Dang, I hope this picture works. In any case, it is a far cry from the Hollyweird / Classical Greece style armor worn in the movie, no?
It doesn't look like Troy is in for a big payday. It is doing OK but not in relation to the bucks spent on making and marketing the film.
I'm not going to go see it. I already read the book.
My wife made me go see Vanhelsing on Saturday night. Without question one of the worst movies I have ever seen. And I have seen a lot of bad movies.
I kinda liked it (or was it the Jr. Mints? :) )
Somehow, I'm not seeing Brad Pitt as Achilles.
Eh, if HBO picks it up I might give it a look...otherwise, I can do without it.
How Hollyweird can take a story which is entirely based on the interactions of pagan gods and goddesses and how they impact mortals, delete these personalities entirely, and produce a film based on the story, is beyond me. My only explanation is that the atheists who run Hollyweird find pagan gods and goddesses as offensive as the Judaeo-Christian One.
As for the comparison with "The Passion", the latter movie is almost entirely constructed around the horrific ordeal by torture of the Son of God. I don't believe you can compare it to a movie featuring typical battle scenes in a sword and shield type epic. Its like comparing violence with detailed sadism, which are not really the same things. I didn't see Troy, but read the Illiad. The Illad is replete with battle scenes, but I can't recall any detailed torturing of anybody.
The mere fact that Brad Pitt is in Troy is enough to keep me from viewing it. I remember how he and his wife of "Friends" fame dishonored the President's daughter.
(I might have said disrespected to be more politically correct. Since Honor no longer has any meaning in our society, I guess "to disrespect" as a verb has replaced to dishonor - a true verb.)
The Illiad itself is a masterpiece of battle, illustrating vividly how humans are often the prisoners of their fates or inner passions. I strongly suggest reading it in a good translation if you can't follow the original Greek.
I have heard the movie has been turned into a new edition designed as some kind of hackneyed anti-war flick.
But the CGI battle and ship scenes were great, Peter O'Toole's performance as Priam was masterful, and the guy who played Agamemnon cracked me up every time he was on the screen.
So a mixed bag. Not horrible, but much less than it could have been. Silly as it was, I think I liked Van Helsing better.
Is one of the naked bodies Orlando Bloom's?
I should have stayed home and drunk myself into oblivion instead.
It had some nice touches.
The Thousand Ships scene was beautiful, and Diane Kruger was a splended Helen. It's easy to believe that she could have launched them all.
The scenery and costumes were good. I liked the armor. The Greeks had a slightly more European look, the Trojans more a Middle Eastern look, which was believable.
And Brad was not bad. He had worked out, and his tough muscular appearance and demeanor made him appropriately brutish. I was hoping against hope that they would surprise me and have him cast as Paris instead of Achilles, a role for which he would have been well suited. (Remember that beautiful bronze statue of ladies-man Paris in the National Museum in Athens?)
Orlando Bloom, by the way, was badly miscast. He was neither pretty enough nor shallow enough for Paris.
Brian Cox and Brendan Gleeson were appropriately brutish as Agamemnon and Menelaus. Sean Bean was good as Ulysses.
But all this notwithstanding, this movie is the biggest Hollywood hack job since Lady Catherine de Berg turned out to be a sweet old lady back in the 1940 Greer Garson/Laurence Olivier "Victorian" Pride and Prejudice atrocity.
Hollywood hacks can not resist "improving" on tales told by far better minds than theirs.
The chances that Brad Pitt--or any of these clowns, for that matter--have actually read The Iliad are between zilch and none. The most they've read, judging from the flick, is the Clift Notes. And they didn't see anything wrong with just switching things around, you know--anyway, who'll know the difference?
Somehow I had the sneaking feeling that they were trying to make some Hollywood statement about the War on Terror but lacked the intelligence to pull it off or to understand that this was hardly the appropriate vehicle.
The real travesties are saved for the end--to keep people from walking out in the beginning.
In this version, Achilles hides in the horse with the footsoldiers--which is unlikely.
Priam--played quite well, as a matter of fact, by Peter O'Toole--is killed in the Temple of Zeus all right, but not in the horrifying manner of legend. You see, Andromache has escaped with Astyanax to Mount Ida.
But the real hack job comes when Briseis--yes, Briseis--beautifully cast as the beautifully beautiful Rose Byrne (she can't help it if these people slept through the Classics 101 lectures)...
In this version she's been elevated to a major character. She's not just Achilles' slave girl; she's his girlfriend--and Trojan royalty.
Anyway, she kills Agamemnon in the end.
No kidding. She really does.
She stabs him with a kife--not a two-headed axe, by the way.
I'm not kidding.
Nevermind Clytemnestra.
Nevermind the entire Oresteia.
Nevermind...
Oh just nevermind.
But if you insist on going to see this thing, don't say I didn't warn you.
And just be glad they didn't think to cast, say, Madonna or Barbra Streissand as Helen and The Three Stooges as the Achaean generals.
As a matter of fact, after I realized the mentality of the morons who made this movie, I was kinda looking forward to the food fight.
Both of you said this same thing simultaneously? You and your spouse have weird conversations. I'd like to tape record your "spontaneous" dialogues and make a documentary--seriously. (if you really do speak like this to one another)
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
In Search of the Trojan War
by Michael Wood
(Feb 2003 ppbk)In Search of the Trojan War
by Michael Wood
(DVD)
|
|
|||
Gods |
Just updating the GGG info, not sending a general distribution. |
||
|
· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
|||
