Troy

[lumpenproletariat]

Well, to set the tone of this post, I did NOT like this movie. Now, if you haven't seen the movie and still have hope for it, or haven't read the book, don't read this, it will contain plot lines etc that will potentially spoil it for you

 

-It's Troy and they focus more on Achilles' romance than Paris' and Helen's.

-They didn't waste any time just ramming that whole "YOUR NAME WILL LIVE ON" theme. It's like everyone alive at the time couldn't breathe without wondering if it would make them immortal.

-The soundtrack was horrible.

-So many useless scenes. At least like 45 mins out of 2:45hrs was devoid of meaning.

-Brad Pitt, Peter O' Toole and Orlando Bloom delivered desperately unconvincing performances. No, Paris isn't a good archer, Legolas is though. How funny.

-Horrible dialogue. Right when Achilles screams "TAKE IT! IT'S YOURS!" I thought the camera was going to cut back to a bunch of awestruck kids holding their brand new Power Gloves.

-The story was devoid of powerful god influence. Now, I don't think the tale can be told without the gods, Helen didn't just up and decide to leave Menelaus, sorry. They tried to hint at godly influences, but it just made the movie annoying.

-Ajax and Menelaus' deaths were trivialised.

-The war lasts about two weeks in the movie, as opposed to about 10 years.

 

 

some good things:

-Awesome individual battle choreography, especially between Hector & Ajax/Patroclus/Achilles.

-The sack of Troy was good, except the events that occur at the end.

 

Overall, 1/5. If you've read Illiad and like Greek Mythology, don't go see this , if you just want two hours entertainment and can view this movie with a pinch of salt or whatever the saying is, by all means, be entertained.

 

 

(ps. I just disliked this movie so much I had to rant about it somewhere)

 

-lumpen, movie critic extraodinaire.

[Zadown]

I've read Iliad (though it was years and years ago) and like Greek mythology, and I still liked it. I genereally like movies though. Iliad and a Hollywood movie are literally worlds apart, and there are certain clichés you learn to expect, certain changes ye can expect when the story is 'converted' from ancient mythologic legend to modern Hollywood hero story/epic. If you don't stop to hate the movie for being a child of it's time, you get a lot more out of it.

 

Let's put it this way - if you have read LotR and hate LotR movie adaptation, you might hate this one too. If you have read LotR and stll liked the movie, you will prolly like this too.

 

PS. So much hate!

[lumpenproletariat]

I could look over the omission of Tom Bombadil, and I also have right New Zealand pride so lotr was great, but imo, the straying from the path in Troy is too blaring for me. (Its late and my typing is turning to custard.)

 

I know many people like this movie...if I ignore my pettyness, yes it is a good movie, but god - I'm a petty man, what can I say.

[Snowz0r]

Thats why its a movie in the cinema, not the history channel I know the real story of the trojan war and all that, but i liked Troy, one of my favourites, besides Last Samurai. And paris wasn't that good of an archer, i mean he missed archilles and hit his heel which is what was supposed to happen anyway. the iliad focused alot on andromeche and her suffering, the movie only touched on it, but what im trying to say is, the movie is not following the illiad word for word and thats good, cause it be boring otherwise .

 

Im happy they didn;t include god or godly influences into the movie just hinted at it cause im a skeptic and i doubt that it happened exactly as the iliad said it did. the abscence of the gods makes the movie a little more real to me >< and less of a matrix cross lord of the realms movie however the slight hints tho, were enough in "my opinion" to make the people that have read the iliad happy of the coincidence of i.e. desecration of apollo's temple followed by plague to the greeks, achilles mother gathering the sea shells on the beach etc. Tho i grant, plague in 3 days of battle is highly unlikely

 

High points of this movie for me, would be great battle scenes, and duels in middle of the battle.

 

Although once again being the skeptic that i am, im sure didn't happen . but yeh very nice choreography(sp?)

[Gwaihir]

Snow, the Illiad isn't supposed to be history. It's a myth that the ancient Romans believed in and a story Homer wrote. I don't believe in elves but that doesn't make LotR a worse story.

[lumpenproletariat]

Snow, I didn't go in there expecting to see a "history documentary".

 

 

Plus, the plague was a trick by the greeks to fool the Trojans. They didn't have plague. And Paris was portrayed as a good archer, he was hitting the dummy in the exact spot every time, and when he hit Achilles body it was always in the same place, and when he was in the palace at the end defending all his arrows found their mark. And being a skeptic doesn't mean that you disbelief the Iliad. It's not a non-fiction novel d00d.

[blain]

LP -- I know what you mean. I'm someone who notices whoppers in films. I just watched Timeline and was choking on the amount of silly stupid stuff going on (and the notion that someone speaking English from the 14th Century would be able to understand someone speaking Standard American English).

 

OTOH, a couple of things to consider:

 

1. This was "Troy" not "The Iliad".

2. The Iliad doesn't describe the full 10 years of the war either.

 

It's conceivable that you could get someone to do an artsy version of the Iliad that attempted to follow the story there faithfully. It would feel somewhat good to know that it was there, but I don't think anybody would really enjoy watching it. It would be very unlikely that it would make enough money to pay for a decent production.

 

But it sure can be fun to gripe about these things. I did the same thing with LoTR (although I was grateful for many of the changes they made -- I didn't miss Tom Bombadil, personally).

 

Not sure what you mean about the plague being a trick. In the Iliad, the plague was sent by Apollo to punish the Greeks for Briseis. Was it otherwise in the film?

[Tyrion]

I'm think they took out most of the gods to make religion in the movie closer to what it is today. Not to mention they'd probably be trying to 'inspire' people and all that stuff, and gods quarrelling doesn't provide much inspiration. Humans fighting, on the other hand, does for some reason. And most of the deaths you find unjustified in the movie (Menelaus, Ajax, maybe Agamemnon) were all earlier than in the book, because they wanted all the 'bad guys' to die (it's an American movie...) and didn't want to have the movie keep going too long after the fall of Troy.

[The Portrait of Zool]

I haven't seen the movie, and don't plan to, but I have some thoughts...

 

I agree with Tyrion that they wrote out the gods to make it more palatable to todays audience. Further, Homer is given partial writing credit, but David Benioff's (the other credited writer) only other film credit is a crime drama called '25th Hour', based on a novel which he also wrote (the only novel he ever wrote, far as I can find). That is not the background from which to fill out a screenplay with deep mythological metaphore.

 

The other major creative force would have come from the producers, Wolfgang Peterson, Colin Wilson, and Bruce Berman. Why do the producers have input on the creation of the film? Because the producers job, simply put, is to PAY for the film. As such, they make all the major decisions about a film - if they want, and as Wolfgang Peterson filled double credit by also directing, I'm sure he wanted.

 

Wolfgang has a resume' of impressive films as long as your arm, with assorted directing/producing credits on such films as 'The Perfect Storm', 'Bicentennical Man', 'Neverending Story', and 'Das Boot' - some stellar films, and popular films, all.

 

Colin Wilson's movie credits include producing on 'Jurrasic Park', (and if you've read one of Michael Crichton's anti-technology novels, you've read them all), 'The Flintstones', 'Tomb Raider', 'Casper', and screewriter of a real stinker called 'Lifeforce'. Again, all very 'pop' productions (or tried to be).

 

Bruce Berman has a list of executive producer credits to his name, invariably soulless studio efforts. The three producer credits to his name include 'Troy', the B movie 'Eight-legged Freaks', and the ho-hum sci-fi 'Red Planet'.

 

These guys are obviously good at what they do, (as far as it goes, not to take anything away from them) but I'm sure they were leery of mishandling the whole 'gods' thing, and having the film slide into Fantasy Camp at best, unintelligibility at worst, and decided to sidestep the issue altogether. As far as it being 'their' movie, I think they were wise. Personally, looking at these guys' work, other than a couple of notable movies, I'd rather see a Charlie Chaplin film.

 

If you want to see something with some soul, go see an early Tim Burton film, or the Coen brothers, or Federico Fellini. If you want to see modern mythological metaphore, see David Lynch's 'Mulholland Dr.'. That film will blow your mind. Another favorite of mine, in a totally different genre, is John Shanley's 'Joe Versus the Volcano', and, of course, any Fellini film. That is what film can and should be.

[Peredhil]

When I first saw Troy, he was a little stinker.

 

This didn't change much as he grew; his peculiar sense of "practical jokes" was causing injuries before he could talk, although he definitely was mobile. Soon he graduated into -

 

Guido whispers nervously into Peredhil's ear.

 

Movie? What movie?

 

Whisper whisper whisper

 

Oh.

 

Turning to face everyone, cheeks slightly pink, he concludes,

 

Never mind...

[Snowz0r]

haha Timeline =p that is a terrible movie ><!

[lumpenproletariat]

I'm think they took out most of the gods to make religion in the movie closer to what it is today. Not to mention they'd probably be trying to 'inspire' people and all that stuff, and gods quarrelling doesn't provide much inspiration. Humans fighting, on the other hand, does for some reason. And most of the deaths you find unjustified in the movie (Menelaus, Ajax, maybe Agamemnon) were all earlier than in the book, because they wanted all the 'bad guys' to die (it's an American movie...) and didn't want to have the movie keep going too long after the fall of Troy.

yea, but menelaus didn't die at all, and he still loved helen, they went off after the movie back to Mycenae. Thats a pretty fundamental plot change, imo.

[Tyrion]

I agree, I've read that it was changed to simplify the story. Originally Paris died, Helen married his brother, who also died, and then she went back with Menelaus. I think the reason the movie is so different is that Wolfgang Petersen is not a big fan of mythology. I've read that apparently the Gods were removed because he thought they were unnecessary. I guess he just didn't get (or didn't read) the Iliad.