I was just going off pure vibes. Look, man to man, this could have been way worse. It could’ve been some Hercules or Xena rip-off with like, a million different myths and legends from 1000 B.C. thrown into a blender—you know, the whole Alan Quatermain type deal where every second person is a wizard or a god, and there's nothing but lens flares flying everywhere. I mean, look at Dungeons & Dragons the movie; having even one Jeremy Irons didn't save it from being a total disaster (man, talk about embarrassing, just look at him 🙂) . We could argue about this until tomorrow, but honestly? I love it. I'm going to go watch it again and again and again because, like they say, it's got everything: swords and armor, a solid story underneath, great actors with what I'd call decent—if not phenomenal—characterizations, good extras, and you know, that classic, golden Hollywood historical spectacle feel.
But man, I can never forgive them for how they handled The Odyssey 🙂... especially when I saw that Sean Bean was playing the lead 🙏 🙏 🙏... unbelievable . Also, Achilles is alright, but Hector is a much bigger legend in my book. [Pornellomod]Braz is awesome[/Pornellomod].
casualotter21 said:Honestly, I loved Athena when I was a kid because she's the goddess of wisdom and cunning. But today? She's cool because she’s basically a total babe in armor!!111one ... And people actually claim you get wiser and more sensible as you age.
[Leo from the crazy seventies-Anderlonmod]Good grief, please! [/Leo from the crazy seventies-Anderlonmod] 😎
Dammit, that guy always outcompresses me in writing! Not the most difficult of tasks! D'oh!
But let’s be real, Athena had quite the wicked sense of humor. It always makes me think of that Iliad picture book I mentioned earlier—it’s obvious the guy had a massive crush on Athena too. Now, Aphrodite is just sort of... dainty and soft? Sure, she’s gorgeous, obviously, a total knockout, but whatever. Hera is more like a stuffy, high-strung matriarch (though Zeus is drawn pretty impressively himself), but Athena 😍 ... Athena is breathtaking, majestic, and sublime, yet she still carries this little spark of joy and laughter in her eyes. There’s even an illustration in the Odyssey where she looks so warmly compassionate, showing that deep (platonic) affection for Odysseus. Man... oh man, why did I lose those picture books during my move? Just to be clear, don't go thinking this is some "picture book" for kids like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or some nursery rhyme nonsense; it’s more like a collection of fine art. Each page features one large, full-color image that blends into a watermark style beneath the text. Honestly, the graphic design is just top-tier.
Speaking of which, I absolutely love the scene where Athena mocks that hot-headed, aggressive brute of a guy (who, if he survived to today, would probably be a Throwing god or Bald Crimos) just to make him run off the battlefield like a total wimp.
Out of all the gods backing the Trojans, my absolute favorite is—can you guess who?—Skamander! Wheooow, seriously? He's the river god of the Skamander, which flows right near Troy. Apollo is a bit much for me; he’s kind of an arrogant jerk, and I get the feeling the Greeks slighted him because they didn't show him enough respect when they attacked "his" city—excuse me, *his* city?! As if he actually gives a damn about the Trojans. Skamander, though, is so chill. For most of the war, he stays out of the fray, only stepping in with "tactical" magic to help the Trojans when a skirmish breaks out near his river, since he’s technically a lesser god. But you can tell he’s deeply connected to the people's suffering throughout the whole conflict. The only time he truly loses it is when the Grkljans slaughter a massive amount of Trojans right in the river itself... maybe during a festival or something... that's when he stops caring about being a "lesser" god and just unleashes everything he's got on those miserable Grkljans.
Maybe it’s just because they’re fictional characters... you know, those Greek heroes.
It ties right back to The Iliad—you've got the Iliad (Troy), Achilles, Hector, Ajax, Agamemnon, the Greeks, the Trojans, the Trojan War, the horse, Odysseus...
Okay, sure, it’s simplified, but wouldn't you love to see someone actually give that massive slog of a book a dignified screen adaptation? Besides, I think these "simplified," Americanized movies can actually pull in smarter viewers; if the themes intrigue them, it might just nudge them toward diving into the core source material.
And honestly, on a psychological level, I actually prefer it this way. It feels more "realistic." I absolutely loathe that sense of predestination that serves as the constant leitmotif throughout all that Greek mythology. Those gods of theirs... I mean, watch how people used to worship them, yet according to their own myths (which are just fictional stories, after all—they could have told whatever nonsense they wanted), most of them turn out to be absolute jerks and total scumbags. Most of them, anyway. Except for Athena. 😍
And I have to disagree that the movie is a joke. *Naked Gun* is a joke. *Airplane!* is a joke. Troy definitely isn't a joke. You can criticize it for not being faithful to the original—though one has to wonder how that original would even function in a film medium anyway. This reminds me of those debates with diehard Lord of the Rings book fans who refuse to respect the differences between mediums, constantly screaming for blood and calling the screenwriters names.
Personally, I enjoy the dose of creativity Petersen had to tap into to craft such a "different" version of Troy, giving it this gritty, pseudo-historical "vibe." Otherwise, we might have ended up with something like Xen, Hercules, or that absolute nightmare, Dungeons & Dragons: The Movie. God forbid!
Good grief, Spoilerman, you actually did it... you spoiled the whole damn book! 🙂 😂 (What an absolute moron) 🤣
And here I was, thinking a Trojan Horse was some kind of rare breed of hippopotamus... honestly, I just believed whatever I read on that one survey over at Po Ure Torture 😁
No, I just absolutely cannot pass up inspiration like this:
Invocation:
The Aeneid of Janez, part of Janez's legacy (Sing, oh Muse, the passion of Janez's son, Janez)
Wait, here’s a blind smiley face for me ---> 😎
Actually, this one is better ---> 🙂 (this girl in headphones definitely explains why someone would write an epic about a terrifying siege of Canada by Mexicans)
casualotter21 said:I have just one single, serious grievance with this movie: an epic war doesn't last five days! That’s about as long as the US Army's skirmish with certain neighboring states used to feel. Is there even a single epic poem written about those brief clashes? I didn't think so.
😂 GNNlegendocare !!!!111one 🙏 🙏 🙏 👋
😂 🤣
That explains why there aren't many massive battle scenes in the film. They simply didn't have enough time to Fight!
It seems to me that at the end of the day, the makers of Troy wanted to have their cake and eat it too: they tried to make a historically realistic *and* epic film at the exact same time. My impression? They failed at both and ended up with something stuck awkwardly in the middle.
There's no other way: we just have to wait and hope that the Chinese "Hero" hits theaters so we can see what a real epic looks like. Also, you really ought to re-read Dan Simmons' "Ilium" to see how he portrays those Greek heroes. Man, Helen is very cool in that one.
Such a sharp, brilliant analysis! 👋 Honestly, I liked the movie more simply because Greek mythology was such a huge part of my childhood. The Iliad (the one with the pictures—I remember them being incredible, especially how fierce Achilles looked... heck, even Patroclus looked competent 😕 WTF?) was the first fantasy story I ever read on my own (well, for some people it's The Hedgehog, for others it's the Iliad), so it holds massive sentimental value for me. Finally seeing those illustrations come to life, moving and speaking!
By the way, did I notice "monsters" and CGI lens-flare fireballs being mentioned in the context of the Iliad? Hmmm... haven't we mixed up our stories with Odyssey & Aeneid? As far as I recall, the only fantastical elements in the Iliad are the gods and their internal warring; those Greek guys are anthropomorphic anyway, fighting with the same old armor, swords, and spears as the little humans down below the cursor. 😁
But wouldn't I love to see the hot goddess Athena absolutely wreck her idiot brother Ares when he starts crying and running away like a total coward? Oh man... honestly, Athena has always been the hottest of the Greek gods to me. Forget that flat Aphrodite... Athens over Aphrodite every day !
Hahahaa, if Sean Bean had actually said that word in Ancient Greek, it might have worked! But instead, we get that incredibly awkward voiceover—that total lack of synchronization during "This... war... will be remembered" (and then he just keeps rambling for another twenty seconds!) 😂
Personally, I’d much prefer it if things went down with Hector's kid, rather than what happened in the Iliad when they just slaughtered him right at the walls through no fault of his own.
Don't you dare insult Paris... look, back in those days, the overlap between religious thought and realpolitik was probably way tighter and more interconnected than our modern perspective allows us to see. Still, you're right; that was easily the dumbest scene and the most illogical move in the whole thing.
I don't care if everyone comes for me now with pitchforks and stones, but Paris didn't come across as being all soft (silentpilot6: so pick) or anything... he was just... different. An emotional guy, an idealist, leaning hard into that "love conquers all" cliché... basically a naive soul. And then he goes and screws over both his old man and his entire nation with that amateurish sentimentality.
Man, I was just scrolling back through this thread and stumbled upon the cast list... and there it was! I knew I was forgetting something crucial... 🙏 Peter O'Toole as Priam 👍 👋 :klap:
Troy—in my humble opinion, this movie is outstanding. Brad Pitt absolutely blew me away with that slightly manic 'Brad Pitt of The Seven & 12 Monkeys' energy he brings to such an objectively eccentric character (after all, Achilles is a semi-supernatural being, and the film does a great job showing just how petty those ancient gods actually are). I was also so impressed by the lack of "lens flare" style songwriting, storyboarding, or directing. To me, the film feels incredibly "realistic"—setting aside any questionable historical accuracy, of course. There aren't any impossible Matrix-style stunts; instead, you see squads fighting the gritty way, with sticks, chains, and blunt force. You can practically feel them sweating and grunting under that heavy armor. The heroes are covered in scars and grit. It's visceral!
The characterization of Agamemnon is also top-notch. Even though he comes across as a total brute and a primitive in my eyes, he is exactly the kind of warrior king who would successfully unite the various kingdoms through sheer iron-fisted willpower.
The absolute moral compass of the film is Hector, just as he is in the original epic, and Eric Bana delivers a performance that is both professional and deeply soulful, IMO. Bloom, on the other hand, once again plays what is becoming his trademark role—that somewhat dainty, effeminate type with a bow and arrow. We might not all love that interpretation, but that is simply how Paris of Troy was conceived.
My personal favorites? Definitely Eric Bana as Hector, and of course, mostly because I find Sean Bean as Odysseus to be an incredibly charming actor. It’s such a shame they didn't give his character more screen time! However, it makes me hopeful that we might see a high-quality adaptation of the Odyssey sometime soon.
Now, some of the costume choices are historically inaccurate (for instance, I immediately noticed the fuller, or the groove in the swords), but the overall shape, "feel," and the general level of technology shown in the film are perfectly fine. You have to remember that a film needs a certain dose of epic scale, so it wasn't unexpected that some things were oversized (like the gates or the walls of Troy).
Of course, the film isn't entirely faithful to the source material, but in my view, the script adjustments work well within the cinematic narrative. I found the film extremely likable precisely because I didn't experience it as some sort of high-fantasy epic like Lord of the Rings, but rather as a very "faithful"—subjectively speaking, of course, since any Hollywood production will have its flaws if you analyze it closely—semi-historical epic.
Alongside Gladiator, this is one of my favorites. I truly believe it will help reignite and reinvent the historical spectacle genre, and I'll be among the first in line to cheer when these types of movies return to the big screen!
By the way, has anyone else picked up that parody of The Omen by Neil Gaiman? Good Omens. It is absolutely brilliant and hilarious... very much in the vein of the Hitchhiker's Guide.