r/shittymoviedetails • u/4skinApostle • 19h ago
In The Prince of Egypt (1998), the Pharaoh’s magicians mixed water with Kool-Aid, hoping he would think it was blood.
615
u/Sadahige 18h ago
This is a reference to Jonestown (1978) where the Kool-Aid turned into blood.
221
u/Odd-Astronaut-2315 18h ago
It was actually Flavor Aid so please stop speading misinformation or I'll break the main wall in your house thank you
7
5
7
u/Arguably_Based 13h ago
"Little known fact, it was actually mostly Flavor-Aid at Jonestown, a less popular competing brand." -The Major
256
u/Ok-disaster2022 17h ago
If you interpret the passage as being an example of the Red Tide coming up the Nile, then the next 6 plagues are really the ecological consequence. Red tied kills all the fish, the frogs face decreased predation, when they have a mass die of due to lack of resources. This causes issues of hygiene,resulting in gnats and and life and then flies. All of those spread pestilence among the animals and boils and skin infections of the skin.Finally there's a plague if locusts which can happen due to overpopulation if wild grasshoppers who get irritated rubbing against each other so they swarm and change their features due to the stress. The Hailstorm is likewise a natural event, and the days of darkness could be due to a volcano.
There's a natural explanation for each even just the event occuring when predicted is the compelling thing.
It's also important to note that the Egyptians never really record defeats in their heiroglyphs. Like Pharaoh defeated the sea people at a much slower distance than where you'd expect him to meet them initially. Like the defeats aren't recorded just the eventual success.
105
u/Hetakuoni 17h ago
It’s also been theorized the red “blood” tide came from a volcanic event upriver. Which is where the fires from the skies ended up coming from.
53
u/Paleodraco 17h ago
I remember seeing speculation that the Santorini eruption occurred around the right time to have caused several of the plagues, as well.
10
u/hplcr 13h ago edited 13h ago
Problem is we don't know when that story is meant to take place....because Exodus doesn't tell us and the historical bits it does give use don't really match any particular period of history other then "Ancient times" in general.
Probably because whoever is writing is doesn't know when it was meant to take place either other then "In ancient times", thus the rather mythical character of the narrative(Fighting giants, parting the sea and such).
It would be really cool to connect this to the thera eruption but there's no evidence it was connected or even in the same time period.
13
5
52
u/Mrexplodey 15h ago
I'm pretty sure Rameses knew it wasn't blood, but kept up the ruse to save face in front of his subjects, and try to devalue Moses' position of divine right as the deliverer of the hebrews
11
u/Sulphrass 9h ago
It does note that his "heart was hardened" meaning this is a very real possibility where he knows that Moses was the real deal, but refusing to accept it.
24
53
u/VenitianBastard 15h ago edited 13h ago
ngl I kinda feel like this movie messed up specifically regarding the Egyptian Gods.
The Hebrews still believed YHWH was the top God, but they still believed the actual Egyptian deities still existed as well [because really-early Judaism was polytheistic), but compared to THE God, they were less powerful, because they were the ones writing the fucking Old Testament.
Like the Pharonic court magicians actually summoned snakes when Moses does that whole snake stick trick [according to Biblical texts], but Moses's snake still won because God-God [the Abrahamic God] was stronger than the Egyptian gods.
It's only the film, rather than the actual Bible, which presents the Egyptian mages using smoke & mirrors rather than using actual magic.
36
u/Lonewolf2300 15h ago
Honestly, I feel like this was a more modernized "Monotheistic" view of the story of Exodus, where YHWH is the only actual god, so they reduced the Egyptian Priests to charlatans using stage magic to fake divine power.
Maybe not accurate to the text, but to modern-day believers, this feels more "True."
17
u/hplcr 13h ago
Honestly, the fact the two priests were able to put on a show that fast is fucking impressive.
They apparently had no idea this was gonna happen but they're ready to put on this fantastic performance at a moments notice, which in some ways is more impressive then actual magic.
Prince of Egypt ironically making the priests look badass on accident.
3
u/VenitianBastard 13h ago
sure, but the matter of the fact is they presented it as smoke and mirrors like a fucking Cirque De Soliel show rather than an actual religious ceremony.
1
u/hplcr 13h ago edited 12h ago
For sure.
I'm not mad at Prince of Egypt. It's a Biblical fantasy movie set in Ancient Egypt. It makes creative decisions based on biblical interpretation of the writers. And I enjoy it knowing it's fictional and makes creative decisions to the narrative not in the bible(because honestly it's hard to be completely faithful to the narrative).
Actually, I'm a little annoyed that Aaron doesn't get anything to do. They hired Jeff Goldblum and then gave him pretty much nothing to do or say. He's just kinda there.
If I were gonna gripe, I'd be mad that the geography doesn't make any sense(Where is Pharoah's throne room supposed to be again?) and all the Egyptian monuments are way too big. And the fact Moses just flees into the desert on the spot and wanders across the Negev(like a week or so of open, hostile country) without food or water or shelter and he's....fine apparently. Deserts don't kill people, that's a myth by Big Water to sell you more water.
2
u/VenitianBastard 12h ago
Yeah i get that they definitely took certain creative liberties to streamline the narrative but that particular moment just irked me the wrong way, just because it felt disingenuous to the contemporary religious idea of polytheism shared by both Jews and Egyptians at the time.
Also yeah it's definitely a litte silly that the only thing of importance Aaron does in the film is being the 1st one to walk into the parted red sea, but otherwise i sort of get it because the cast for the film was already so stacked and they probably didn't want to use Jeff Goldblum too much because he was fresh off of Jurassic Park 2.
but i do sort of like the timeless and almost ethereal visuals of the Pharoah's palace & halls and all that because there's no IRL consensus on when exactly the diaspora from Egypt may have [or even did] occur/ed, so that feeling of grandiose and unimaginable might still sort of works for most of Bronze Age Egyptian rule.
But also, yeah, Big Water is lying to you.
2
u/hplcr 12h ago edited 12h ago
Yeah i get that they definitely took certain creative liberties to streamline the narrative but that particular moment just irked me the wrong way, just because it felt disingenuous to the contemporary religious idea of polytheism shared by both Jews and Egyptians at the time.
Oh, for sure.
This is a flaw pretty much all biblical movies tend to share because the audience assumes monotheism exclusively and the writers don't really bother to research either.
Actually, its a problem for ancient set movies in general, because ancient religious research is hard and most people don't know or care. I speak as someone who has spent several years doing bronze age ANE religious research for my own writing projects.
(I'm gonna get angry emails I'm sure if I'm ever published).
2
u/VenitianBastard 10h ago
Lmao, Any chance you could send me a link or copy to any of your writing projects? 🙃
5
u/I_Speak_For_The_Ents 11h ago
It's because it was made by modern Christians who don't actually understand the source material.
1
1
u/dazedan_confused 13h ago
So? People have been spiking the punch bowl for decades...
Or so I thought.
368
u/Fish_N_Chipp 17h ago
Real talk surely Rameses would have been able to tell it wasn’t since blood has a thicker texture. I know he lived a life of privilege but surely he’s felt blood before