NO!! NO!! NO!!
Let me first start by saying the film was incredible. Very fantastic. Excellent imagery. Definitely worth owning, and I'm quite glad that I do. However, I read the Iliad 3 years ago when I first started college. There were so many noticable changes, that it literally broke my heart to see such a great story get miffed in translation. I say miffed, because it wasn't totally lost at all. The initial story is there, and it's great. The problem lies in missing pieces that were important to the original story, and the few remaps of characters and their endings.
The first problem I had with the movie was first noticed when you see Achilles' dead Mother. Dead mother you say? That's right. She's suppose to be a ghost. In the original Iliad, she appears to him numerous times through out the story. In the movie TROY, she's seen only once. There's no inidication that she's a spirit. Anyone seeing this story for the first time has no idea that she's suppose to be a ghost. In fact, by her being dead, she's actually able to pull sway with the Gods that watch over them. The second half of this issue, is the importance of that relationship between Achilles and his Mother. In the Iliad, Achilles appears as a "momma's boy." He constantly begs and weeps to her for help. Apparently, Hollywood thought this would make Brad Pitt's character look weak, since they omitted out of "Troy."
The second problem I had with the movie, once again involves Achilles. Those that have read and looked closely at the Iliad, know there appeared to a little more of a "relationship" between Achilles and Patroclus. Most of you have probably picked up the hint that I'm getting at here. There's a common belief that Achilles may have actually been a gay character in the Iliad. There are absolutely NO hints to this in the movie "TROY," which is really a shame. To me, that's totally trashing a character. Instead they chose to go into a great elaboration of a relationship between him and "some chick," that only existed as a stagnant one in the book. You know Hollywood. Can't be having gay heros or foils. Kinda surprising to me since Hollywood is notorious for being liberal.
The third problem I had with the movie, involved Hector's character in the end battle with Achilles. In the movie, they portray Hector as nearly fearless in the end battle. Either or that, or his courage is suppose to completely overshadow it during the battle. In the book, Hector literally runs away. He runs around the walls of Troy, as Achilles chases after him with the Greek army alongside him. Even that was omitted in the movie. In the movie, they have it so Achilles shows up at the walls alone. I guess Hollywood wanted to pull a typical John Wayne moment, where we have a one on one draw to the death. The other thing about Hector's character that I'll quickly mention is that he resented Paris quite a bit more than what was shown in the movie. So much of a resentment, that you could almost call it a hate. Paris was tremendously much weaker than he was portrayed in the movie. He was basically a total wimp and coward.
The fourth problem is actually the most MASSIVE problem of the whole movie. Where the hell are the Gods? They don't appear to exist in the movie, other than what the people believe by mouth or worship. Lets first start with the battle between Achilles and Hector. In the book, two Gods interfer in the battle to help give each one a slight upperhand (If I remember correctly, Apollo and Poseidon are those two Gods). They are absent in the movie "TROY," as well as all other Gods that make appearances in the book. I think what the director might have been doing, is possibly giving an example of how during this period people really did start to question whether the Gods actually existed. You can see this in how they portray Achilles in the movie. He seems to rebel against the existence of Gods, which wasn't the case in the book. I'm trying to give credit here, because many believe that the Iliad was created for two reasons (In other words, I'm trying to excuse the director for taking such an important part of the book out.):
1.) A way to record history
2.) A way to restore faith in the Gods in a time of question.
The last problem I'll mention, has to do with how Agamemnon dies in the movie. He doesn't die in the Iliad story. He dies at a later point. It's actually a seperate story, and is an incredibly amazing story at that. For those that don't know the story, I'll give a quick summary because I think many of you would probably enjoy reading the real thing. Agamemnon actually comes home with a second "war prize." A very beautiful woman who can see the future, but her curse is that she can't speak of that future. If she tries, it'll come out as "mumble-jumble." Agamemnon already has a woman who's actually cheating on him. She's plotted a murder for Agamemnon. She stops Agamemnon from getting out of his ride, and tells him that a great warrior should walk amongst a series of tapestries into the house. This is a huge no-no to the Gods. She finally talks him into doing so, only to seal his doom once she's killed him. Once inside, Agamemnon's war prize tries to warn a guard outside what's about to happen. Obviously do to her curse, she's unsuccessful. While inside, Agamemnon's wife murders him, which is the ultimate insult during this period. No man of this time can think of anything worse than to be killed by a woman. It's suppose to be the ultimate name destroyer, and the most terrible insult that could happen to man. This is also an idea that's absent in the film when Chryseis kills Agamemnon.
Judging the film on it's own, I must say I was impressed. I thought it was way up there in the top films I've seen. At least the top 150. It's the translation that leaves me a little bummed out. Because I can excuse some of the issues, I can honestly say with two thumbs up, that his film gets and deserves a 5 out of 5 stars. It's just another one of those movies where Hollywood gets ahold of it, and suddenely we have to change things to get the general public interested. It's not anything new to us. We've seen it in "Pearl Harbor," "Titanic," "Gladiator," "The Untouchables," etc. The list can literally go on and on. Despite the changes, I definitely love the movie. Good job!!
Comments
Another flaw of Troy was the choice of Brad Pitt as Achilles. Pitt never seems comfortable with the role, and really did nothing for me in the movie, outside showing how much work he did to sculpt his body, and keeping the ladies interested by being naked 95% of the time
The saving graces of this film is the performance of Eric Bana as Hector. He nails the charcater's nobility for fighting a war against Fate. He really impressed me. The other was one of my favorite unknown actors, Sean Bean (006 from Goldeneye, the bad guy in Patriot Games and a few others), as Odysseus, he is given little to work with, but I just love the guys work.
Troy, to me, was a disappointment, that shows Hollywood can take one of the greatest stories of literature and turn it into another formulaic action flick.
metallicflesh
I give the movie some slack for taking something like the Iliad and making it into a 2-3 hour movie. It's like putting a whale in your living room aquarium. But I didn't like how Troy portrayed its characters. I read the Iliad like 5-6 years ago, so I may be off, but I don't recall Achilles being such a misfit in the Greek army. I don't remember him being so introspective, is this Hollywood's subtle way of saying "war is bad ... just like the Iraqi war"?
Helen of Troy doesn't strike me as the kind of women that would purposely want to be with a coward for the rest of her life. Of course, it's Legolas we're talking about. Where was his bow & arrows in Pirates of the Caribbean? He could've held the record for most consecutive movies in which he was an archer.
As far as all the other things, I understood that there needed to be a stand-off between Hector and Achilles toward the end. I think the general public (the 80% of the total viewers that hasn't read anything close to the Iliad) wanted a climatic exchange between the nations' greatest warriors instead what was depicted in the book. Considering time constraints and dramatic value, I also understood Agamemnon's death happening at the end instead of it happening after the Trojan War (there was a movie based on his death called "Elektra", by the way -- not the Jennifer Garner movie, also by the way).
As for the homosexuality, it's a grey area. Oliver Stone kind of hinted the subject in Alexander, but Alexander sucked. The people who make the movies are liberal, but not the companies and apparently the majority of America. I just think of Pitt being more insecure than Colin Farrell, too.
Either way, I give Troy some slack because it's a movie "inspired" by Homer and not totally based on his work. It's not a favorite of mine, but I tolerate it enough to not hate it.