classics has links to lots of reviews if what you want the “classics geek tells you everything the movie got wrong” version.The “Let me tell you everything that happens in the movie, only in a snarky and condensed fashion” version is here. Rather hysterical.
The end credits say “Inspired by The Iliad” and yeah, “inspired by” liek whoa. My mom read me The Iliad when i was, oh, 4, so i didn’t catch a lot of the wrongness (though Achilles dragging Hector’s body around the city walls is one of the few things i do remember, so even i did a doubletake when he dragged the body to the beach) but i got an earful from
athene afterward.I was okay with it as movie on its own (though even that had serious flaws). As anything resembling the actual Trojan War, it was rather an abomination. It does make me wanna (re)read The Iliad and i suspect if i were more familiar with the story i wouldn’t be able to stomach the film, because i almost never do well with adaptations when i’m committed to the source text.
Brad Pitt is mad hott. I never really got the appeal when i was younger and everyone was all about him, but he is mad pretty here.
The movie should be renamed Achilles, since really The Trojan War is a backdrop for Achilles having issues. (Though as someone pointed out, at least the movie wasn't called The Iliad.)
I’m so not into LOTR RPS, as much because i don’t find the actors physically attractive as because i don’t do LOTR, but i will fully grant that Orlando Bloom is pretty
Paris was a cowardly schmuck.
I was vibing Hector/Paris early on in the movie before i realized they were brothers. I feel validated by the fact that
troyslash has a preponderance of Paris/Hector. No, i don’t have an incest kink. Not at all. Once Agamemnon is involved, i’ll buy that Hector knows Paris can’t do anything to make Agamemnon leave them alone, but i still think Hector should have turned around and brought Helen back to Menelaus -- possibly leaving his brother there, too. And Hector kills Menelaus for Paris!? Leaving aside the horrid inaccuracy of that, within the world of the movie where Hector is Honor Guy, it makes no sense unlessHector was a good guy, but Eric Bana doesn’t really do anything in particular for me. I think i prefer pretty boys.
athene had said she would scream if Achilles came out of the Trojan Horse. She didn’t, merely said in a clear voice, “he’s supposed to be already dead.”Yay compartments in the horse, though. And snazzy tents over ships on the beach. Oh, and the panning out from the Greek ships at the beginning was quite impressive.
athene was right that the funerals should have had wailing, but black as mourning color makes sense for modern sensibilities. As does the backstabbing of Priam versus pulling him off the altar of Zeus.I was wary about the whole no gods things, since how can you have The Trojan War without the gods, but it actually really worked. People talked about the gods, believed in the gods, but said gods never actually showed up. I wanted Odysseus to say something like “So, Athene appeared to me in a dream, and had this idea about looking a gift horse in the mouth,” but then i decided that it was consistent with someone’s earlier statement that “The gods aren’t going to fight this war for us.” Homerically that is vilely inaccurate, but it’s consistent within the world of the movie, which i can respect. And honestly, Athene could have appeared to Odysseus in a dream. In many ways the whole thing is left very ambiguous. Jonathan pointed out that since Achilles pulled out his chest wound arrows, the death montage makes it look like it was just the arrow to the heel that killed him. Very clever.
Yay subtext with Patroclus.
athene and i were totally holding each other and squeeing during that entire scene where Achilles is training Patroclus and they are giving each other significant looks.I’ll also buy Achilles/Eudorus slash.
Briseis is spunky. I like her character, even if she doesn’t particularly exist in reality (i.e. The Iliad).
Were the FLAMING TUMBLEWEEDS OF DOOM! actually in the original? I didn’t think to ask the classics geek at the time.
Priam really looks aged when he goes to Achilles for Hector’s body. I was impressed.
Agamemnon of Patrocles: “That boy just won the war for us.”
Pretty much. Except, hello Trojan Horse without which you would have been teh loosers.
athene cracked up laughing when Aeneas got the Sword of Troy. 