses and Moses were brought up:

Post by Exodus: Gods and Kings.

And here are 12 seconds of Ridley Scott praising Christian Bale:

Post by Exodus: Gods and Kings.

Update: I have revised this post to take into account the reports that were posted by Coming Soon and We Got Covered shortly after I first finished this post.

Check out earlier photos and images from Exodus: Gods and Kings here:

Unofficial photos from the set (October 22, 2013)
The first two official photos from the film (December 30, 2013)
Moses runs into battle (January 13, 2014)
Sixteen photos from Entertainment Weekly, People and others (July 1, 2014)
The first three posters (July 8, 2014)
A sword to the throat, spears, and Moses wearing earbuds (July 17, 2014)
Our first look at Moses’ wife (July 24, 2014)
Four photos from Empire magazine (August 6, 2014)
Moses’ armour and Tuya’s headgear in Entertainment Weekly (August 15, 2014)
The “international cast” via Yahoo! Australia (August 26, 2014)
Three more photos from Empire magazine (August 28, 2014)
“It’s an immense production” (September 9, 2014)
Horses, costumes, and director Ridley Scott directing (September 16, 2014)
Kadesh-themed countdown to the trailer (September 30, 2014)

And check out earlier videos and my shot-by-shot trailer analyses here:

The first trailer (July 8, 2014)
The ‘The World’ featurette (September 3, 2014)
The ‘Locations’ featurette (September 10, 2014)
The ‘Costume Design’ featurette (September 17, 2014)
The ‘Creating the Action’ featurette (September 24, 2014)
The second trailer (October 1, 2014)

exodus gods and kings

Previous Post

October 15, 2014

Ben-Hur has found its Esther and its Pontius Pilate

Next Post

October 17, 2014 Regina Hall to star in a thriller called The Surrogate. Is this identical to the movie Halle Berry almost starred in?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Anglican Planet Articles BC Christian News BC Report Bible Movies Bible Review Blog Books & Culture Campus Times CBC Radio Christianity Today ChristianWeek Essays Faith Today Festival Cinemas Guide Film Journals Georgia Straight Interviews MB Herald National Catholic Register Salvationist Today's Christian Two Chairs Ubyssey Uncategorized Vancouver Courier Vancouver Sun

Select a Month August 2025 April 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 May 2024 February 2024 December 2023 May 2023 March 2023 November 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 September 2019 July 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 April 2012 January 2012 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 November 2003 October 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 March 2002 January 2002 December 2001 November 2001 September 2001 August 2001 July 2001 June 2001 April 2001 March 2001 February 2001 December 2000 November 2000 October 2000 September 2000 August 2000 July 2000 June 2000 May 2000 April 2000 March 2000 January 2000 October 1999 August 1999 May 1999 April 1999 February 1999 January 1999 December 1998 November 1998 October 1998 August 1998 July 1998 June 1998 April 1998 March 1998 January 1998 November 1997 September 1997 July 1997 June 1997 April 1997 March 1997 February 1997 January 1997 December 1996 October 1996 September 1996 June 1996 March 1996 February 1996 January 1996 April 1995 November 1994 September 1994 September 1991

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who said, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

The Pharisee The Rich Young Ruler The Prodigal Son The Lost Sheep